In the wake of staff shortages in hotels, there are increasingly more hotel with robot room service. These robots are used to primarily take over simple tasks such as delivering items or meals to guest rooms. Today room service robots are not just a futuristic concept. They´re already here and they can bring a lot of benefits to hotels and their guests.
In this guide, we´ll introduce key features of a room service robot and explore the benefits - and disadvantages of using robots in a hotel.
Table of Content
What Is a Room Service Robot?
A robotic room service robot is a robot designed to deliver room service meals or other items in the hotel to a particular destination. The robot operates semi- or fully autonomously and can independently navigate through the hotel, call the elevator, and handle unpredictable situations in its environment to accomplish its determined tasks.
Besides that, the robot hotel room service often has other basic features such as:
Ability to guide the guest to their room.
Introduce certain areas of the hotel to the guest.
Greet the guest.
What Are the Key Components of a Room Service Robot?
A room service robot is fitted with technical components that make it autonomous and safe to deliver items to its destination. The key components of a room service robot are:
The overall shell of the robot.
A camera and multiple sensors allow it to navigate autonomously.
Autonomous navigation and laser mapping system.
Battery- system and a charging station.
A smart system allowing it to connect to
Microphone
Compartment to store items.
Software and Internet Connection (to communicate to the outside world).
What Are the Benefits of Robotic Room Service?
A robot hotel room service is a mechanical device programmed to deliver guests food and drink in hotels and other accommodation establishments. The benefits of a room service robot are as follows:
Quick Return on Investment - They’re programmed to complete tasks at any time of day. They can do this because they can work 24 hours a day and seven days a week - and can take over simple tasks from your employees.
Improve Guest Experience - Robots have not yet penetrated the hospitality market, and many customers are still not used to interacting with them. As such, it can be used as a “point of differentiation” to improve service delivery in your hotel.
Reduce Employee Burden - Running around on a guest-related errand can easily accumulate a lot of time and money. A room service robot can relieve your staff of delivery services so that they can focus on more complicated tasks.
What Are the Disadvantages of a Room Service Robot?
Having said the benefits, there are, of course, two sides to the coin. The first disadvantage is that they can be somewhat costly (depending on which supplier you choose) and require some deployment time. Usually, a technician would have to go to the hotel to map out each floor and connect the robot to the elevator system so that it can autonomously navigate throughout the entire hotel.
Another disadvantage is that robots cannot do everything a human would do. For instance, room service robots can only carry items in their compartment.
Last but not least, these robots are not as personable as human employees and some guests - especially the elderly - and may be resistant to dealing with robots. Consequently, this can negatively impact their service experience in your hotel.
Conclusion: The Complete Guide to Room Service Robots
We're seeing increasingly more robots in hospitality industry - and one of the robots gaining traction is room service robots. These hotel robots are designed to carry out simple tasks, such as autonomously delivering items to guest.
At Metasphere, we have a robotic room service solution that can not only autonomously deliver items to your guests, but also comes with a back-end system where your guests can browse through your digital menu and contactless order room service without any human interaction. Interested to learn more? Contact Metasphere today to enquire about our room service robot!