The future is digital – even for brick-and-mortar businesses in the entertainment and amusement industry. It’s smart, automated, and high-tech.
Today, we are getting first-hand experience on the benefits of rising technology. Light bulbs, refrigerators, security cameras – you name it – almost everything can now be controlled easily from a mobile phone. Since this is the case, consumers demand the same level of quality, convenience, and interactions from family entertainment centers.
Every single touchpoint in your venue should give your guests some sort of “control” over their experience. You are just there to ensure that it’s seamless. This is why you should maximize the use of FEC tech like a Mobile Wallet virtual game card and kiosks. These put the power and ease in your customers’ hands.
The consumer journey for family entertainment centers has been reshaped time and time again, and these game-changing technologies are the next must-haves to deliver a superior guest experience:
1. E-commerce
One of the many conveniences of mobile-driven interactions from smart consumer devices is the ability to start the consumer journey even before the guest sets foot in your premises. Pre-arrival e-commerce platforms can easily lead to conversion if done right.
An FEC of the future should enable customers to pre-order everything, top-up ahead, book online, and schedule experiences. This also gives them more time to spend in your venue to actually do what they came there for – instead of dragging behind wait times, queueing at the entrance or cashier, and other revenue blockers.
2. Face Recognition Technology
The face is the ultimate identifier and controller of the consumer experience. You can start utilizing face recognition technology at the entrance or parking lot, providing real-time data on when a customer comes and goes, purchase patterns, games frequently played, security, and more. The smarter the data you have, the smarter business decisions you’ll make.
Face recognition also allows you to hyper-personalize the guest experience. When a customer interfaces with a machine with this technology, it can flash a greeting with their name, push their usuals, and upsell according to the customer behavior. You can derive specific promotions or offerings based on the data from these transactions.
3. AI-Driven CRM
To automate tasks that once required humans, FECs can use advanced technology like artificial intelligence (AI) to smoothen processes and augment the consumer experience.
Thanks to this, you can push for AI-driven decision-making from your guests. This gives you an avenue to interact with your customer pre-visit through mobile app or games notifications such as bounce-back offers and recommendations based on historical patterns of spending.
4. Machine Learning
Like AI, this sophisticated technology is needed to automate tasks and processes by using previous data to make predictions. It can be utilized to discover, analyze, design, measure, monitor, and assess consumer trends and behavior from your business touchpoints.
You would want a multi-touchpoint journey for your guests, and incorporating wearable media and advanced computer sensors can help get you the data that machine learning can crunch into meaningful insights.
5. Immersive Technology
A multi-touchpoint consumer journey should be paired with a multi-experience offering, and immersive technologies are required to attain this. This means designing experiences that are beyond in-venue, in-app, and in-person.
Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), mixed reality, multi-channel human-machine interfaces, and sensing technologies can be used in different combinations to create a multi-experience interface. You can make a simple AR overlay in transactions or a fully immersive VR experience in games.
An FEC of the future revolutionizes the consumer journey. These emerging technologies will propel you to become one.
