The hospitality industry is fiercely competitive, and hoteliers worldwide are putting extra effort into their endeavors to improve hotel guest experience. But why is customer satisfaction so crucial for the success of the business and its revenue?
The truth is that guest experience is directly related to guest satisfaction, reflecting on business performance. Studies have shown that most dissatisfied customers never share their feedback with the company. Instead, they leave and do not use your services again.
However, they share their negative experiences with people they know or leave online reviews. On the contrary, satisfied guests will likely come to your property again, recommend it to friends and family, and become loyal customers.
It’s to a hotel’s advantage to make a guest’s stay memorable to increase their revenue and gain potential clients.
Today, thinking of new ways to improve hotel guest satisfaction becomes increasingly challenging with growing customer demands. To set your hotel property apart from the competition and stand out from the crowd, you need to provide remarkable guest service for your clients. Hoteliers are turning to innovative, high-tech digital solutions to meet market demands.
In today’s article, we’ll discuss ways to improve hotel guest experience, increase revenue, and turn your guests into loyal customers by leveraging digital technologies.
Make your marketing mobile-first for a better guest experience
The first impression is often essential, and in hotels, it begins long before the guest enters the hotel’s premises. It starts with their travel planning and continues during their research and booking.
Caring for your customers’ needs and trying to provide them with a solution shows genuine concern, so if you are in the hotel business, try to imagine their customer journey and anticipate their obstacles.
Hotel guests need a mobile-friendly experience
Studies show that the customer demand for an intuitive mobile experience in the travel and hospitality industry is continuously and rapidly growing. More people start planning their journeys and researching on their mobile devices often while on the go. Lots of bookings and room upgrades are also being made via a smartphone.
Mobile-first marketing helps your business
The increasing demand shows the necessity for hotels to introduce mobile-first marketing strategies and processes to facilitate the guest journey and turn it into a pleasant guest experience. A mobile-friendly website is not only a requirement on the guest side but also beneficial for your Google ranking, which can potentially gain more online engagement.
Image Source: Pexels.com
Use a cloud-based property management system to provide better customer service
Great customer service will significantly improve the overall guest experience in your hotel. But you’ve already trained your staff perfectly, how could you possibly improve it even further? Using a cloud-based property management system (PMS) can be your secret weapon in this endeavor.
What can PMS help me with ?
PMS has already successfully erased old-fashioned analog hotel operations by providing hotels with a centralized system and facilitating organizational tasks, functions, transactions, schedules and processes. But cloud-based PMS adds flexibility and scalability to your business, enabling you to access important information from everywhere and grow your tech solutions parallel to your business.
Improved security
A cloud-based PMS is a more secure alternative to onsite systems and servers because it guarantees continuity even during natural disasters affecting the local area and offers limitless availability.
Even if there’s a local power outage, you can still log in to the system from a different device and conduct business. Your data is hosted in multiple remote data centers, minimizing the possibility of losing it.
But how does it improve customer service ?
A cloud-based PMS can help you improve the hotel customer service experience and provide a personalized guest service. With various integrations, your PMS automates your hotel operations and serves your customers quickly and seamlessly.
Handling guest inquiries and managing guest preferences is easier than ever – checking availability, switching rooms, upgrading services, optimizing direct bookings, automated emails, you name it. It’s no wonder why 96% of hotel software buyers are interested in purchasing cloud-based PMS.
Unlock keyless entry for the ultimate guest experience
A positive guest experience is fantastic, but what about providing the ultimate guest experience? Why not invest in your business and make your guests feel like they’ve entered a door to the future?
Why keyless entry ?
Sounds far-fetched? Maybe not so much. Today you can unlock keyless entry systems and give your guests keys to their hotel rooms without them visiting the front desk and lining up at the queue.
Mobile keys are the high-tech and contactless alternative to old-fashioned hotel room keys and magnetic keycards. They are environmentally friendly and need minimal maintenance, providing a high return on investment for hotels.
How to provide the ultimate guest experience ?
High-tech digital solutions like keyless entry systems have integrations with other software such as online booking systems, online check-in and PMS.
Investing in mobile keys gives your guests complete freedom to check in from anywhere they want and complete the administration work whenever possible. You give them their room keys before arriving at the hotel, which raises their trust and loyalty to your brand.
