Kansas City Marriott Downtown - IRIS Mobile Dining
“With over 970 bedrooms across 2 towers, the hotel has significantly enhanced operational efficiencies with mobile dining, reducing customer wait times by over 30 minutes.”
Hotel Overview
Located in the heart of the city, Kansas City Marriott Downtown (part of Aimbridge Hospitality) is a two-tower, award-winning hotel that combines newly restored historic elegance with modern luxury.
Attached to the KC Convention Centre by an enclosed walkway, this 970-room hotel offers two restaurants, a bar, a lounge bar and a coffee shop, a business centre, as well as an indoor pool and a gym. The 95,000 square feet of flexible meeting space is ideal for business or social events.
“We’re delighted with the efficiency of IRIS’ mobile dining app and how seamlessly it enables us to manage and process a large volume of room service and corporate orders.
The prevalence of digital ordering among guests, coupled with their familiarity and ease of using the app, has contributed significantly to the year-on-year increase in order volumes and average guest spend.
The user-friendly app is constantly being updated and modernised to cater for traveller’s needs – I’m always finding new features when I log into the backend, all of which heightens guest satisfaction and frees up our staff’s time.”
Hotel Requirements
The hotel wanted to process and manage room service orders more seamlessly and effectively with fewer resources.
The hotel were keen to maximise F&B revenue and boost guest spend.
They were looking for a more efficient way to distribute their menus to guests and promote their F&B offerings.
Solutions Installed
Mobile dining – for In-room dining
Benefits
87% increase in order volume YOY
Mobile dining is getting increasingly popular among guests with the hotel experiencing substantial year-on-year rises in order volumes and F&B revenue via mobile dining. Average F&B revenue has surged 94% YOY, while guest orders have increased by 87% annually. This trend underscores the seamless nature of digital ordering and the enthusiastic adoption by hotel guests.
The hotel also gets a lot of repeat orders online as it’s easy for guests to see previous transactions in the Order History section, so they can review spend and easily re-order.
Higher guest spending online
When guests order online, they tend to spend more per transaction which bolsters average guest spend compared to orders taken over the phone. This is mainly due to guest’s familiarity with ordering online, the complementary /related items that have been added to dishes and the added benefit of guests having ample time to explore menu options at their leisure, on their own devices.
More accuracy & less waste
With guests self-serving, there’s no human error on orders, and consequently less wastage and more satisfied guests. Guests even add personal requests or messages to the chef on their order.
There’s also an option for guests to select chargeable condiments with their meals if they require them. This cuts costs and wastage as the hotel is only delivering what is required.
30 minutes saved per delivery
With over 970 bedrooms across 2 towers, the hotel has significantly enhanced operational efficiencies through mobile dining. Now, food is delivered in 15 minutes or less, a remarkable improvement from the previous 45 minutes / 1 hour time frame.
The culinary team have produced a menu that can be produced quickly, and with the direct integration to their MICROS POS, orders go direct to the kitchen to be processed from the same kitchen line. Guests state that the food is just as good as in the restaurant and are delighted with the speed of service and reduced wait times.
Meets guest’s needs
The hotel deployed mobile dining prior to COVID-19, so were well placed to handle contactless orders when it was mandatory. Now, they’re finding that with digital ordering being commonplace in all walks of life, mobile dining is proving popular and almost an expectation of guests. The hotel is satisfying guest’s needs and providing them with the digital experience they have come to expect.
Seamless online payments with FreedomPay
Guests can pay for their order online with a credit card through the integration with FreedomPay. Non-residents (and guests who aren’t Bonvoy members) can access the digital menu on a browser, input their details, place their order and then pay by credit card. A seamless and secure process for all parties.
Ideal for corporate groups and sports teams
The hotel uses mobile dining for F&B orders for large group banquets and corporate meetings. They give visitors a QR code from which they pre-order drinks and meals for pick-up. A far more efficient and time-saving process for both busy guests and staff.
Sports teams often pre-order breakfast (for pick up or delivery) ahead of an early check-out (c. 6am). Not only is this a convenient and useful service for guests, but it also empowers the hotel to plan and schedule the correct number of staff to produce and deliver these orders.
With pre-orders, it’s clear to see how many orders are in the system in real-time and rota resources accordingly.
Promotions and special prices
The team promote specials online if they want to test a particular item or want to offer a discount exclusively to mobile dining customers. They also curate specially priced menus tailored for specific groups residing in their hotel. These set menus have gained popularity among groups, as evidenced by the last promotion, which saw 80 orders within a 30-minute timeframe.
Mobile dining has proven to be an effective and successful method for handling these sizable group orders.
Alleviates staff challenges
With guests self-serving, the hotel requires less staff to handle room service orders. Additionally, with the clear visibility of digital orders, the hotel can review how busy or quiet they’re likely to be so can allocate resources accordingly e.g. they can pull in extra staff from other departments if they’re busy or enable staff to focus on other areas of the hotel if it’s quieter.
Even though the hotel still gives guests the option to place an order over the phone, they now receive fewer calls, thereby freeing up staff time.
Operate more sustainably & flexibly
The hotel now only re-prints their room service menus twice a year. If they have any specials or promotions, they upload them exclusively to the digital menu at a touch of a button. The team find it easy to add or amend items on the online menus.
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