IN ASSOCIATION WITH
CASE STUDY: WAGAMAMA
“Who’s going to win the mobile payments war? Not Apple or Google because they can’t cross operating systems. Whoever wins will have the ability to cross channels” Stephen Kennedy, Wi-Q
in the UK in late 2014, where it is now used in more than 1,000 restaurants and hotels, with 200 or so venues coming on-board every month), some think that individual apps for individual venues are not the way forward. “Every brand wants its own app, but the consumer doesn’t want multiple apps,” says Kennedy. “Even two years ago you had to have a native app, but now you can access straight from the browser, so many of the reasons for having to have apps to use the hardware of the phone are obsolete. “Who’s going to win the mobile payments
At global restaurant brand Wagamama, a partnership with technology firm Oracle has been key to helping its team do their jobs well and meet its customers’ ever-evolving needs. Not only do servers take
orders on handheld devices, speeding up the order process immensely, customers can also pay through mobile payment app Qkr, developed for the brand by Oracle and MasterCard, giving diners
control of their own experience and letting them pay and leave whenever they’re ready. Richard Tallboy, director
of business development at Wagamama, says: “There’s a ‘12-minute issue’ in restaurants. The 12 minutes start from when a customer is ready to leave to when they can walk out the door.’ Enter the Qkr app with MasterPass – a secure, easy to download app that lets
WHAT PAYMENT WILL LOOK LIKE IN 2020
The future is undoubtedly mobile, but what other advances can we expect in the payment space in the next five years? According to Luis de Souza of NFS
Technology, not only will mobile take a much more prominent role in transaction completion, but loyalty functions will also be fully integrated with the customer’s preferred mobile payment option. He also foresees fewer transactional interactions between diners/guests and staff as consumers become more tech-savvy. “The interaction with hospitality staff will
be less about payment and more about the guest experience,” he predicts. He adds that this will pose challenges for operators: “They’ll need to design their process to allow flexibility for payment without missing the opportunity
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to leave the client with a great feeling as the result of a great guest experience.” Looking even further ahead, Tim Brown of
Oracle thinks wearable and even embedded technology is not so far-fetched: “There will be a time when humans, whether we agree with it or not, will be chipped. On that chip could be anything from your medical history to your payment history and preferences, and if you opt in, you could walk into a restaurant like Starbucks, place your order seamlessly, pay for it with your preferred payment method and everything would be recorded.” Before we reach that point, though,
Gerry Hooper of Zapper thinks 2020 will be characterised by seamless mobile payment processes in all sectors. “This will be the norm,” he says.
customers see everything they’ve ordered on their phone, share the bill with the people in their group, and pay when they’re ready. The app is integrated with
Wagamama’s till systems, so as soon as the bill has been paid on a guest’s mobile phone, it is closed off at the restaurant end too. “The feedback’s been really
positive,” Tallboy says. “We’re putting customers in control of their own experience.”
war? Not Apple or Google because they can’t cross operating systems. Whoever wins will have the ability to cross channels and operating systems. Merchants aren’t going to want to put in technology for every operating system. For the consumer, it’s like having a physical wallet. How many do we have? One. Consumers want one wallet that contains everything they need to pay, and it’s the same for apps.”
‘It’s all about the consumer’
Whichever way the industry ends up going, operators will need to be ready to adapt. Brown says: “A restaurant or hotel has to have the right infrastructure and the right platforms to be able to integrate very quickly with new, emerging technologies. Nobody knows what’s round the corner. Invest in a platform that meets the demands of today, but also opens you up to opportunities in the future. Today, tech- nology is changing the way service happens, and operators are changing the way their busi- nesses run to use the technology available.” That said, it has to be the right technology for that particular business. Mike Saul, head of hospitality and leisure at Barclays, says: “Lots of research is needed about an operator’s clients: why they use the site, what they really want and so on. The acid test is how much operators actually know about their clients and how much effort goes into reviewing how they want their restaurant, pub or hotel to look.” De Souza agrees: “It’s all about the consumer – that’s the way operators need to start thinking. What sort of business do I run? What is the technology that’s going to be robust in my environment? What does my customer expect of me. And how do I make it efficient internally in terms of reconciliation? Previously, it was the operator that called the shots: this is the way I want you to pay me. But I think there’s a big shift now, with the consumer saying, ‘it’s my choice as to how I settle this transaction’.”
Technology Prospectus 2016 | 31
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