With the emergence of disruptive technologies that have changed the way consumers interact with previous staples of their life, the expectations placed upon businesses to deliver a faultless service has never been higher. 

When we talk about disruptive technologies, we mean businesses that come along and completely changed the way consumers behave in regards to longstanding business models.

Uber is a great example of a disruptive technology, coming along and completely changing how consumers booked travel, with Uber now dominating most major cities vs traditional taxi companies – Uber officially overtook the iconic yellow taxis as New Yorkers favourite method of transportation in 2017. 

Likewise television has seen a huge overhaul to how consumers interact with it.

Netflix and then subsequent services like Prime Video, Now TV & Disney+ have completely changed the way consumers interact with film & series on their televisions, with everything available after just a few clicks from the comfort of your sofa, bed or airplane seat and shows often added in bulk as opposed to weekly – completely killing businesses like Blockbuster, impacting traditional TV numbers and the previous industry giant, with the amount of Sky TV users also declining the past two years. 

Now you may be wondering, what on earth do the growth of Uber and Netflix have to do with me as a family entertainment & leisure operator?

Two words: Liquid Expectations. 

No, it’s nothing to do with your drinks offering either. 

The term liquid expectations refers to the idea that customer experiences are fluid across industries and that every time a consumer engages with a product or service, the user expects to enjoy a positive and seamless experience. 

So effectively, consumers are used to interacting with businesses that provide an extremely intuitive, easy and quick process to get the experience they want – and they want that from you.

So let’s look at a families experience of liquid expectations in a day:

So starting with Uber – a family is heading to Topgolf to celebrate their daughter’s upcoming birthday with family friends, and the parents would like to have a few drinks on a sunny Saturday to celebrate – within a few clicks, their Uber is on its way with room for the whole family.

When they get back, the family fancy watching a film together – within a few clicks they’re watching the latest hit from Marvel on Disney+, with non-child friendly options hidden.

Midway through, the families daughter becomes obsessed by the heroine Captain Marvel so mum being a great mum, decides to jump on Amazon Prime and order her a doll of the character to add to her daughters collection as a last minute birthday gift. Within a few clicks, that doll is ordered and due to be delivered the very next day. 

As you can see from the above, the whole day is made super simple and easy for them to manage because of the technology powering the solutions they’re using, creating a seamless user experience.

Everything is instant, and requires minimal effort from the user. 

So where does the leisure & family operator, in this instance Topgolf, fit into this?

Well, the two families easily booked their trip to the venue through an easy to use booking solution which allowed them to pre-order their food and get everything booked well in advance.

When they get to the venue, it’s a quick scan of the QR code on the email confirmation and they’re through to their booked bays. 

When at the bays, their pre-ordered food is brought out along with the ability to quickly scan a QR code on the bay to order more food if needed – and drinks of course!

Upon leaving the venue, they get an automated feedback email along with a voucher for their next visit (which helps boost revisitation for venues like Topgolf!)

So from this we can see that the whole experience for your consumers should fit in with what they expect with the other brands they’re used to interacting with every day of their lives, from the experience, the ease of interaction and the software you choose to use pre & in venue. 

Modern technology has upped the standards of what customers expect from your business, it’s essential you meet those standards or get left behind. To find out how BookNow Software is helping customers like yours meet those demands, take a product tour today by clicking the image below.