Hotels often feel held hostage by
TripAdvisor reviews, but property apps, digital concierges and more are helping
hotels reach the guest and react far better to their needs says EyeforTravel’s
new report.
Hotels can now monitor and track guests
around their properties using installed apps that can access the guest’s
location or Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tied to keycards. They can
then log every guest request through AI-driven concierges operating through
chatbots or smart speakers that mean the guest doesn’t need to ring down to
front desk. The growing Internet of Things (IoT), which can be controlled from
a single device in the guest’s room or their app, can allow the hotel to know
what temperature the guest likes their room to be set at, what entertainment they
watch, and when items need to be replaced.
Armed with this technology, hotels can
personalise down to an individual level for guests they know and use aggregate
data to predict what they should recommend to new guests. Services are even
springing up that amalgamate data from many different hotels to learn from
similar properties to identify patterns in guest behaviour and make
recommendations for add-ons to the guest’s stay.
This will give the hotel of the future a
key edge in increasing customer satisfaction and also driving increased
revenues from ancillaries or pushing entirely new revenue streams.
The new ability to react in a smarter and
faster way to a guest will also help to push up those all-important review
scores, as the best time to receive guest feedback is while the guest is still
on property. Hotel platforms and apps make it easier for guests to instantly
message any issues to the property. Being able to fix an issue before it
escalates into a complaint is vital in today’s world of online review sites and
digital endorsements.
Following up with a bottle of champagne
delivered to the room or a free dinner, can make a guest less likely to vent on
TripAdvisor, or even better, turn the complaint into a compliment with a post
about the fantastic service provided by the hotel. This has a demonstrable
effect on the bottom line, with increased review scored tied to better
performing hotels with higher revenues according to more than one study.
However, with this power hotels will also
need to learn where the fine balance lies between helping their guests and
becoming overbearing. “Learning what a customer orders, be it craft beer or
double-shot espresso, is a benefit. Offering specials that walk that line are
okay, but to cross it needs to get consent from the client,” says Jeffrey
Parker, Vice President of Hospitality Systems, Red Lion Hotels Corporation. “If
Joe Smith tells us he wants Jack Daniels and a double-cheese burger in his room
with every stay, we need to act on that. If he always orders a cheese burger,
we should suggest that,”
The hotels that master guest communications
and services through this growing proliferation of smart technologies in a way
that is appropriate for their clientele will be the ones that come to thrive in
the increasingly competitive accommodation market.