The technologies transforming the guest’s experience

Apps, chatbots, RFID, in-room devices, and the internet of things – a host of technologies are opening up and improving the guest’s experience finds The Future ofthe In-Stay Experience report, which is free to download now.

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.

To download The Future of In-Stay Technology report for free, click here.

The hotel that talks back is the future

Hotels are only just beginning to deploy chatbots and smart speakers but these early experiments herald the beginning of a major shift in guest communications finds The Future of the In-Stay Experience report, which is free to download now.

The hotel of the future might become an interlinked artificial intelligence that can speak back to the guest through speakers and chatbots to suggest activities to the guest, answer their queries and solve their complaints says the report. Using AI-powered voice and chat capabilities to do these tasks provides more convenient channels for guest interactions that can not only improve satisfaction with their stay but also drive revenues.

Both chatbots and voice systems working through smart speakers can be integrated into a whole system, recording all requests and integrated into a Property Management System (PMS). Largely these early investigations into interactive AI are as smart concierges for hotels, with both big and independent chains deploying the tech.

“We created a conversation concierge so that people can get all of their informational experience through channels they are more used to operating. It delivers specific responses very quickly. It positions the hotel as a trusted advisor,” says Charles Cadbury, Co-Founder of Dazzle Technology, a start-up that implements and operates smart speakers for the hospitality industry.

“Hotels are able to listen to what the guests want and get real time data of who is asking for what and when. Then they can make real time adjustments to their product or services to cater to those requests.”

The other benefit of offering these services out to guests through voice or chat interfaces is that hotels staff are alleviated of a lot of mundane tasks and can really focus on delivering a high quality of service to guests.  

Jeffrey Parker, Vice President of Hospitality Systems, Red Lion Hotels Corporation, says that, according to experts, between 50-75% of guest questions can be responded to by a Bot. “This can relieve questions to the desk staff and other departments. The appropriate way to do it is to also link to your service app infrastructure and have a warm hand-off to a real person.”

“Conversation allows you to ask very specific answers in a type of communication you are most comfortable with,” says Cadbury. “And because it’s not a live conversation, you’re not tying up staff on the phone.”

However, Parker has a warning: “Don’t ever let your app pretend to be a real person. Be transparent with your guests.” (For more on chatbots click here for our free report).

The human element is also still highly relevant in creating the background that can make these interactive AIs possible. Humans are necessary to create a culture of recording and measuring guest interactions and building up the background data. IHG used their customer service call centres to help build up their Alexa offering, for example.

“The best way to build a picture of the guest is to leverage the hotel’s greatest assets, their people, to capture every seemingly relevant detail humans need to build personal relationships,” says Armand Rabinowitz, Senior Director of Strategy and Workgroups at Hospitality Technology Next Generation (HTNG).

Similar to putting a data strategy in place, hotels need to think about the individual guest when implementing voice and chat functions. Hotels can’t just charge in and introduce voice to every room and client, privacy issues are at play too. “We need to take clues from the guest and offer services based on what profile we think they are, but not to the extent we ruin that relationship,” says Parker. Hotels need to offer guests the choice and respect their decision if they ask for connected devices to be removed. Chains such as Marriott and IHG are working closely with Amazon to develop solutions that provide the guests with a seamless experience while also protecting their privacy. Data collection and privacy issues will only be highlighted as the EU’s GDPR regulation comes into force warns the report.

To download The Future of In-Stay Technology report for free, click here.

We have also covered voice technology and its implications for travel in a dedicated new report on the topic, which is free to download now here, as well as chatbots, which can be downloaded here. 

Could hotels’ secret weapon be in-stay technology?

As hotels fight for guests’ loyalty, could the technology they use during the guests’ stay be the superweapon to turn the tide in their favour?

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.

To download The Future of In-Stay Technology report for free, click here.