Payments in Hospitality
Kevin Carson, Senior Vice President of FreedomPay, explains how to navigate a rapidly evolving industry by unleashing the power of pay in the world of hospitality.
The hospitality industry is continuously evolving, having undergone a rapid transformation in recent years, driven by various factors such as the pandemic and heightened customer expectations in an increasingly digital landscape. In today’s world, customers expect more from their interactions across all sectors, with convenience emerging as a crucial element in fostering brand loyalty and boosting sales. This trend is particularly pronounced in the hospitality sector, where providing guests with comfort and ease is of paramount importance.
In an environment in which loyalty has become more difficult to attain, delivering a frictionless customer journey is a must for any hospitality business to succeed. While navigating this new environment can seem overwhelming, particularly in the ever-evolving payments space, there are ways hospitality brands can make sure they are rising to the challenge and doing the best for their customers. Here’s how:
Changing Customer Behaviour
A desire for self-service options is on the rise. At the height of COVID-19, staffing challenges, combined with a need – and even preference – for touchless commerce, inspired a new world of unattended retail, ranging from vending machines and self-serve kiosks to cashierless stores. This extends to the F&B sector, where concerns surrounding hygiene and a focus on convenience, are important to the post-pandemic customer.
As more payment methods come to life, we’ll continue to see an increase in not only unattended F&B options, but self-service in hotels, from online check-in (which comes with payment integration for a frictionless payment process) to mobile room keys and management of guest rewards via the hotel’s website or app. What every merchant needs to think about today is what tools are needed to meet customers where they are now and how these can be adapted to a continuously evolving sector.
Adopting and Adapting
The payments space is rapidly expanding in terms of the options it provides, with new and upgraded technologies continually emerging to meet customer demands. Hospitality has historically witnessed deep inefficiencies in payment acceptance and checkout experience, set back by cash transactions and swipe cards. Today, people favour all things electronic, with FreedomPay noting in a recent report that 92 per cent of hospitality guests used credit cards, followed by digital wallets, debit cards and QR codes when making a payment. This also applies to pubs and restaurants, where cards and virtual payments are increasingly expected and even preferred.
It’s therefore essential that businesses offer a diverse range of payment options. Customers nowadays expect the very best, which means catering to a varying range of wants and needs. From BNPL to QR codes, as well as Apple Pay, Google Pay and prepaid cards, offering customers the choice in a sea of seemingly endless options can give businesses a competitive edge.
Further, by upgrading PMS and POS systems capabilities to offer more choices, business intelligence can be enhanced. These new data systems securely aggregate transactions and consumer insights and, in turn, facilitate effective personalisation of the customer journey.
Customers are thus offered deals, discounts and replacements for products, hotel stays and destinations that are aligned with their preferences and companies are rewarded with customers’ loyalty.
The demand for card and digital wallet payments highlights the need for merchants to invest in new and improved tech capabilities. The good news is, embracing payment optionality will only lead to good things: a personalised customer experience, a seamless purchasing journey and greater success for businesses in the long run.
Unleashing the Power of Pay
Customers seek a simple, seamless and safe payment experience. By partnering with a payments expert such as FreedomPay, merchants will reap the benefits of a forward-thinking approach to payments – with technology continually evolving, our service ensures businesses are equipped with the tools they need to meet the evolving demands of today’s (and tomorrow’s) customer.
Specifically, hospitality businesses will have access to a unified commerce platform that eliminates IT complexity by allowing them to integrate real-time payment data right into the checkout process and which provides a point-to-point encryption (P2PE) solution to keep customer details secure – eliminating any fears surrounding data privacy.
Further, FreedomPay helps merchants connect the dots both within their business and across multiple touchpoints within their channels, ensuring no part of the customer journey is neglected. With a true and complete omnichannel experience comes the kind of hyper-personalised purchasing journey that is coveted by customers – one that utilises the latest technologies, such as tokenisation and biometric authentication and that adapts existing payment infrastructure, both in person and online.
The speed at which the payments landscape is evolving makes this all the more important. For hospitality to flourish as it did pre-pandemic, a single ‘open’, fully agnostic and flexible platform will enable businesses to go above and beyond in delivering a top-tier payments experience and ensure their customers keep coming back for years to come.
