In association with
“Loyalty is 100% the future of
the industry” James Sykes-Hagen
existing Facebook pages, taking advantage of traffic, visitors and likes on those pages and providing functionality previously limited to apps. PizzaExpress has led the way with its booking bot, and Flypay has a Pay at Table bot as well as an ordering bot in the pipeline. OpenTable has just realised an Amazon Echo Show skill to let people make a table booking voice-first, and Wi-Q is building skills to integrate its software into Amazon cloud, negating the need for voice bots in public places. The idea is that guests simply use their own device to speak their orders. “We expect to see conversational commerce dominate all walks of life over the next five years,” Cornhill says. “The ability to speak your order is not only a possibility but, thanks to Amazon, largely a reality. Although there are still challenges, such as ambient noise reduc- tion, it’s very close to commercial reality.” In the meantime, the next year will be one of adoption and roll-out of the basic available technologies – from pre-order and pay-at- table to digital loyalty solutions such as Zap- per’s and Yoyo’s. “Merchants are moving away from a wait-and-see mindset, and also away from a feeling they have to build their own apps to play in the digital game,” Weaver says. Really, though, it all comes down to one simple idea, Falys believes. “The challenge for retailers is to keep your customers com- ing back, not losing them,” he says. “Retention is key to your leadership and your number-one priority, as it’s a very fickle world out there. Step one is to know your customers, and step two is to engage with them in a way that feels personal to them. That’s what the transfor- mation around mobile phone and the digital world is making possible.”
www.thecaterer.com Technology Prospectus 2018 | 19
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
