Our relationship with technology continues to intertwine with virtually all facets of life, including the workplace, home, our health and interactions with each other. Not just cool or experimental, today’s technology provides more useful benefits to its users than ever before. Here, we examine new technology trends affecting major aspects of clubs and the lives of their members.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
While the term artificial intelligence (AI) is often conceived in futuristic terms, AI can be used to address practical issues based on copious available data. The operations platform CrunchTime has worked with F&B franchises like Dunkin’, Wendy’s, Shake Shack and many others by using AI to consolidate and analyze restaurant data in real time. These services can help restaurants:
- Reduce supply costs by identifying profit leaks.
- Help manage and schedule staff more efficiently.
- Train staff via auto-assignments and conditional training, helping reduce administrative burdens.
- Display key data across multiple locations.
CrunchTime helped reduce Southeastern food chain Hickory Tavern’s inventory by 20-60% in some instances by implementing its Suggested Order program. The system determines how much of each product will be needed to meet demand for a given number of days by referencing Hickory Tavern’s current sales forecast. It reviews current inventory and places orders for only what the restaurant requires.
Other AI products help hotels customize the guest experience by collecting and analyzing data. The hospitality-focused software company Cendyn uses information to tailor the guest experience directly to their current and expected preferences. One tool can run an algorithm that prioritizes the three most important things to tell a guest based on their profile.
Club Question: How could AI benefit your club?
Digital Communications
Alongside AI, chatbots can address concerns, provide recommen- dations and answer questions for hotel guests amenable to digital conversation. While chatbots have varying levels of success addressing all consumer needs, they offer a “fall guy” role when unable to fulfill a request, taking pressure off real staff, reported a study by Germany’s University of Göttingen.
The 2022 Consumer Study of Chatbots by the conversational experience platform Simplr found varying chatbot sentiment among different demographics.
Gen Z (born from 1997-2012)
- 20% prefer to start the customer service experience with a chatbot.
- 41% prefer to start customer service by talking on the phone.
Baby Boomers (born from 1946-1964)
- 4% prefer to start the customer service experience with a chatbot.
- 71% prefer to start the customer service by talking on the phone.
Do uninitiated chatbots annoy you?
Boomers: 53% yes
Gen X (born from 1965-1980): 28%
Millennials (born from 1981-1996): 24%
Overall sentiment
- 18% of consumers have used a chatbot in the last three months (this figure was just 9% in 2020).
- 80% of consumers are much more willing to use a chatbot if they know they can easily and quickly be transferred to a live person.
- 49% rate their willingness to use a chat as “neutral.”
- When consumers wait longer than 47 seconds to have their issue resolved via chat, they rate the interaction as “poor.”
FACIAL RECOGNITION IN HOSPITALITY
Facial recognition systems identify people by comparing a scanned image or frame from a video with photos contained in a database, matching facial features and skin textures. The technology can go one step further and identify individuals’ age ranges and gender. While it’s typically leveraged by law enforcement, the hospitality industry is using facial recognition technology for security and other purposes.
Five Ways Hospitality is Using Facial Recognition
- Security/Access. Facial recognition technology can speed up the check-in process at hotels with kiosks that scan guests’ faces and issue personalized key cards. The technology also provides added levels of security to fitness centers, locker rooms and locker doors. Employees can scan into POS systems for instant and reliable authorization.
- Customer Service. Patrons can receive tailored experiences based on their customer profiles. At restaurants, diners can be quickly identified and offered a personalized experience upon entering the establishment.
- Payment Authorization. Contactless payments are now possible via facial recognition and scanning patrons’ palms, like at Amazon Fresh stores.
- Employees. Employees can easily scan in and out of work to more accurately measure staff hours.
- Research. Facial recognition can track key data like how many people are in a particular location and other metrics to help provide more streamlined and customized experiences.
Club Question: Are your club members comfortable with facial recognition?
Health and Fitness
Wearables continue to provide important health benefits and data with increasing sophistication. A recent Pew Study found that 21% of Americans use fitness trackers or smart watches. Forbes shared that wearable manufacturers are adding new features beyond the simple heart rate monitor, step counter and sleep tracker. New wearable functions include:
- ECG scanners that measure electrical signals to the heart and provide early warning about life-threatening conditions.
