Enter Virtual Front Desk — a startup company that aims to improve efficiency while keeping human interaction at the center of the guest experience. Whether events, hospitality, tech, or anywhere in between, this new remote welcoming option might be a helpful tool for your organization to improve client services.

In its essence, Virtual Front Desk is a remote client service application. With a tablet or a touch screen computer, brands — such as hotels, CVBs, or events — can offer a fully functional reception. Indeed, while this is an ideal service for accommodation properties (such as hotels or guesthouses), it also provides an attractive option for a variety of other situations: remote meeting spaces, event venues, and tourist information centres. More than a video call, Virtual Front Desk can obtain signatures and capture photos of guests, as well as sync with payment portals. It’s the Swiss Army Knife of remote reception.

Virtual Front Desk was launched as part of a pilot project in collaboration with Groupe Germain Hotels, with support from the Ministry of Tourism and the coordination of the MT Lab incubator. The virtual counter has been deployed at Hôtel Le Germain Montréal for a few weeks.

Incidentally, it’s also a timely tool in a pandemic, where limiting human interaction might be a priority for both employees and clients.

So what about the short term and vacation rental industry? If receptions are worth the investment for hoteliers, shouldn’t it be the same for Airbnb type hosts? After all, they are too, offering a hospitality experience.

Well, the answer is yes, but there are two major roadblocks in the way: the lack of a physical space for a counter and the cost attached to staffing it.

The average hotel has anything between 35 and 150 rooms located in the same building while most vacation rental hosts have only one or a few dozen doors scattered across several addresses. This makes it physically impossible for them to have a front desk for each door and the cost of staffing those would make no sense financially.

But thanks to new technologies making the impossible possible, those roadblocks are now all but lifted with the arrival of what we call: video or virtual receptions.

By installing a simple touch screen computer on a counter or a wall in a building entrance or hallway, you eliminate the need for a reception area. By doing this, you can do almost as much as one could do standing behind a physical desk. Greeting guests face to face, taking IDs, signing documents, taking payments, providing door codes, or encoding RFID cards can all be done remotely, opening up a whole world of possibilities.

Regarding on-site receptionists, a video reception can be serviced from anywhere in the world. It removes the need to pay someone to physically wait at a given address and allows for centralized services. Which in turn, facilitates training and management of human resources. A virtual front desk also reduces fraud and enhances security by verifying IDs but above all, it allows hosts to provide a key service they were not able to offer before. It is a new competitive advantage for those wanting to professionalize their operations and should be considered.