Pizza Hut hires ROBOT waiters to take orders and process payments at its fast-food restaurants
Ever thought the service at your local pizza restaurant was a bit lacklustre? Perhaps you'd prefer to have your order taken by a robot?
Robot waiters have been touted as the latest technological revolution in the service industry, and now Pizza Hut is jumping on the bandwagon, recruiting a fleet of walking, talking humanoid robots to take orders and process payments.
The fast-food chain has teamed up with MasterCard to develop a new app for Pepper, the humanoid robot made by Japanese technology firm SoftBank - which has already been used by Nestlé to sell coffee machines .
Pepper is an artificially intelligent robot that can read and respond to human gestures, expressions and tone of voice, allowing customers to communicate with the robot "just like they would with friends and family".
Pizza Hut said that it plans to have Pepper robots working as waiters in its restaurants in Asia by the end of 2016, to take orders and engage with customers.
The app developed by Pizza Hut and Mastercard is powered by MasterPass, the global digital payment service, and enables Pepper to process customers' payments quickly and securely.
The system allows diners to pair their MasterPass account with the robot by either tapping the Pepper icon within the wallet on their phone, or by scanning a QR code on the tablet that the robot holds.
Pepper can then approve and complete the payment by connecting to MasterPass over a Wi-Fi connection. It can also provide personalised recommendations and offers, and additional information on products.
"We are excited to welcome Pepper to the Pizza Hut family,” said Vipul Chawla, managing director of Pizza Hut Restaurants Asia.
"Core to our digital transformation journey is the ability to make it easier for customers to engage, connect and transact with Pizza Hut.
"With an order-and-payment-enabled Pepper, customers can now come to expect personalised ordering at our stores, reduce wait time for takeaways, and have a fun, frictionless user experience."
No comments:
Post a Comment