Gone are those days when you would use WhatsApp only to connect with your friends and family.

Whatsapp is on everyone’s phone.

Yes, literally 9 out of 10 people use WhatsApp daily, unless they’re in China or parts of Southeast Asia.

And with such a wide audience to cater to, WhatsApp has evolved and now offers WhatsApp Business.

Today, as accommodations from all around the world are keeping abreast with new trends, WhatsApp Business for hotels is becoming pivotal.

This might sound a bit perplexing but once you start exploring, the avenues that WhatsApp Business can open for hotels become evident.

So, without further ado, let’s dive into the topic.

Whatsapp Integration in the Hospitality Industry

The WhatsApp you know from your personal use is different than the one I am covering in this article.

WhatsApp Business app and WhatsApp business API are two major options for hotel businesses that have so many features to offer.

They both might sound similar but in terms of use cases and features, there are significant differences.

Let me explain it to you.

WhatsApp Business for hotels has gained good traction in recent times. And why not? After all, it seems to be a decent choice for several types of industry with features like business profile, quick replies, automatic greeting messages, automatic away messages, contact labels, message statistics, catalogs, etc. And it’s a free app not to mention.

However, for hotel businesses where communications happen on a much wider level, WhatsApp Business solely doesn’t work all the time. Accommodation businesses need some of the additional capabilities to enhance their operational efficiency and customer experience.

This is exactly where WhatsApp Business API integration comes into the frame and does the magic.

An Application Programming Interface (API) for WhatsApp Business allows you to integrate it with your hotel management system and explore a whole new dimension.

And this brings me to the next point,

How Can Whatsapp Benefit Hotel Operators?

Speaking of benefits, they are all tangible and cannot be overlooked. And in this section, I am covering the ones that make more sense to a hotelier.

1. In terms of operations

1.1 Get timely booking notifications

One of the top benefits of integrating Whatsapp for hotels with your property management system is that you get timely messages and notifications regarding every booking.

For example, you’re out of the station but you still want to keep yourself updated with the booking flow at your hotel. You can simply opt for a notification option and receive a WhatsApp message whenever there’s a confirmed booking.

Not to mention, you can also receive notifications and messages for canceled bookings, the ones that are on hold, and rescheduled bookings. 

1.2 Stay updated with all the crucial reports

Reports are crucial for hotel owners. It allows them to take a deeper look at all the happenings of the hotel and make informed decisions.

Now, what if you could get these reports directly to your phone without even installing any application?

Sounds intriguing, right?

With WhatsApp Business integrated with your hotel PMS, you can get reports on – high balance, daily arrival and departure, concierge report, daily forecast, daily sales recapitulation, POS terminal, and whatnot.

Keeping yourself abreast with all these reports helps you in getting to know how’s your accommodation performing and what you can do to make things great.

Additionally, you can also opt to receive reports that are important to you. And if you’re not sure, here’s an article on reports that are necessary for every hotelier to analyze.

1.3 Communicate better

WhatsApp’s sole purpose itself is to help individuals and businesses communicate better.

However, “How can WhatsApp help hotel businesses in terms of communication” is the question here. 

Here’s how it works:

1.3.1 With guests

Apart from all the happy-go-lucky marketing messages, it is also important to keep your guests updated with details regarding their stay.

Now, for a moment, step into the shoes of a traveler and check into a hotel. The very moment you enter your room, you receive the wifi password on WhatsApp. Sounds like something right, isn’t it?

Later, you go to the in-house restaurant to have lunch and decide to pay along with the final bill. The very moment you step out of the restaurant you receive the bill on WhatsApp for reference. Not to mention, this also reduces the chances of any discrepancy.

And finally, when you check out of the hotel, you receive your invoice straight into your WhatsApp invoice.

Communications are just about “Hi” and “Hello”, keeping your guests updated with everything also counts. And in this scenario, WhatsApp has done exactly that.

1.3.2 With staff

In terms of staff, communication is mostly about keeping your employees updated with tasks, shifts, etc.

Here’s an explanation of the use case with a scenario.

For example, all your employees have WhatsApp installed on their phones. Every time they are assigned a task, they get notified through a WhatsApp text. Once the task is completed, s/he can mark the task as completed right on the chat window and it gets updated on the PMS.

Now, if that isn’t the definition of convenience then I don’t know what is.

Furthermore, you can also use WhatsApp to keep your hotel staff updated with their roasters and other information with the help of a chatbot. All they need to do is interact with the chatbot to retrieve the required information.

1.4 Share catalogs, payment links, and more

Again, it’s time for an example.

(I and my love for examples are just eternal.)

Joe checks into your hotel today. And after a long flight, he couldn’t go to the restaurant to eat.

Feeling bad?

Let’s fix things for Joe.

