This week Cedar Point installed some new self-service kiosks at a couple food stands around the park.
The idea is for the guest to order and pay for their food from the machine, and then approach the counter for their meal.
So how do the self service kiosks work?
After approaching the machine, it will ask you if you have one of the dining plans or if you want to order off the standard menu.
We chose the meal plan menu, which brought up a secondary screen with the available options. In this case at the Round-Up, we had the choice of the Cheeseburger or Chicken Fingers.
This is where it gets good! After choosing the burger, we then had the options to customize the meal exactly how we would like. The burger comes standard with everything on it, but if you chose not to want tomatoes and pickles, you simply selected that option.
Next you get to select your side option, in this case, it was a choice between fries, a side salad, or fruit cup.
On the final screen is where the guest can scan their dining plan wristband or season pass.
There is always controversy about what causes a backup on busy days for food service. Are they understaffed? Does it take too long to prepare the food? Or does the ordering and payment process take too long?
The new self service kiosks are an attempt to see if the customer can speed up the process on their own, making the staff available work more efficiently to get orders to the guest.
With a threat of higher minimum wages on the horizon, it is also an attempt to get the technology in place ahead of time to reduce staffing overhead.
In addition to faster ordering and reduced staffing, the machines also typically result in the customer ordering 15% more than when ordering from an individual.
Some potential benefits for the consumer, should they be implemented into the Cedar Point self-service kiosks, are saved orders making it easier to reorder in the future. In addition, there is a potential for orders to be accepted via the mobile app.
What do you think of the idea of self-service kiosks?
* If you liked this post, join other readers who have signed up to for our free Newsletter…because then you will never miss another update!
Would a platinum season’s pass Dining Plan work on a food kiosk? can food be ordered using the Platinum pass all season dining plan on the kiosk?
The idea is that they should be able to accept the dining plans. We’ll let you know tomorrow if they are online.
My biggest concern is that there will be a longer wait do to people trying to make their decisions causing a line to back up at machines.
Facebook Discussion
Twitter Discussion