The other day I met a friend for a meal out. We'd deliberately arrived half an hour early so we could enjoy a drink at the bar and have a quick catch-up before we sat down for dinner. When our table was ready, we asked if we could transfer the tab over to the restaurant, but the barman apologised and said he couldn't do that, so would we mind settling the bill now.

It struck me how old fashioned this now seems. A few years ago, it would have been normal practice to settle the bill at the bar but these days it's rare for an establishment not to be able to transfer an open tab. I suppose I realised how quickly payments technology is developing and how every business and market is different.

In some parts of the world, it's still quite common for waiting staff to take the card away from the table to be swiped out of sight of the customer. What should take seconds is dragged out to minutes and it's a less secure way to do things, leaving some guests in a stressed state of mind at the end of their meal.

Pay at the table with mobile terminals

In many parts of Europe, including the UK, we're used to staff presenting us with mobile terminals that allow us to pay at the table. And of course, we can now do that with a simple tap of our card, or with a PIN if the bill is higher than the contactless limit, or we pay with our digital wallets on our phones.

Over 90% of all Chinese now use digital wallets like Alipay or WeChat Pay to make payments. Europe is catching-up rapidly with digital wallet use growing across the continent[1]. And in the UK, the contactless limit is set to increase from £45 to £100 in October. Pre-pandemic it was £30. In France it’s gone up from €30 to €50.

When we're staying at luxury hotels or dining at high-end restaurants, we expect the payments service to match. Can you imagine how the younger generation would react if the waiter brought out an old manual imprinter or Zip-Zap machine? Did you know, this is why credit cards have embossed numbers?

It's also becoming increasingly common to see digital Order and Pay application integrations, especially for Food & Beverage and room services.  

Integrated payments to make your bar more efficient

As well as being more convenient for guests, modern payments have big advantages for hoteliers and restaurants.

Pay at Bar allows several mobile terminals to be in use at the same time, all linked to the same till. Bar staff can put through more orders because the till isn't locked down when an order is added, freeing-up the till for the next person. It means they can prepare the drink while other staff continue to process new orders.

In the past this was impossible, but now busy bars can serve more guests and make more money at the same time. More importantly for guests, the payment moment is frustration free and can be personalised too.

Our terminals offer instant currency conversion so your guests can also pay in their own currency, which puts them at ease and gives you an additional revenue stream.

Pay at Reception services, used when checking out, have also improved beyond expectations and can cope with fast moving queues.

Making check-in and check-out easier

To start with, the whole process can be made easier by integrating your online bookings and reservations to your Property Management System (PMS) so your guest’s details are picked up automatically when they check-in.

One of the biggest pain points for guests either arriving or leaving, is the wait in reception to be given a key, or to hand one in.

Many lifestyle hotels have already done away with this thanks to express check-ins and check-outs. Others are quickly going down this route as they see the benefits, particularly with guest concerns about safety still paramount.

Self-service kiosks are also growing in popularity across all sectors, including the most luxurious five-star hotels.

Tokenisation makes everything smoother

Of course, one of the ways to ensure smoother payments is through tokenisation. 

Many guests are happy to present their card once, when they book or check-in, and let the hotel store the details on file in a secure environment so they can continue to take payments without having to ask for a card again.

Guests can spend more freely, ordering food and drinks from their room, or in the hotel’s café and bar and even enjoying a massage in the spa, without any payment hassles. Through tokenisation, you can see what makes them tick, helping you build a loyalty programme or tailor offers specifically for them.

Safely storing a token for each paying customer also means if a guest needs to cut a stay short, issuing a refund is child’s play and it’s a doddle to add another charge if they’ve missed something at check-out.

Connected integrated payments are the here and now.

Sources
[1]  Payments Cards and Mobile