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Gaming
By Bill Geoghegan
Self Service as
Guest Service
D
uring the late 1930s, while the country was mired in the
Great Depression, the drive-in eatery evolved, taking
advantage of the mobile society. Individuals, families
or a carload of friends frequently enjoyed taking their cars to
drug stores and eating establishments where they could order
hot dogs, hamburgers, soft drinks, ice cream sodas and milk
shakes delivered to their cars. The server who took the order and
delivered the food was compensated almost entirely by tips. With
jobs and money hard to get, the servers became competitive over
each opportunity to serve each car. Seeing a car approaching, one
or more of the servers would hop on the running board of the
vehicle before it even got to a parking place, fighting to claim that
car as his customer. These carhops, as they were known, were
mostly men and their aggressiveness to claim the car frequently
caused more than a little discomfort amongst the occupants. As
women joined the ranks, restaurant owners found that a pretty
face sold more food, and most restaurants employed women as
carhops.
Notwithstanding the fact that running boards are seen less
often today than Elvis, safety issues and concerns for the customers’
comfort level changed the carhopping to waitresses taking orders
from the occupants of a parked car and returning with their food
and drinks. To expedite the travel from car to kitchen and return,
many carhops took to roller skates, and the image we have today
(from American Graffiti and Happy Days) is just that.
To instill efficiency, some enterprising drive-in owners
installed two-way intercom communications from a car side
speaker/microphone device (to which a menu was typically
attached) to a person inside the restaurant taking orders. This
reduced the number of trips for the waitress from two to one, and
eliminated the time spent waiting for the driver or passengers to
make up their mind as to what they wanted.
While taking away the social aspect of flirting with the carhop,
this was a much more efficient way to take and deliver orders. It
allowed fewer carhops to service the same number of cars, and
substantially sped up the ordering and delivery process. This
method soon became the standard for drive-in restaurants.
In today’s casino and resort environment, guests expect to
be able to order beverages at a slot machine, while playing at
a table or poolside. In the casino, cocktail waitresses circulate
among the slot machines and gaming tables soliciting drink
orders from patrons. After filling these orders at a bar station,
the waitress returns to the slot machine or table game patron with
the drink. There is a psychology at work that suggests that the
delay in returning with the order will keep a guest at the machine
or table longer than otherwise would be true, perhaps causing
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him or her to put an extra $20 into the machine, or buy in for
some more chips at the table. Frequently, however, the guest will
walk away before the order arrives, causing extra work for the
waitress without the possibility of getting the gratuity for which
she works, and additionally dumping the free drink at a cost to the
establishment. When poolside, a quick delivery is desired by both
the resort and the guest, so the round trip required for ordering
and delivering is problematic.
In today’s economic climate, many resorts and casinos have
reduced the effective staff of servers, whether through lay-offs or
reduced work hours, severely reducing the level of guest services
to which players and guests have become accustomed.
Much like the communication device did for the drive-in,
there are new technologies and implementations that allow a guest
to place orders without directly interacting with a server. Poolside
installations like Tiare Technology’s intelliChaise offers benefits
to both the guest and the resort. In addition to reducing the time
to delivery, the guest can order at any time, without having to flag
down a server or wait for the normal rounds. The information
on the small touch-screen display can also be used to upsell and
VIP Seat is an ordering and guest interaction system designed to be placed
at a slot machine and provide a drink ordering facility to the player.
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Gaming
make offers from other revenue centers, allowing the
resort to maximize its revenue while providing better
services at a lower cost. Servers can handle more
guests, and provide more personalized services than
would otherwise be available. A higher-end, larger
touch-screen device is available for cabanas. These
systems can operate stand alone, or be integrated into
the resort’s POS system.
Tiare Technology is porting its intelliChaise
system to the casino with VIP Seat, an ordering and
guest interaction system designed to be placed at a slot
machine and provide a drink ordering facility to the
player. Tiare Technology has installations underway
in both Atlantic City and Las Vegas casinos. Like the
intelliChaise system, it can operate standalone or
integrate to a POS.
Slot machines offer an interesting opportunity
for direct interaction with the guest, in that virtually
all of the recent machines are full touch screens.
International Game Technology (IGT) has developed
its sbX™ Service Window interface which will allow
third-party developers the opportunity to interact
with the player directly on the slot screen. Las
Vegas Gaming, Inc., has developed its Beverage on
Demand application utilizing this interface, wherein
a small dynamic screen (the service window) slides
into view over the game when the guest activates the
request, allowing an order to be placed immediately.
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Communication with The LVGI system is facilitated by
IGT’s sbX Service Window, but does not require any
intervention on the part of the gaming device, which
simply provides the display window. As an alternative
to the actual game window, IGT also has an upgraded
touch-screen display that is a small separate
window, the sbNexGen™. Taking the place
of the PIN pad, this screen offers multimedia
possibilities in a two-way communication
with a player.
The opportunities with these types of
delivery are enormous. Once a guest has
inserted a player card into the reader, offers
can be directed to that individual player based
on known preferences or as recognition of their level
of play. Drinks can be ordered at any time, without
having to wait for the server to make her rounds, and
providing the guest a much better level of service at a
lower labor cost.
In an era of staff reductions, these types of
technologies can provide a better level of guest services
without resorting to the roller skates. Self service by
the guest can in fact increase the level of guest service
at a lower operating cost.
Bill Geoghegan is a consultant in Las
Vegas. He can be reached for comment at
[email protected].
IGT's sbX™ Service Window
allows player interaction
directly on the slot screen.
www.hospitalityupgrade.com