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Collect, Share, Understand: A New Vision for Guest Services with QR Cards

September 11, 2024

Last year, I worked as an Admission Attendant at Seattle Convention Center. The job entailed three main tasks -- checking badges, monitoring safety, and giving directions. I live in the neighborhood in Convention City, and I was always happy to recommend local spots.

My front-of-house experience helped me envision an entirely new approach for guest recommendations.

Here's how it works:

  1. Collect. Start with a collection of concierge-quality recommendations for every taste, budget, and season.

  2. Share. Make it super-simple for anyone in guest services (attendants, event staff, concierge desks) to share expert recommendations -- while barely having to break eye contact.

  3. Understand. Gather detailed information about the resulting guest experiences, without having to collect personal information like phone numbers or emails.

Collect: Human experiences in, human expertise out.

(AI stays hidden in the middle)

We shouldn't expect everyone in Guest Services to memorize the locations and hours of thousands of restaurants, coffee shops, and nightclubs. That's what computers are for.

Suppose that we had 100 curated lists of recommendations, from dive bars to vegan restaurants to nature walks to pet-friendly places, each written and maintained by a local expert.

That's still a big collection. We can't expect the staff to read it all.

Well, then, let's divide the 100 into a dozen groups, each appealing to a different type of visitor -- business traveler, cruise visitor, weekend partier, and so on.

Twelve groups -- over a year, that's easy enough to learn who they are.

On top of that, we'll add a tagging taxonomy for price, accessibility, atmosphere, or any given scale.

(Note: Low-code development tools like Microsoft Power Platform make this easier than it sounds.)

At this point, all the front-of-house staff needs to do is have a normal conversation with a guest.

From there, all it takes is a few clicks on a screen -- or better yet, a few words spoken to a voice recognition engine -- to locate a set of curated experiences appropriate for most guests.

And if a guest wants a little bit of everything, you'll be able to mix-and-match between curated lists.

(Here is where AI comes in, an accelerant for human interaction at the end of a human conversation rather than a replacement for a human-to-human experience.)

Share: Give your guests what they want without asking for contact details.

If you're in Guest Services, how do you share ideas?

At the concierge desk, you'll pull out a paper map and start drawing circles and arrows.

At the information desk, you'll provide glossy brochures with website addresses.

At the convention center entrance, you'll gesture directionally with your open hand palm-up (never point your finger), advising of local landmarks as waypoints.

And in most cases, the guests will pull out their own phones and look it up themselves.

They don't need the paper maps, they don't want the glossy brochures, and they don't trust the directions.

What if you could give someone their personalized itinerary, a map with turn-by-turn directions, and a set of brochures -- all through a single QR code?

Imagine personalized trip tickets, where each ticket points to a webpage showing any combination of destinations and activities, whether as text, image, audio, or video.

That's exactly what I'm building for Convention City Seattle.

The trip ticket can be generated real-time through a mobile or tablet app; or, created in advance as pre-printed QR Cards.

And your guests are not asked to give up their phone number or email address or come up with yet another password.

Each QR Card is unique.

Even if you start with 50 "fine dining" cards initially pointing to the same list of restaurants, you can customize each card based on your conversations.

Or you can change the content for an entire deck.

Or change every card of a certain type or color.

Or change a single card before you've handed it out.

Or change a card after your guest has walked away.

Each QR Card is current.

Whenever someone scans a code, they'll see the latest information.

When it's sunny, suggest places with outdoor patios.

And when it's raining? Well, this is Seattle.

Each QR Card begins a conversation.

Add options for thumbs up/down, comments.

Include coupons and offers.

It's a webpage. Anything's possible.

Understand: Each QR Card tells a story.

For event organizers, facility managers, and destination marketing organizations, the value proposition extends from the front-of-house interactions to back-of-house planning.

For the first time, managers can obtain a better understanding of their guests' needs by getting previously unobtainable data about Guest Services interactions, including:

Deployment options

For attendants, distribute decks of pre-configured QR Cards linking to the most common destinations.

For event staff, provide mobile or tablet apps that allow customized guest journeys.

For concierge desks, integrate with existing databases for maximum coverage.

Convention City QR Cards: Launching in 4Q24.

For more information, watch this space.

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