Keyless entry systems help achieve the ultimate guest experience in multiple ways :
- Skipping the front desk lines
- Going straight to the hotel room without visiting the front desk
- Ability to use their own mobile devices instead of the hotel property
- Less worry over losing a key
- Improved feeling of security
- User-friendly interface
- Seamless experience
- One key for the hotel room and multiple common amenities
- Sustainable and eco-friendly solution
- Improved health safety precautions
Image Source: Unsplash.com
Offer more self-service options through a mobile app for improved customer service
Mobile apps have been an ongoing trend in the hospitality industry, and experts say this technology is here to stay. Hotel apps offer numerous features and possibilities for hotels and their guests, enhancing business operations and improving customer experience.
Benefits for hotels
Hotels can benefit from mobile apps by creating a branded and user-friendly experience for their guests, improving their services and guest satisfaction levels. By integrating an app with the hotel’s PMS, hoteliers can receive valuable data and reports of guest behavior and current trends, helping them analyze and reconsider their marketing strategies.
AI features make upselling seamless by showcasing special offers and pop-ups based on personal preference and previous search inquiries, helping the hotel maximize its revenue. A mobile app significantly reduces employee workload, allowing staff members to focus on providing supreme customer service.
Benefits for guests and self-service options
Hotel guests benefit from a hotel app by having easy and user-friendly access to all the information they may need through their own mobile devices. Hotels can modify the app so guests can easily access contact information, property maps, in-room control, mobile keys, special services, activity tours and much more.
Self-service options through a hotel app are a major benefit for hotel guests since studies confirm that 67% of customers would use a self-service feature rather than contacting an employee or a customer service representative.
Such self-service features may vary depending on the hotel’s services and offers, but let’s see some examples :
- Ordering room service
- Upgrading a room type/size
- Booking appointments (e.g., SPA, tours, restaurant reservations)
- Making purchases
- Accessing FAQs
- Getting a room key without going to the front desk
- Self-check-in and check-out
- Making payments
- Leaving reviews
- Requesting a late check-out
- Managing bookings
How can you improve customer service with a hotel mobile app ?
Hotel apps allow hoteliers to improve customer service by quickly responding to guest inquiries. Hotels can include FAQs and chatbots or in-app messaging for guests to connect to staff members with an app. They’re also an additional communication channel that your guests can use.
Use interactive TV to greet and guide
The hospitality industry practically revolves around providing supreme customer service and personalized experiences. Hoteliers can use interactive TV to greet their returning guests and guide their new clients through possible services and options to get the most out of their stay.
With an interactive TV, you can add complementary services, personalized greetings and special offers related to the specific guest’s preferences. You can turn the in-room TV into an advertising avenue, upsell and utilize customer loyalty programs for repeat guests.
Personalization extends to the guest’s ability to stream their favorite TV shows and movies, choose the music they like and connect their own devices. You can guide your guests to your services and amenities such as SPA treatments, F&B offers, meeting spaces and conference rooms.
Image Source: Unsplash.com
Exceed expectations with fast and reliable Wi-Fi
Fast and reliable Wi-Fi is a must in the hospitality industry as travelers use the internet for various tasks, from casually browsing the net to attending online meetings and streaming online videos requiring lots of bandwidth.
Nowadays, hotel guests use more than one device to conduct their business, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, smartwatches, etc. Hotel operations and staff members also require fast internet access to execute their tasks and operations successfully. All these factors add to the absolute necessity of a fast and reliable hotel Wi-Fi.
Hoteliers can easily exceed customer expectations by investing in high-speed internet access (HSIA) and a private network that meets all bandwidth and speed requirements. HSIA will leave your guests happy and boost all your online reviews, as Wi-Fi is one of the most crucial criteria for a potential hotel guest researching accommodation options.
FAQs
How can I improve my hotel guests’ experience ?
Hoteliers can improve their guests’ experience by exceeding their expectations and offering innovative services utilizing new digital technologies.
What are the six things we can do to improve the hotel experience ?
The six things you can do to improve the experience in your hotel are :
- to make your services mobile-friendly
- implement cloud-based PMS
- use keyless entry
- offer more self-service options
- use interactive TVs
- provide HSIA
What are ways in providing the best hotel service experience ?
The best way to provide a supreme hotel service experience is to predict guest expectations and personalize their stay. Currently, the best method to achieve this is utilizing software with analytics, reports and AI and adjusting your marketing strategy and business operations accordingly.