7 Ways to Increase Game Room Productivity With a Cashless Arcade System

Every extra step you ask a guest to take costs you time, labor, and revenue. Most operators don’t realize how many those steps are.

Every game room operator is looking for ways to do more with less. Labor costs continue to rise, guests expect faster service than ever before, and every minute your team members spend on routine transactions is time they aren’t spending helping guests, maintaining attractions, or keeping your operation running efficiently.

Improving productivity doesn’t have to mean hiring more people or asking your team members to work harder. An integrated cashless arcade system can simplify purchases, reduce lines, eliminate unnecessary steps, and make it easier for guests to spend more time playing and less time waiting.

Here are seven ways to improve game room productivity with a cashless arcade system.

No. 1: Give Guests One Place to Start

Productivity problems often start before a guest plays their first game.

If guests have to purchase attraction tickets at one counter or kiosk and then go somewhere else to purchase game play, you’ve already introduced unnecessary friction. It creates confusion, increases questions for your team members, and often results in longer lines throughout your facility.

Instead, create a single purchasing experience. Whether guests are buying game play, attraction passes, packages, or other products, your system should allow them to purchase everything in one transaction instead of sending them to multiple locations. Self-service kiosks can handle many of these routine purchases, allowing your team members to spend more time assisting guests instead of processing transactions.

No. 2: Keep Guests Playing

Every time a guest has to leave the game room to purchase more credits, you’re interrupting their visit.

With CenterEdge Play’s VQF readers, guests can tap or insert a credit card directly at the game and continue playing. Combined with a flexible arcade payment system, you give guests another convenient way to purchase game play without walking away from the games.

For guests who prefer traditional play media, kiosks provide a convenient way to purchase or reload game cards and wristbands without waiting at the front counter.

No. 3: Put Your Team Members Where They Add the Most Value

Balance checks, reloads, and other routine transactions consume valuable time throughout the day. Individually, they don’t take long, but during your busiest hours, they keep team members behind the counter instead of out on the floor.

Giving guests self-service options for these routine tasks reduces interruptions, shortens lines, and allows your team members to spend more time helping guests, supporting attractions, and handling the situations that actually require personal interaction.

No. 4: Use Data to Make Better Operational Decisions

If you don’t know which games are generating the most revenue, how guests are using your promotions, or where spending trends are changing, you’re forced to make operational decisions based on incomplete information.

When your point of sale, arcade management software, payment processing, and reporting all work together, you have the information you need to identify trends, respond to issues quickly, and make smarter decisions. Instead of piecing together reports from multiple systems, you can spend your time making decisions that improve efficiency, increase revenue, and enhance the guest experience.

No. 5: Connect Your Operation Instead of Managing Multiple Systems

When your point of sale comes from one company, your arcade card system from another, your payment processing from a third, and your reporting from somewhere else entirely, your team members spend more time navigating technology than serving guests. Data has to be reconciled across multiple systems, support calls often involve multiple vendors, and answering simple operational questions becomes more difficult than it should be.

Solutions like CenterEdge Advantage, CenterEdge Payments, and CenterEdge Play are designed to work together as one connected platform, supported by a single team that can help you quickly identify and resolve issues, no matter where they arise. Purchases, payments, attractions, game play, and reporting are all part of the same software suite, giving you better visibility into your operation while eliminating many of the inefficiencies that come with disconnected systems.

No. 6: Make It Easy to Buy More

Guests are more likely to purchase additional experiences when your offers are easy to understand and even easier to purchase.

Whether you’re offering bonus game play, attraction bundles, time play, or food and fun packages, presenting those options clearly at the point of purchase helps guests recognize the value and make faster decisions. When those offers are available at both admissions and service desks as well a self-service kiosks, guests have multiple convenient ways to purchase without adding unnecessary wait times or creating additional work for your team members. And, if you give them ways to pay at the game, you make things that much easier for them.

No. 7: Build on Technology You Can Count On

Reliable technology is one of the most overlooked drivers of productivity. When a kiosk is offline, a reader stops working, or a payment issue slows transactions, your team members are pulled away from helping guests to troubleshoot technology. Those interruptions don’t just impact operations; they can also impact revenue.

Choosing proven, dependable hardware backed by software designed with built-in redundancy helps keep your operation running smoothly, even during your busiest days.

Bottom line, when your point of sale, payments, reporting, attractions, and cashless technology all work together, your operation becomes easier to manage, your team members spend more time where they’re needed most, and your guests spend more time doing what they came to do: have fun and make memories.