Two reception counters, handling four queues of guests. Only two people at the frontdesk handling this crowd. People are waiting in the seating area beside the frontdesk. A hotel staff member is assisting them with their check-ins on a digital pad. And you are standing there, hoping you could just get a room without going through all this.

Now imagine, if this hotel had a self-check-in kiosk. You could use it to enter your booking details, verify your ID, and make the payment, and there — “this is your keycard”, and you are simply done with the check-in. Looks like a dream?

Well, let’s make that true!

The hospitality industry is now stepping up and installing hotel self-service kiosks in order to provide hassle-free check-ins and other services to its guests.

In this blog, I am going to talk exactly about how this is enhancing guest satisfaction and what benefits it has for your property.

What Is a Hotel Self-Service Kiosk?

A hotel self-service kiosk is a digital device that enables guests to fill in the required information and get access to their rooms and other services. It eliminates the need for the front desk as it handles bookings, check-ins/outs, provides room keys, processes payments, and such likes.

The hotel kiosk system comes with various integrations. The most important one is its integration with your property management system through which it works in sync with your overall hotel data.

Along with the instant reservation for walk-in guests, it successfully serves guests who have pre-booked through the hotel or any OTA website.

While kiosks handle all the major front desk functions, your staff gets a chance to enhance the guests’ experience by interacting and providing them with quick services.

Should You Install Kiosks in Your Hotel?

The prime aspect on which the hotel industry is established is – “hospitality”. The key function of a hotel self-service kiosk is to give a boost to this hospitality.

According to this, without a kiosk, your full suite of technology solutions is not really complete. To acquire its best efficiency, installing a kiosk is a must! 

(But I am not going to push my opinion over you.)

I just want to give you a clear perspective on why kiosks are a need in this constantly growing hotel industry. For this, I will make hoteliers understand how a kiosk works and streamlines their operations effectively.

Therefore, in the next section, I am sharing all the benefits of a hotel self-check-in kiosk.

10 Benefits of Hotel Self-Service Kiosks

Hotel Self Check-In Kiosks are not just limited to guest satisfaction, it goes beyond that. Your hotel staff also get to enjoy various benefits.

So let’s just hop in and see what all wonders a hotel self-check-in machine can do:

1. Eliminate the front desk fuss

A front desk is the trickiest place in any hotel. With all the guests having unique demands and expectations, it gets difficult to perform front desk operations fluently. But with the kiosks by your side, you can turn this around.

When most of your guests will use kiosks for check-ins and check-outs, you will only have a handful of guests at the front desk who genuinely needs human assistance. And for those, your front desk staff can deliver the best of their services.

In addition, you might not require as many staff members as before (saving on that).

2. Say goodbye to queues

Availing of self-check-in and check-out services through kiosks takes not more than a few minutes. Guests just need to enter their detail, select their room, pay for it and they are out with their keycard. 

Unlike the front desk, they do not have to engage themselves in a dialogue process. This means Kiosks save you from long waiting queues.

Being a hotelier, you may agree that keeping your guest waiting is a setback. Even if you have a dedicated concierge, a guest would want to check-in at the earliest.

So if your hotel is stuck in managing the waiting lines, then the kiosk is your way out.

3. Acquire a modernized look

Nowadays guests are always on the lookout for a well-developed hotel where they can get a luxurious vibe. Along with the infrastructure, furnishing, and services, modern technology and automated operations give hotels an affluent look.

A kiosk gives a modern outlook to hospitality businesses with its functions, user-friendly interface, and digitalized technology.

Your guests use this device at check-in and check-out, so they are likely to get a long-lasting impression from its usage. It will add weight to your hotel’s image.

4. Cut down on human error

The major benefit of installing technology is that it nullifies the chances of error. It is true that we humans can misinterpret things more often than a machine. 

For instance, a human can sometimes make mistakes while processing cash payments but a kiosk will be accurate in its calculations. We may mix up things while multi-tasking but a kiosk will maintain transparency at its best.

Hence, keeping in view, that these small human errors can become a considerable reason for your guest to question your hospitality, why not use a kiosk to eliminate them all at once?

5. Upsell your resources effectively

I think it is a clear psychology that most people get skeptical and deny the additional resources when sold in offline mode. However in online mode (say while doing online shopping), with the visuals on the screen, people end up buying more things. This is why upselling your services at the front desk results in a low success rate.

At the front desk, guests do not get enough time to make a decision because (a) they are mostly in hurry and (b) they think it is a tactic to add more value to their bills.

However, with the kiosks, guests get personal space, time, and a well-showcased catalog to choose from and add the resources easily with just one tap. Moreover, the charges are added automatically so their psyche doesn’t question them on spending more.

