Guest Service Innovation through RFID

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Creating a personalized experience for a guest is the new trend in the hospitality industry. RFID is what is going to bring that experience to life. My article discusses everything that can happen and will happen in the future with RFID technology. Although this technology is not widely used at the moment whichever company is able to implement this in the appropriate way will gain an enormous amount of competitive advantage within the industry. RFID can work wonders. The article discusses how a guest can simply use a loyalty card or even their cell phone to completely bypass the front desk. The can make their reservations online or over the phone, be given a room number at the time of reservation and walk right into that room upon arrival. The idea is to allow the guest to feel like their room is their home. The other appeal to RFID is the tracking of guests. They can use the technology to track the guest throughout the hotel and track what areas they frequent or even what they order in the restaurant. This helps with personalization because when the guest stays at the hotel for a second time the hotel will know the type of beer they drink or if the guest needs extra towels for the pool. With the personalization it is sure to improve guest satisfaction. Another area where RFID is already being used is in Event Management. It can be used with tickets for entrance to concerts/sporting events/festivals and also for concessions. One ticket will gain you access as well as be your “money” for the event. No cash/credit cards needed.

I believe that RFID is the future of hospitality as well as throughout the world. Because personalization is the new trend in hospitality RFID is what the industry needs to bring this trend to really be successful. The example the article discussed is a woman coming into a restaurant in the hotel and the maitre d’ greeting her by name and presenting her with a glass of her favorite wine served at the hotel. This service is going to be able to bring guest satisfaction to a whole new level. The technology will make every guest feel as if the hotel staff is their solely for them. Another aspect that RFID will help is with the check-in process. The fact that the loyalty card holders can completely surpass the front desk and go immediately to their room is amazing. This will be most popular with business travelers I believe. Men and women that stay in the same hotel frequently because of business travel will enjoy this perk. They will be able to get into the hotel room quickly without having to wait. Also the perks of using the technology with events is a great way to allow the guests of the events to really enjoy themselves. The tickets can be their access to everything. Rides for theme parks, concessions at ball parks and merchandise for concerts will all be paid for by the RFID enabled ticket. The new technology will be the future for hospitality dealing with personalization and also throughout the lives of everyone. This is truly the future of technology.

Breaking Down the Fudge Factor

http://www.htmagazine.com/HT/archive/1007/1007_06.html

My article was on new software for restaurants that helps cut labor and waste costs from Compeat. It is a menu-analysis and forecast driven production system that analyses each product and ingredient their shelf life and the amount of ingredient left on the shelf. There are many restaurants that have already implemented this new software. TasteBuds uses time and motion studies to decide how and where to prepare your dishes. And by using this they have been able to cut labor costs in the prep area by 33 percent. The software also helps by choosing orders not based on past orders but on forecasting. This way you can reduce the waste by only ordering food that you will actually use. This helps out when adding new products on to the menu. You are able to order food based on what you will now need not what you have already used. Another aspect of the software is that before you add those new products to the menu you are able to see how this will affect your sales product and labor costs. Franchisers use this system to communicate with their franchisees. This helps out tremendously because they are able to communicate daily and now exactly what is going on at real time. They no longer have to wait for the end of the week reports. They can solve all problems when they happen. The downfall for the product is that it is expensive and it does take time and energy to master. Many of the restaurants said that a restaurant must set time aside to work and know this system. If they don’t they will not be using it to its greatest potential.

My feelings on this article are I believe it is great. Cutting costs is always something people are looking to do. To be successful you have to make sure you are always trying to cut costs without hindering your brand or product and this does just that. The software will help predicting what restaurants will add to menus and what needs to be ordered. The article has many quotes for restaurants that have already started using this software and it seems as if it is working very efficiently for their properties. This technology seems to best suited for large restaurants and franchises because of the cost and the aspects the software offers. A small restaurant does not need to manage their labor as a large restaurant does. Also the communication feature is a large push for franchises to use the software. Solving problems in real time is ideal for the franchisees. They will be able solve their problems when they happen and not have to wait for the end of the week and then go back and solve it. This article explained the software very well and I do think that the software will take off. A restaurant is also guessing how many people to assign a shift, how much of a product to order, if a new product will succeed and this software helps eliminate the guessing. They are able to know for certain and it is all done for them by Compeat.

Restaurant Communications

http://www.htmagazine.com/HT/archive/0907/0907_03.html

My article this week deals with communications in restaurants and how technology is completely changing them. The article described three main issues that are covered with the new technology. Theses issues are how to cut costs, how to turn the table over faster and how to improve customer’s experiences. It was broken down into examples of restaurant doing one of them things. The first was cutting costs. The example they used was Zaxby’s, a restaurant within the southeastern states. They use a predictive kitchen management service called HyperActive Bob to organize the food orders. Zaxby’s prides themselves on cooking customers’ food after they order it. HyperActive helps keep those orders under control. It actually predicts what types of meals need to be made by the post and current trends and from the customer counts. It has saved the Zaxby’s Restaurant $4,700 a year on waste alone. The next issue they discussed was the increase in table turnover times. The restaurant used in this example is Brennan’s of Houston. They began using Guest Bridges Reserve, a guest management system. This system helps the hostess mostly to be able to manage the tables on a busy night. It assigns different time values to the tables based on the size of the table or the meals they guests order. It also tracks the guest’s history to create a better personalized experience. The final issue is improving the guest’s experience. The Fatz Café has created a wireless system as a paging system. The servers/hostesses/kitchen workers all wear watch-like pagers to be paged. The customers can page their server if they need a refill or silverware. The hostesses are paged when table are cleaned and open by the bus boys and finally the kitchen workers can page the servers when their meals are done. Fatz Café has seen a great improvement for the customers. Customers do not have to wait as long for tables, receive their meals quicker and feel as if they waiters are doing what they can for them.

