Execution: the Achilles Heel of cool new stuff

I’m heading into Finovate in a couple of hours. The UN general assembly is in town, and the only reasonable Starwood hotel I could find was the Aloft in Harlem. It’s amazing that this hotel has exactly the same feel as its counterpart at the Denver Airport…but I digress. I’m writing because Aloft has a cool feature called Keyless Entry. Very simply, I checked in on my SPG app, was given my room (which puzzled the clerk as I tried to check in again – apparently I didn’t even need to stop at the front desk), and my phone was to serve as my key. Brilliant in theory, but in practice I overshot my floor on the elevator because I couldn’t activate the security pad quickly enough, and getting into my room and the health club took several swipes (5-10 seconds) each time. So while I like ditching the plastic key, that convenience is more than outweighed by the hassle of having to call up the app (which takes 5-10 seconds itself to load) and then match it to the pad. I’m using a plastic key next time. Another great idea is using a phone’s camera to capture data, most notably a U.S. driver’s license. I love the demos I’ve seen at prior Finovate events, but when I’ve tried it to open new accounts, it simply didn’t work. Just to show I’m not wholly negative, I also activated my BofA TouchID login today. It worked beautifully, and now I can stop typing in a truly secure password with my thumbs! BofA waited until they got it right (at least for me!). What’s the moral? When rolling something new out, you’d better be sure that it works. Few consumers will give you a second chance, at least not anytime soon, particularly when the alternative is almost as good and the experience is tried and true.