Just a few weeks since the product extended to hospitality, the Youtip gratuity system has partnered with Volara to facilitate tipping at hotels through voice commands. Guests at properties with in-room voice assistants powered by Volara can leave a gratuity for hotel staff by scanning a QR code on Google’s Hotel Solution or giving a voice command to Amazon’s Alexa.
“When I read about Youtip launching a digital tipping solution, I saw an immediate advantage to featuring their QR code for digital tipping on our contactless guest engagement and touchless room controls solutions,” said Volara CEO Dave Berger. “With fewer people carrying cash, and even less service workers feeling comfortable receiving it, leveraging the in-room voice assistant to leave a tip is a no brainer. I have had the pleasure to work with Youtip co-founder and CEO Sarah Taveprungsenukul on other integrations in the past and knew that we could quickly bring this joint technology to market. We believe this collaboration will make adding voice assistants to guestrooms even more valuable to operators, staff and guests, as voice command is truly the safest way to communicate today.”
Volara provides platform-agnostic voice-based conversation management software and a secure integrations hub that voice-enables existing hotel technologies. In addition to facilitating digital tipping via the Google Hotel Solution, Volara also helps guests make calls, play music, watch shows, book services, turn on/off TVs and set alarms without lifting a finger. Guests also are accessing a range of entertainment, information, recommendations and services by speaking in their rooms.
Volara can also voice enable digital tipping via Youtip on Amazon Alexa devices. In addition to leaving a tip, guests can quickly rate service and leave feedback for the hotel staff.
“We are thrilled that Volara stepped up to be the first integration partner for Youtip,” Taveprungsenukul said. “The sky is the limit to Youtip’s integration potential. By placing a QR code for digital tipping on Google Nest Hubs or enabling Amazon Alexa devices to initiate the tipping process on voice command, we are enabling operators to put more money in employees’ paychecks, and they can simultaneously benefit from our full transactional reporting and rating and review feature. It’s a win for everyone involved.”
Youtip is Payment Card Industry compliant and utilizes the built-in security of Apple’s Apple Pay and Google’s G Pay. The company charges a convenience fee on every transaction to the person leaving the tip. QR codes can be leveraged to process both pooled and individual gratuities.