I believe that all of these ideas are great for the restaurant industry. The prediction of what meals need to be made or may need to be made is amazing to me. The fact that a restaurant has created a system like this is amazing and will help them tremendously. Also the guest management system is a great idea. If there is anything to cut down on a wait time for guests that is going to be great for the guests and the restaurant. I have heard a lot of information on the wireless devices in restaurants. I really believe this is the future of restaurants. The pager system is great for the customers to call the servers, for the hostess to be alerted and the kitchen staff to alert the servers. I believe this would do nothing but great things for a restaurant. More restaurants should input this into their restaurants. I am going to look into all of these systems because I find them very interesting. Technology in hotels is discussed a lot but it is interesting to hear about how restaurants are also upgrading and using this new technologies.

The Bandwidth Revolution

My article talked about all of the issues with Bandwidth moderation and costs in hotels especially business centered hotels. It discussed that free high speed internet is the #1 deciding factor for business travelers when choosing a hotel. More and more people are using up the bandwidth everyday whether to check email, print a boarding pass, or do their much needed business. Hotels are now starting to find ways to manage how much bandwidth each guest is able to consume. With technologies such as a Slingbox, one guest is able to use the majority of the hotels bandwidth by themselves solely. One technology that is taking the place of adding more data T1's is a link load balancer that allows other circuits to be used to lower the cost and to increase the amount of bandwidth. This technology also deals with when a circuit may go down. It says that if your primary circuit goes down at 6pm the link load balancer allows the other circuits to kick in and allow the guest to continue without any down time. Another factor the article discusses is whether or not to have free internet and unlimited bandwidth. An idea presented is to allow a certain amount of bandwidth for each guest for free and if they need an incredible amount or would be using a technology like a Slingbox they must pay an extra fee. Hotels need to begin to control their bandwidth or they are going to lose an enormous amount of revenues either from guests using too much bandwidth, people changing hotels for their lack of internet or by people simply choosing other hotels that have free access.

I completely understand that this is a huge issue in hotels today. I am working on the Marriott Project with Cihan and my questions deals with technology and entertainment in the guest rooms. We as a group have been looking into ways to control the amount of Bandwidth because Marriott expressed to us that this is a problem they are having. The idea of the link load balancer is great! The fact that there is the security if the primary circuit shuts off is ideal. This is a concern in all hotels because most front desk agents and employees of the hotel do not know how to fix the technology issues and the link load balancer would be able to fix the problem for them. As a guest in a hotel I feel that high speed internet access should be offered somewhere in the hotel for free. If I need to check my email or do something short on the computer I do not want to have to deal with slow access because other people are using most of the bandwidth. With hotels such as the Courtyard By Marriott, a hotel designed specifically for business travelers, bandwidth issues are extremely prevalent. Each businessman can have his laptop, his blackberry, his Slingbox, and other things that take up bandwidth because he is working and living from that hotel room. Also I agree with what the author is saying about the revenues. If you provide an extra, free high speed internet, you will increase your revenues. As the article states a business traveler looks for a hotel with free internet and they will not look at your hotel without in this day and age.

See-And Touch-The Future

My article was named “See-and Touch-The Future” and was all about personalizing the experience for each guest. Right now, and even more in the future, people work from many office spaces. Not just in their office in the building but at home, in the car, from a hotel room or even from a restaurant on a business lunch. They need and want to be able to streamline all of these spaces together. And that is where my article came in. It discussed how the traveler needs to be as comfortable in the room as they are at home. They need to be able to use their personal computers, iPods, PDAs, etc as easily in a hotel room as they would in their own homes. Microsoft is developing technologies that easily allow this to happen in things such as Microsoft Home. The article goes on to say that personalizing any experience with the guest will increase loyalty to your company. Ideas they talked about were that each guest would have their room personalized to their likes and wants. If they like the room warmer the thermostat would be turned up, if they would like their family photos to be displayed on the TV while it is not in use the hotel would have their playing before the guest got in the room. The industry is truly trying to create the feeling of home even more now-a-days. Each hotel wants their guests to feel as comfortable as possible and truly feel at home.

I really believe this is a good idea. Personalizing an experience to a guest is one of the first things I learned here in HRIM. If you call someone by their name or remember they always order the omelet with sausage and cheese, you will receive a higher tip and most likely your customer’s loyalty. The goal is to have the guest feel as if the whole staff is there to take care of them. And with this personalization technology as to setting the room temperature, even changing the walls & décor per each person’s likes, will truly allow each guest to feel as if the hotel is there for them. Also in the article they discussed how the technology of face recognition, retinal scans, and fingerprint scanners are beginning to be used more often for secure access. I believe this is a great idea. The guests will feel much safer and much more comfortable in the hotel. With the violence that is a part of our world more security is definitely needed. With all of the technologies that are talked about I really don’t see what could be wrong with installing them besides the price issue. No guest is going to want to have their room designed for them; they will not be against extra security as long as it doesn’t affect their stay. The issue of price is something that definitely needs to be considered. If all of their technologies are added would the rooms with the specifications be more expensive? And if yes do the properties have to offer two sets of rooms? Technology is a difficult decision and, I believe, hard to implement when on the hotel side. You as a manager would have to observe your clientele and see if they would be willing to pay the extra money for the room with the technology. I believe most would. I know that if I was traveling often for business and I was offered a room catered to me and with my family’s photos displayed, I would gladly pay a slightly higher rate.