6. Focus on meaningful guest interaction

No doubt, hotel operations take a lot of time for the hotel staff. Not only check-ins, check-outs, or guest services but handling and processing all the data on the system takes significant time. Among all this, do your staff get enough time to interact with the guests?

If not, then a hotel kiosk can make that happen. It saves the time of your guest as well as your staff to help them get along on the interaction part.

Now you know that installing a kiosk doesn’t mean cutting off human interaction. On the contrary, your staff gets to welcome your guests nicely. They can offer them great services and assistance in the meantime.

7. Add weight to personalization

The hotel kiosk system helps your guests to choose what’s best for them. At the front desk when you ask about their personal choices for the various services you have in the bucket, it gets a little too much to process at once.

Choosing a suitable set of things becomes easy when it is listed properly, you can go through the options and choose them with a tap.

For example, choosing the type of room you want: smoking/non-smoking, double bed/two separate beds, deciding whether you want complimentary lunch/dinner, what payment gateway you want to use to clear bills, and much more.

You can categorize everything in the kiosk so your guests can select them at their convenience. Along with adding value, it also automates the process of personalization.

8. Satisfy the introverts too

Being an introvert is a lot of pressure. You want things but can’t ask for them and when you finally ask, the opportunity is long gone.

(No, I am not talking about myself.)

There are times when introverts even struggle to ask important questions like, “Where is my balance worth 1000 bucks?” (Just kidding)

But this can’t be denied that there are a lot of introverted people nowadays and they simply hesitate to make decisions on the spot (say, at the front desk).

For them, a kiosk is a big-time life savior as it gives them space to choose the suitable set of services for themselves.

9. Save everyone’s time

As a hotelier, you would agree that your guest loves to save time. Not only them, but even your staff wants exactly that.

Everyone wants to accomplish a lot of things in a day. And if only checking in takes a lot of their time then it is not impressive at all.

Therefore, installing kiosks to speed up your operations is a fair decision as it saves a lot of time for both parties.

10. Keep technology by your side

As I mentioned in my previous blogs, millennials choose hotels having modern solutions, facilities, and technology. It is not just millennials but anyone traveling nowadays looks up to that.

People are getting tech-savvy and to attract them, hoteliers need to skill up at the technological parameters. Kiosks can definitely help them achieve that.

And this must be noted that once modern technologies are by your side, you also start fetching international recognition.

FAQs

The post Hotel Self-Service Kiosk: Why Is It a Must-Have? appeared first on eZee Absolute.

Hoteliers need to communicate with their guests at several stages – pre/post-booking, during their stay, and post-departure. Though handling these communications perfectly wouldn’t always bring you in a limelight but improper or dull communications can take a massive toll on your guests’ experience.

With this blog, I will give you a check on how you are lacking in terms of ideal guest communication and all the strategies you require to master it.

Why is Guest Communication Important?

Guest Communication is like a background score of your hospitality establishment. You might ignore it when it’s there, but when it is absent, you can easily sense the difference.

To set the emphasis right, here are some of the points that clearly show the importance of guest communication in the hospitality industry: 

1. Earning guest loyalty 

Have you ever wondered why few hotels are small-sized, but guests still choose them over other fancy ones?

Chances are that those hotels have cracked the code of establishing strong communication with their guests.

They have understood how to communicate with their guests, assist them with the issues to create a big impression and earn their priceless loyalty. 

2. Fulfill  your guests’ requirements

Ideal guest communication helps in getting proper feedback from your guests. And from genuine feedback, you get to know what are the issues they are facing.

When you set up effective personal communication with your guests, you become aware of the loopholes your hospitality system has.

Consequently, you equip yourself in advance with the ways to fulfill your guests’ requirements in the future.

3. Win repeat bookings

Good communication helps in building trust between any two parties. And once you win the trust of your guests it becomes easy for them to choose you among your competitors in the industry.

In this way, you can increase the flow of repeat bookings to your hotel by many folds.

Challenges in Establishing Ideal Guest Communication

In this digital era, most of the communications you establish with your guests are automated and online. 

The biggest challenge while doing so is getting feedback. Though you get to reach the masses, the masses don’t reach you back. In a way, you end up having one-way communication.

You never know if you are being received the way you intend. You can just wonder if what you are putting out to your guests is making an actual difference or not.

Besides that, there are some strategic challenges too which make the simple task of establishing communication with guests in hotels a lot more extensive.

Here are some of them:

1. Increasing digital indulgence

When you interact with the masses digitally it can create ambiguity and often end up confusing your guest. In addition to this, there are tons of companies providing different services to customers. Mostly all of them do digital marketing.

