SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS
CONTACTLESS TRANSACTIONS By encouraging advance online reservations and
Singenuity platform
payment, the coronavirus is accelerating a welcome transition. BY JENNIFER ROWAN
As adventure parks and challenge courses look ahead to reopening, the challenges of providing safe customer and employee journeys during the COVID-19 pandemic are daunting, to say the least. There are distancing dilemmas, sanitation hurdles, and risk management issues. But one situation is well in hand—contactless payments and waiver-signing. We spoke to several operators and suppliers about the systems that allow for these sanitary transactions and whether their capabilities meet the current COVID-19 demands. What we found is that folks are rising to the challenge in some incredibly creative ways, including adding new features that address capacity and contact tracing. PLANNING AHEAD IS THE NEW NORMAL
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If there is a silver lining to the health crisis, it’s that consumers are becoming accustomed to completing transactions in advance. From clothing to ice cream cones, retailers are requiring customers to manage much of their ordering, reserving, and purchasing using mobile
apps and online services to ensure that all transactions are conducted as safely as possible. For adventure parks and challenge course operations, this has long been the brass ring for customer relationship management (CRM). Through CRM, operators can drive revenue, capture valuable data, improve the customer experience, and better manage expectations. Yet, even at those operations that have had mobile and online booking in place for years, consumers were slow to adopt the technology. “Walk-in bookings have become popular in recent years,” says Michael Smith, president of AdventureSmith, Inc., and ArborTrek at Smugglers’ Notch, Vt. Now, that has to change. “Based upon the guidance we have received for numbers of customers that will be allowed in a retail facility per square foot, we would not be able to accept walk-ins,” Smith says. Instead, the operation will encourage guests to use its online booking system—Resmark Systems—to complete their financial transactions and paperwork procedures well in advance.
Resmark not only offers a contactless solution, but its dashboard provides a wealth of information.
To enforce this, “We would have an information person in the parking lot advising customers who could then book on the phone, or present information to a staff member who can enter the information on a tablet,” Smith says. “Customers would need to show that they have paid and signed all waivers before leaving the parking lot and entering the property.” TAKING WAIVERS TO THE NEXT LEVEL There’s no shortage of suppliers that offer great reservation and digital waiver products, and most adventure parks and challenge courses have availed themselves of these for years. (If you haven’t, there’s a handy sidebar on p. 46 that lists many of the suppliers that specialize in booking systems for recreation providers.) Under these unprecedented circumstances, these same suppliers are taking contactless transactions to the next level by removing even more touchpoints. “Guests are reminded before they arrive to fill out their waivers on their own device so they don’t have to touch paper, pens, or a shared tablet,” says
Checkfront waivers can be sent via automated emails before arrival.
