PYMNTS.com interviewed GoTab CEO Tim McLaughlin to learn about our new approach to redesigning our digital and contactless menus.
GoTab’s Menu Redesign Brings Personalization To Contactless Ordering
PYMNTS.com interviewed GoTab CEO Tim McLaughlinto learn about our new approach to redesigning our digital menus. This insightful piece keys in on an important downstream benefit of our recent contactless menu updates: the ability to personalize the menu experience for guests.
Increased Restaurant Adoption of Contactless Technology
“Restaurants’ adoption of contactless technology has dramatically accelerated in the past year, as businesses and consumers alike sought out COVID-safe alternatives to pre-pandemic practices. In last month’s PYMNTS Citcon QR Code Tracker, we noted that restaurants saw a 25 percent increase in QR code usage by consumers in the last six months of 2020. A recent survey found that 84 percent of U.S. and United Kingdom consumers have scanned a QR code at least once, while 32 percent had done so within the past week. This is where contactless ordering and payment platform GoTab comes in.”PYMNTS.com
Recent Updates to GoTab’s Digital Menus
Informed by menu engineering best practices and customer feedback, GoTab’s new menu features give operators the ability to easily display separate menus for special occasions like Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day; or unique meal times; i.e., breakfast, brunch, lunch & dinner.GoTab operators can now highlight best-sellers or spotlight cost-efficient offerings. This translates to a dynamic display of food and beverage options, as well as a better browsing experience, leading to higher customer spend and satisfaction. Customers have the ability to search and filter based on their preferences or dietary restrictions.
Our operators are experiencing a huge transformation in guest ordering and dining preferences. We want to make it easy for them to flex their digital menus to give their guests a familiar, personalized dining experience.Tim McLaughlin, GoTab CEO
Even More Flexibility for GoTab Operators
The redesigned menus offer increased flexibility, allowing them to function less like an inventory list, and more like the sorts of discrete menus restaurants use for different dayparts and occasions.
The Menus lets you cross-collect your catalog, take a portion of it, construct who can see it, when they can see it, when they can order from it. The feature functions the way that normal humans think of a menu, which is something you can print and hand out and say, ‘Oh, this is the thing that we serve on Mondays from five to nine.Tim McLaughlin, GoTab CEO
Situated “in the heart of it all, yet tranquil enough to make you feel away from it all too,” The Limelight Hotel Snowmass offers 99 hotel rooms and 11 residences, as well as footsteps-to-gondola access in winter and summer — right in the middle of Snowmass Base Village.
The Situation
Especially over the last few years, the Limelight Hotels IT team had witnessed a significant shift to contactless technology in the hospitality industry. After evaluating friction points in the guest journey, aligning with modern technology platforms in their restaurant was determined to be an effective way to offer elevated contactless dining experiences to their guests while also evolving their technology platforms to continue to support long-term company goals. Limelight Hotel partnered with GoTab to provide an enhanced on-demand dining experience on par with the brand’s reputation for exceptional guest service.
The Solution
Reducing Staff Touch Points Without Sacrificing Guest Experience
Guests are now able to begin a tab from their room or the property’s restaurant by scanning a QR code, texting a link to friends or family members on the ski slope to add in their orders, then meeting up together at the patio or lodge to enjoy their meal and après ski festivities without interruption. By streamlining tasks like inputting orders and processing payments, this eliminates friction for hotel staff and allows them to focus on delivering renowned guest service for a memorable experience. Since partnering with GoTab, Limelight Snowmass has consistently seen higher check averages and sales.
“We found the Point of Sale platforms we were looking at offered the guest and staff limited opportunities to further reduce touch points or improve the traditional restaurant experience. The GoTab platform enabled the guest to take an active role over the flow of their experience while simultaneously reducing touch points and further streamlining restaurant operations.”Nick Giglio, Manager of Hotel IT Operations, The Little Nell Hotel Group
According to the Limelight Hotels team, some of the other platforms that were evaluated were either missing some of the pieces they were looking for, had weak customer support models, or had little willingness to develop integrations to existing hotel platforms already in place. To that end, GoTab integrated with cloud-based platform, Infor. Together, GoTab and Infor are providing dynamic solutions to support central, efficient service across hotel amenities and deliver exceptional guest experiences.
“Previously, guests would call down to the restaurant to begin an order from their room or while they were out enjoying the ski slopes. Using GoTab, guests can now place orders from anywhere on the resort, giving them the on-demand service they want without interrupting their day. GoTab empowers us to give control to the guest, reducing touch points and streamlining overall restaurant operations, making Limelight Hotel the resort of choice for Snowmass.”Nick Giglio, Manager of Hotel IT Operations, The Little Nell Hotel Group
Since introducing GoTab, The Limelight Hotel has seen a consistent level of upsells and items sold per check resulting in additional revenue capture. They have been able to maintain service levels in their restaurants during periods when there was reduced staffing available without significantly diminishing the guest experience.
The Benefits
Eliminate Phone Orders – Take Orders from the Slopes. Guests can start a tab from their room or on the mountain without interrupting the flow of their day.
Future-Proofed Technologies – Delivering elevated contactless ordering via integration with the Infor hotel management platform.
Eliminating Friction in the Guest Journey – Maintaining service levels during periods of reduced staff without diminishing the guest experience.
Eliminating Friction in the Guest Journey – Maintaining service levels during periods of reduced staff without diminishing the guest experience.
Eliminating Friction in the Guest Journey – Maintaining service levels during periods of reduced staff without diminishing the guest experience.
Eliminating Friction in the Guest Journey – Maintaining service levels during periods of reduced staff without diminishing the guest experience.
Eliminating Friction in the Guest Journey – Maintaining service levels during periods of reduced staff without diminishing the guest experience.
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