Joe arrives at your hotel and while checking in he mentions that he’s really tired. Now, like a good hotelier, you send Joe your in-house restaurant menu on WhatsApp. Joe orders food, gets it delivered to his room, and also gets a link on his WhatsApp for payment.

Isn’t this amazingly convenient?  

Be it a catalog, menu, payment links, or folios, WhatsApp’s integration with your hotel PMS allows you to share and receive everything that matters.

2. In terms of sales and marketing

2.1 Acquire more leads

WhatsApp for acquiring leads might sound a little weird, isn’t it?

But Pal, it does work magically.

This is more of a default advantage of WhatsApp. When you have a WhatsApp business account, you can integrate it into your hotel’s website.

Every time someone visits your website, they see the option to chat directly with your hotel.

Now, for instance, “that someone” texts you, inquires about rooms and prices, and then leaves.

What are you going to do about it? Drop it right there?

Nope!

Save the contact for future pitches but don’t forget to mark. And this brings me to the next point…

2.2 Mark leads/guests according to labels

WhatsApp Business has a labeling feature.

For example, you can label people/contacts who texted you as a fresh lead and can later curate personalized marketing messages and send them to him/her.

In the same way, you can label other contacts as well — be it for a guest, existing guest, potential guest, or just a lead.

2.3 Segment contact list

Another feature that seems a little new?

Here’s the real deal.

Once you’re done labeling your leads or guests, you can create dedicated broadcast lists for each label.

Think of it as audience segmentation.

Now that you have different broadcast lists for each type of label, all you need to do is send the right message at the right time.

And guess what? If you have an audience from various parts of the world, you’ll find it cost-effective to connect with them, since WhatsApp doesn’t charge a fee for international communication.

2.4 Schedule messages

But wait.

There are times when you might not want to stay awake just to send a marketing message to an audience in a different time zone.

This is where scheduling comes into the feature.

You can schedule your messages according to the broadcast list and the time zone they are in, leaving no stone unturned for your WhatsApp marketing efforts.

2.5 Understand customer engagement with statistics

One of my favorite features is the analytics part.

An integrated WhatsApp Business account for hotels allows you to see the analytics reports about your account activity.

You can run real-time monitoring of messaging and spending analytics for your WhatsApp Business account, view the metrics of all conversations, and check graphs to learn how each metric is performing across time.

The post Whatsapp Integration for Hotels: Main Reasons for Hoteliers to Bet on It appeared first on eZee Absolute.

Over the period of time, it became the most convenient mode of communication, surpassing regular calls and messages. Everybody you meet these days asks, ”Can you share your WhatsApp number?” or ”Are you available on WhatsApp?” 

With the tremendous rise in the number of users, hotel WhatsApp marketing is the new technique for business owners to stay connected with a large number of guests.

There are 2000 million monthly active users on WhatsApp.

Statistia

Yet, it still stays as an unexplored medium. People are surrounded with countless doubts and are hesitant to try it. I’m sure you might have some of them too. This blog tells you everything you need to know about hotel WhatsApp marketing.

What is WhatsApp for hotels?

It’s a type of messenger marketing which involves business promotion via WhatsApp. 

Hotel WhatsApp marketing is a way to stay in touch with your guests 24*7 and keep them updated about your property. 

You can use a personal WhatsApp account for this. However, it won’t give that professional impact on your guests. Hence, it is recommended to use WhatsApp for Business. 

What is WhatsApp Business?

WhatsApp business is an application launched by WhatsApp Inc for professionals. It gives them a platform to showcase their business (new offers, services, products, promotions)and stay connected with their customers.

Additionally, WhatsApp Business can be integrated with a hotel PMS using WhatsApp Business API. This integration of the messaging app helps in streamlining and enhancing communication, operational efficiency, and customer experience.

What is the difference between WhatsApp Business and WhatsApp Personal?

Since WhatsApp Business is built specially for the professional purposes , the private counterpart of the app has certain features making it different from the latter. Let’s compare the two of them:

What are the benefits of hotel WhatsApp marketing?

Before investing into any marketing techniques, everyone looks for its benefits. Let’s understand how WhatsApp marketing is beneficial for the hoteliers.

1. Maximum reach

Hotels have databases collected every day from bookings and inquiries. They can be used for the promotions and reaching out to guests. The amount of correct data you have is proportional to the reach you’d have in your audience. Eventually, this leads to growth in your booking ratio.

2. Easy mode of communication

With billions of users, WhatsApp is one of the widely accepted modes of communication. Many hotels have their WhatsApp number displayed on the websites. This makes it convenient for the guests to reach out to them.

Any guest can save the contact number and connect with the hotelier directly for his inquiries. This results in the generation of a potential lead for the hotel. 

Apart from that, you can create WhatsApp groups with your staff. It will reduce the communication gap between everyone, cover daily reports, weekly concalls and other official tasks. 