- SPO2 (blood oxygen saturation levels) that can warn about lung conditions.
At-home Workouts
New technologies are allowing users to bring the gym experience home with greater value. Apps, workout equipment and virtual reality provide customized workout regimens that offer live feedback in minimalistic packaging.
The app Artifit is an AI-powered personal trainer that tracks your body movements and can provide real-time adjustments to users’ form.
WW, formerly Weight Watchers, has its own app that uses AI to monitor diet and activity metrics including sleep and movement.
Peloton is one of the most popular at-home fitness brands, but the company JaxJox provides its Interactive Studio equipped with a wall monitor, smart kettlebells and smart dumbbells. The product offers dozens of classes, tracks reps and biometrics, and allows users to easily add or remove weight with a push of a button. The company also offers a smart foam roller that vibrates to help with sore muscles.
Vitruvian Trainer+ is a floor-based fitness machine that uses electromagnets to generate up to 440 pounds of resistance for its various lifting workouts.
Virtual and augmented reality are also making waves in fitness. The VR app FitXR puts users in programs where you can work out next to other users’ avatars, or participate in virtual golf, boxing and other gamified activities.
As these technologies evolve, expect similar products in areas like yoga and mental health.
Club Question: How can clubs become more competitive in this space?
Cybersecurity
Increasing digitization, work-from-home and new techniques from cyber criminals are making businesses more vulnerable than ever to cyberattacks.
Cyberattacks in the first half of 2022 rose by 42% compared to 2021, reports Check Point Software, a leading cyber threat intelligence firm. And data from Statista showed that the average cost of a data breach was $9.44 million in 2022, up from $9.05 million the year before.
Increasing Vulnerability
With work-from-home a norm, the risk of cyberattacks grows even greater. By 2025, 95% of workloads are expected to be uploaded to the cloud, reported Gartner, Inc.
6 Most Common Cyberattacks for 2023
Rom Hender, CEO of Trustifi, a cyber security platform, recently shared his top six cyber- threats for 2023:
- Compromised Business Emails. This occurs when the attacker poses as a familiar person to the victim.
- Pre-vishing. A new type of attack performed via text, usually involving a fake invoice.
- Spear Phishing. Email threats targeting a specific recipient/organization.
- Impersonation. A phishing attack that uses a fake email address that looks like a known brand/contact.
- Compromised Account. The attacker uses published email account credentials to send malicious emails from the account.
- New Domains. The criminal creates new domains to send attacks from or uses known hosting services to bypass safeguards.
Club Question: Is your club up to date on cybersecurity best practices?
Metaverse
The metaverse continues to make incremental encroachment on society. This space, which blends the physical and virtual world often via headsets and high-tech glasses, offers entertainment, business solutions, education and much more to its users. While still in its nascent state, real-world use cases for the technology are expanding.
Here are examples of how the metaverse can soon be leveraged, according to TechTarget, a technology news company.
Immersive Entertainment. Concerts, comedy shows and live events can provide real entertainment in the virtual world. Stars like Justin Bieber and Ariana Grande have already performed in the metaverse.
Business Operations. The metaverse can provide a more collaborative environment for remote, real-time guidance from managers.
Education and training. Virtual training and education can be supplemented with live-streaming data and simulated real-life scenarios.
Enhanced Customer Service. Virtual test drives, supplemented tours and new customer service experiences can be provided through the metaverse.
Meeting Spaces. Not just Zoom meetings, but virtual, 3D meetings are expected to emerge in the coming years, allowing better collaboration among users.
Marketing. Automotive and entertainment brands as well as entertainment companies like Disney and Warner Bros. have explored the virtual space to expand their offerings and exposure. In 2020, Disney an- nounced a “theme park metaverse” project aligning the physical and virtual space.
Industrial Uses/Digital Twins. Manufacturer Siemens and technology company Nvidia are joining forces to create digital twins to improve the manufacturing space. Users can make quick and innovative changes to the digital model that can then be applied to its real-world counterpart.