Touch and tech: tug-of-war or hand-in-hand?
I’ve been in the hotel industry for over 45 years. Many erstwhile colleagues whom I worked with have called it quits and quietly gone into retirement, I haven’t. Yes, I’ve eased my foot off the pedal but I’ve not taken it off entirely. Why? Because of the excitement I’ve always felt when working in the industry. It is an industry that can throw the unexpected good, bad, ugly or dramatic at you, every single day. Throughout my time in the industry, I’ve come to recognise the immense value in providing personalised service and fine-tune my ability to engage with people. What keeps me going now is the thrill of keeping abreast with the ongoing innovative technology solutions that is relentlessly going to keep challenging changes to occur in the world of hospitality.
Automation of a never before seen scale, is bringing an all encompassing culture of self-service in almost everything we do. Self-service may well be the new and evolving normal. Today’s on-demand society wants goods and services to be delivered in a fast, frictionless manner, a frequently absent of face-to-face interaction. When I phone the credit card company, I am answered by a person – but hardly a “real live” one. Before I can get a word out, the disembodied telephone operator is reading from a script from which he/she will not deviate even upon interruption. Failure to follow instructions within a few seconds will result in my one-sided conversation been ‘timed out’.
Nowadays, depositing or withdrawing cash no longer requires a visit to the bank. Instead, head to the nearest automated teller machine (ATM). The self-service options for convenience and saving time has already invaded petrol stations and supermarket checkout lines to ordering items, groceries, a meal or cup of coffee via an app which extends to pickup and delivery to the doorstep. Post Covid–led staffing shortages hastened the rush for self-service options – especially in the hospitality and retail fields.
We are seeing a culture of self service in almost everything we do, brought about by automation of a never before seen scale. However, self-service shouldn’t mean no-service. No sir…not in the hospitality industry. I fear many in the industry, may rush to replace much of the personal service revolving around ‘hospitality’ out of the equation - in defense of efficiency with technology.
As far as hospitality goes, what’s at issue here is the importance of human interaction. When offered a choice between automated or human operated services, there will be customers who opt for the former, as well as those who will choose the latter. Unfortunately, the number of times, the people employed in the industry that I, as a customer have met (face-to-face), or spoken to (on the phone), don’t act like live persons. So, in a sense customers are already encountering an ‘automata effect’ – due to either bad hiring or poor training. What this does is intensify the hospitality industry’s rush to turn to automation and AI.
Self-confident live persons can work wonders for one’s brand: Live persons can exhibit empathy, can read the telltale signs of confusion, even anger in one’s facial expression and go as far as to put one at ease. A live person can offer one critical element that can lubricate all kinds of hospitality-related activity: something which human beings, unlike AI and the like, are uniquely good at…something for which they have been preparing for all their life: dealing with people.
Hotels and the technology suppliers that support them to find a way to balance both the use of innovative technology with live or in-person service, and provide customers with options to choose how they want to interact with such companies, will be the most successful in the long run.
Shafeek Wahab - Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Customer Service Trainer and Ex-Hotelier
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