http://www.htmagazine.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=MultiPublishing&mod=PublishingTitles&mid=3E19674330734FF1BBDA3D67B50C82F1&tier=4&id=84FFF9B680574E1095BAFDEBAD9E9E11
Summary:
Self-service technology (Kiosks) is highly recommended to restaurant industry for many years, however, according to the 2008 Hospitality Technology Self Service Technology Study, it is slowly accepted and adopted by restaurants. The author points out that the reason why restaurants hesitantly catch on self-service technology is they don't believe that it would fit into their particular establishment or there is no guest demand. In fact, using self-service technology can bring lots of benefits to restaurants, especially for those fast casual locations. Nevertheless, there are still many problems that operators need to consider before they invest money to install new systems in their restaurants. After several years' experience of using kiosks, Hospitality Technology concludes six practices when considering and installing kiosks. First,make sure that the kiosk is integrated with entire POS system, because an integrated cross-platform system will save time and energy when trying to manage expenses and receipts or when it's time to call the help desk.Second, pay attention to the size of the kiosk. Third, be ready to deal with technology issues, which means that a restaurant has at least one employee can fix the problems when needed. Fourth, try to make the kiosk obvious to costomers so that they can learn the technology and start playing with it. Fifth, self-service is not necessarily fast service. It is not the point during service because with the self-service system customers are so busy working that they don't feel they are waiting for something. The last, even it is said that self-service technology has lots of advantages, in fact it still takes sometime make customers accept and get used to this system.
Reflection
When I read this article, the first thing came into my mind is the first blog I posted here. The article for the first blog is about a restaurant in which touch screens are installed on every table to support self-service and game system. In that article the author proves that self-service helps a lot to a smooth operation and labor saving. A similar point is presented in this article as well. The author points out that self-service has lots of advantages and lists six tips in the article for operators to consider about during the adoption of self-service system. I totally agree with the author about the positive attitude of self-service. Also, I believe the six tips for adoption are of great importance, especially for those operators who have never tried self-service systems. Some of them are necessary steps for consideration before operators really put kiosks in their restaurants, for or example, the compatibility between the new system and existing POS system. If an operator imports kiosks of self-service to his or her restaurant which have not been confirmed that they will definitely work well with the existing POS system, it might cause a big problem. Once they are not compatible to each other, at least one of them has to be redeployed, which might cause big lost to the restaurant. For the other tips, it is the same. I believe that as the author said self-service systems can bring profit to restaurants far more than the money invested in installation if they are appropriately used and well accepted by customers.
1 comment:
I strongly agree with Kunwei's idea that the money restaurants invested in the self-service system, will be paid back and creates even greater profits. Due to many reasons and limitations, developing countries may not be able to replace all their labor with new technology system. This is totally understandable. But we should have a clear mind that information time are dominate nowadays and the reality is that who can serve fast and accurate who will win the market.
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