Hotels are fighting hard for customers and
currently a lot of that effort goes into getting their marketing in front of
guests’ eyeballs and winning the booking. However, the one period hotels have
the guest completely to themselves is during the stay itself. Here, technology,
both at the customers fingertips and behind the scenes, is now capable of
making a real difference and winning over the customer’s loyalty says
EyeforTravel’s new free report, The Future of In-Stay Technology.
Principally this technology is about
putting the hotels services’ at the guest’s fingertips. These range from apps
that can allow the guest to immediately receive answers to their questions any
time of the day or night and book any on-site or arrange of external
experiences. Tablets that can control an entire room’s features, such as lights,
temperature, curtains, the TV and more. Smartphones that come with the room so
that the guest can be connected to services whenever they need. These
technologies are putting the hotel’s capabilities back in front of the guest
whilst making their stay a more convenient and comfortable experience.
Furthermore, these technologies not only
help hotels serve guests better and improve their ratings, they present
enormous upsell opportunities that can help restore those all-important
margins. If a hotel has managed to get a device with its app into the hands of
a consumer, then they can use this to send them push notifications about key
services. Chatbots and smart speakers can take user requests and once a hotel
has gathered enough data, use this to make recommendations based on similar
requests and customer profiles. Smarter in-room devices can put the hotel back
into position as the local expert again and allow them to monetise local experiences,
tours and activities.
Critically these technologies are also all
gathering data around every guest interaction and many are capable of
categorising and using this data in an automated manner. “Whilst I often hear
complaints in the hospitality industry that the big online players have a data
advantage that they can’t compete with – and to some extent that is true – this
is finally a chance for hotels to turn the tables,” says Alex Hadwick, Head of
Research for EyeforTravel. “Detailed guest preferences are a valuable thing and
not only are you elevating the customer experience, your reinforcing that your
hotel is delivering the service, not the intermediary. Smart tech in the hotel is
a better way of gathering, storing and utilising key information that an OTA
doesn’t have.”
Data gathered can not only be used as
mentioned above for providing guests with services but also behind the scenes
to improve staff performance. Connected technologies provide alerts on guest
requests, enabling service to be immediate. They also provide transparency
between the guest and property, and with back of house operations. Departments
know what is being worked on, when and when it is complete and from a single
source, heling to eliminate confusion. From a property-wide perspective,
Internet of Things (IoT) devices can help with scheduling the regular
maintenance of and other engineering works through notification of flaws, or
simply let the hotel know when the guest is outside of their room through door
entry monitoring, making service seamless and more efficient.
According to Pablo Rodríguez, Marketing
Manager at Stay, smarter communications between guest and hotel, such as
through a chatbot, “Eliminates mundane tasks, allowing the staff members to
focus on valuable actions that cannot be automated.”
“These days everyone is so familiar with
messaging as a means to communicate. Hotels are finding it easier to deal with
five customers directly in their rooms via chat channels, instead of having
five customers standing behind a reception counter,” explains Hammad Hussain,
Managing Director of UK and Ireland, Tink Labs.
All of these innovations are adding up to a
smarter, more responsive hotel that can take the fight back to the online
environment and re-establish the relationship between guest and their stay.
