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Scenarios change, habits change. Faced with the social distancing that became necessary for dealing with the coronavirus emergency, the world is now inheriting what is in fact a new normality.
The precautions we are forced to take to avoid the spread of contagion make it necessary to rapidly adapt business models, and Autogrill, as an operator in the F&B sector, could certainly not afford to be caught on the hop. Business had to be re-organized very fast on the basis of travellers’ new needs and the changes in their mobility and spending behaviour, whilst maintaining the customary level of service on one hand and guaranteeing the safety that consumers expect on the other.
“Constantly seeking innovative solutions”
The new developments introduced in terms of service and offering as a result of these changes – which will very probably be definitive and have put an end to the old habit of service at the counter – have led Autogrill Group to concentrate on fast purchasing and speeding up digital payment methods by designing innovative and technological solutions that continue to guarantee a quality experience for travellers.
The news from Italy
Autogrill & Satispay: an all-Italian mobile partnership
Popular with the young for some years now, Satispay’s simplification of payments and money transfer could hardly go unnoticed by Autogrill. Under this collaboration, it is now enabling its customers to make payments fluidly and securely without having to touch cash or a POS terminal.
How? In over 400 points of sale across Italy customers will be able to select the point of sale from the list of stores in the app, while in airports and railway stations they can frame the QR Code on display at the check-out.
Click&Good: order, pay with the MyAutogrill app and collect without queuing
Security, convenience and speed are the characteristics guaranteed by this MyAutogrill app service, available since mid-July in over 45 points of sale on the Italian motorway network.
Thanks to geopositioning, the app enables you in a few simple steps to find the service area nearest to you where Click&Good is active, display the full menu and various product categories, choose what you need, pay online and pick it up at the point of sale. The customer is sent notifications of both confirmation and readiness of the order, so you can go and pick it up by following the path indicated in the point of sale at the right time, thus avoiding gatherings of people and limiting time spent in the location to a matter of seconds.
And those without the app? Access to the service is guaranteed all the same thanks to the QR Codes displayed in the point of sale’s forecourt/car park.
International
Your Order Please (YOP): HMSHOst International’s contactless service
Originally launched as a pilot project at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, the idea of the service is to limit the number of physical interactions by organizing the entire ordering process online. Travellers can scan a QR code on strategically placed physical banners or multimedia screens in the security control area and onwards, display the list of foodservice points supporting the service, place and pay for their online order and choose at what time to pick it up.
The advantage? Queuing for security control can be stressful, so why not pass some time doing something useful, like ordering a meal which you can then go and pick up at the agreed time in the Lounge zone, thus avoid useless queuing.
Given the success of the initiative, the idea is to test it in various parts of Europe before fully implementing it. To date, YOP is active at Heathrow and Manchester airports. It’s also available in the Eurotunnel (UK side) after the security checks and before vehicles are lined up for boarding the train. Users can wait for delivery of their orders in specially marked parking without having to get out of the car.
HMSHOST Corp. adopts self-checkouts with artificial intelligence in the USA
More and more of the Group’s American subsidiary’s points of sale are integrating this revolutionary technology in their digital transformation plans to keep abreast of the times and take payment by smartphone to another level. The artificial intelligence in self-checkout kiosks is a highly attractive smart retail innovation for making the purchasing experience faster and more fluid, which is one of the variables that’s increasingly important for customers.
The principle is simple: make checkout instantaneous and with no barcodes, cash or waiting. You add your products and pay without touching anything else other than the food you’ve chosen. With cameras whose artificial vision is on a par with the human eye, these kiosks can identify in less than a second any product put under the scanner (whether or not packaged), indicate the price and enable customers to complete the purchase and quickly get back on the move. It’s a technology that the Group is deploying more and more to satisfy its customers’ new needs and improve their purchasing experience with highly technological and innovative systems.
Grab: the largest e-commerce platform worldwilde
Grab, founded in 2014 a Singapore, is the largest e-commerce platform worldwide and thanks to the collaboration with HMSHost also brings its services to the airport, with omnichannel capabilities including a mobile marketplace, self-service kiosks and order at table technology. 
As you can read on their website, "Grab is excited to make the airport experience better", especially in this difficult period. In addition to ordering for pick up at the restaurant, travelers in select airports will be able to order and have food and beverages delivered to them, eliminating the need to leave their gate, through Grab’s strategic partnership with AtYourGate.
In few months, Grab will expand its presence in United States: contactless and safe order and pay technology solutions in Autogrill Group restaurants will be across:
- Los Angeles International Airport
- Minneapolis-Saint Paul International
- New York LaGuardia
- Tampa International
- Montréal-Trudeau International
- Miami International
- Boston Logan International
- Austin-Bergstrom International.
Some of the restaurants that will feature the new Grab service include Chili’s, P. F. Chang’s, Pei Wei, Shake Shack, and Shula’s Steak House.
Last update November 13, 2020.