3. Works as a mode of booking

WhatsApp has recently introduced a payment option. However, this facility is available only in the personal version, where you can transfer any amount of money to anyone in your contact list.

You can get it integrated with your property’s bank account. This will assist you in generating instant bookings and avoiding payment gateway charges.

4. No cost promotion strategy

Everyone knows that WhatsApp is a free application. No hidden fees, zero transaction charges, free calling and unlimited messaging are some of its amazing features. This helps you to market your hotel at a broader level, that too without investing any amount of money.

5. Creates a brand presence

Similar to websites, having a WhatsApp business profile defines your brand. It gives your guests an impression of your approach towards business. 

As a hotel, you can also use a catalogue to highlight your property’s details. These could be room amenities and categories with photos, facilities and so on. This will create brand awareness amongst your guests.

How to use WhatsApp marketing for hotels?

Now that you are thorough with the benefits, here’s how you can use WhatsApp to market your hotel.

1. Collect and manage guests’ database

As I mentioned earlier, guests’ data collection and management is a regular task in hotels. All you need do is segregate them and save those details for future marketing. Remember, without that it won’t be possible for you to take the next step.

2. Create a specific broadcast list

Once you’ve prepared a list of contact numbers, you need to create a broadcast list. For that, take into consideration the booking patterns of your guests. For instance, some of them would be visiting only on festive occasions, while corporates are frequent ones, and so on.

Depending upon this, you can create guest-specific broadcast lists; such as corporate guests, regular customers, yearly vacationers, monthly weekenders, solo travellers, and others. 

This will streamline your promotion strategy for different categories. However, ensure that the recipients have saved your WhatsApp number. 

3. Schedule frequency of your promotion and messages

This is yet another important task in hotel WhatsApp marketing. You don’t want to flood your guests with too many messages. Eventually, they’ll end up blocking you or reporting you. 

Instead, try to optimise your frequency of messaging. The best way is to create a calendar for it. It’ll assist you in keeping a track of every broadcast you do. Moreover, analysing your campaigns becomes easier with this.

4. Create message templates

It’s better to have message templates available for a quick reply. It’ll save your time and create a good impression on your guests with your prompt response. 

It could be anything, from welcome messages to check-out and review requests. 

5. Promote your hotel

Now that you’ve all the mise-en-place, it’s time to start promoting your hotel as per the schedule. However, just start with one segment at a time. 

If you do multiple broadcasts together, it’ll jeopardize the entire reason for the campaign. Further, it would become quite a complex task to analyse the results.

6. Analyse and improvise

Once you start the promotion of one vertical, start analysing these 3 aspects – 

• List Authenticity
• The number of users reading it
• Action taken by users.

Post analysis, you can work on strategies to get more attention from the audience. It could be designing promotional messages which are sent to them, attractive offers, highlighting social activities, and so on.

What types of WhatsApp messages can hotels send?

Based on your requirements and choice, you can keep multiple messages for each query. Here, I’m listing out various types of messages you can send to your contacts.

1. Pre-arrival message
2. Post-check-out message
3. An instant reply to queries
4. Feedback collecting message

How to analyse hotel WhatsApp marketing campaigns?

An analysis helps you take corrective measures and improve your strategies. 

Here are 3 major aspects that you need to take into consideration for analysing any WhatsApp campaign.

1. Data authenticity

It’s not necessary that all the messages and broadcasts you send would be delivered to everyone. Sometimes, they might get skipped or remain undelivered due to incorrect numbers. 

You need to filter out such numbers from your list. It’ll help you get accurate results for the active users. .

2. Readers count

As I said above, you need to check for delivered messages, but there is an addition to it – the readers count.

Depending upon the number of readers, you’ll be able to analyse the right audience for your promotions. Moreover, while filtering data, you can just keep the engaged readers in broadcast lists. 

3. Click to action count

Every WhatsApp campaign is associated with a certain click to action. This can be in the form of website redirects, calls, or instant replies. 

These analytics also give you the details of action taken on your message. This allows you to keep a track on how effective your promotions are.

What are the mistakes to avoid in hotel WhatsApp marketing?

Every marketing strategy can be success or failure. Hotel WhatsApp marketing isn’t an exception. The reasons for failure can then turn into your learnings. Here I am listing out some of the common reasons behind those failures: – 

• Flooding guests with frequent promotional messages 
• Targeting the wrong audience
• Ignoring performance
• Using the group to communicate instead of broadcasts
• Irregular campaign schedule 
• Poor content quality

Make sure you avoid these mistakes, if you want to achieve results from your hotel WhatsApp marketing strategy.

The post Here’s Your Ultimate Guide To Hotel WhatsApp Marketing appeared first on eZee Absolute.