Subsequently, if you wake up to 50 notifications, it naturally will feel convenient to erase them all without even looking at what they are about.

Therefore, digital transaction of anything is easy and affordable but they cannot assure the required engagement.

2. Multi-channel communication system

Using many channels can widen the spectrum to strike conversations with your guest but at the same time, it can also bother them.

Imagine receiving the same messages on 10 different platforms! 

Sounds irritating right?

Anyone would question this desperate nature and ignore such things.

3. Slow responses and ineffective services

A slow response to your guests’ queries and ineffective services when your guests need them is a mood killer.

Sometimes, till you get in touch with them or resolve their issues, it turns out that they have not waited for your response and have moved on.

Hence, you lose a guest’s reliability.

4. Unbothered or busy frontdesk

If you are a hotelier then it could get challenging for you to welcome every guest with the same enthusiasm when your frontdesk is busy.

Well, this can be a turndown for your guests because frontdesk communication sets the whole ambiance for them. 

That’s why the waiting period in the lobby is the first place where hospitality should be made evident. If you fail to win your guests there, then only luck can save your image.

To overcome all these challenges, you need to work inside the framework of a few strategies I am discussing below.

Strategies to Boost Guest Communication in Hotels

Your first step should be analyzing where you lack at setting up ideal communication with your guests.

Once you are aware of your shortcomings, you will avoid investing your labor and financial resources in them.

Now, it is of utmost importance that we strategize how we communicate with guests and renew the outdated and extensive methods to do so.

Here are a few tips to help you with that:

1. Keep a regular touch

To get constant visits, there has to be a constant connection between your business and its potential or existing guests.

If you don’t do so your guests might forget to acknowledge you because it’s human nature to keep searching for better things endlessly.

Hence, it is quite a task to make someone settle for one thing, isn’t it?

But it is possible to achieve it if you maintain regular contact. It makes your guests feel comfortable, wanted, and welcomed. 

So, never overlook the power of connecting with your guests via digital technology to frequently let them know about what have you upgraded, how your services have improved, what’s new and profitable for them, etc.

2. Ensure a good front desk impression

If you are bad at digital communication, it is still acceptable. But if you can’t allure people while conversing with them face to face, it can be disastrous for your hotel’s reputation. Especially when you are assigned to the job at the front desk. 

Because then, you are the gateway between a guest and the hotel. It is your job to be in close proximity with your guests, handle their issues, listen to their requirements, and ensure that they are in comfort and are not feeling anxious to come to you for anything.

Though you can do everything in your power, you can’t help the situation where your frontdesk gets busy and crowded.

To combat this problem, hotels should have concierge staff to assist the guests with various additional services, in and around the hotel, that they would need. This can save your guests from waiting in queues at the frontdesk just to ask for pieces of information. 

For instance, your guest Samay wants to book a cab. But unfortunately,  the frontdesk is caught up. 
Would it be correct to keep your guest waiting? What if Samay has something urgent coming up? 

This is where a concierge staff enters the screen and plays their crucial part.

Samay can simply reach out to the concierge and get himself a cab booked. Not to mention, the concierge can also help him out with other queries. 

3. Introduce Chatbot on your website

While you are progressing with digital communication, hotels must have a website where people can visit and make direct bookings.

However, in these cases, guests can get confused with the information given on the website and would want instant assistance.

An innovative way to provide this is by introducing Chatbots on your website. The chatbot is a space that uses artificial intelligence for giving efficient replies to the queries of your potential guests.

The more instant and useful your replies to the queries are, the more your guests would be satisfied and look forward to booking you up.

In this way, chatbots can help you fill the communication gap at the stage of pre-booking.

4. Communicate using meaningful offerings

It is common nowadays to make your guests win exciting gifts, vouchers, discounts, and complimentary things so that you could win their loyalty in return.

And most of the time, you strike the conversation while offering any of these to your guests so that they get delighted.

Moreover, meaningful offerings can make you popular in a short period.

How?

Well, if you offer something really exciting then your chances to win new customers increase. It is simply because word-of-mouth advertising plays a tremendous role in these cases.

So, for those hoteliers who ask, “How to improve Guest Communication in their hotel?”, one of the simplest ways is to put offers on your services. 

But do not put your revenue at stake for doing so. Use an appropriate Revenue Management System to put dynamic pricing on your services to optimize your revenue while giving offers.

5. Be proactive

Well, when your guests have an issue and till you solve that, there exists an awkward moment. It can impact the fluency of their stay and unknowingly creates a distance.

But imagine, if there’s no space for any issue because you have provided them with a full manual to help themselves out. Now, they would efficiently look after it without having to go with an awkward situation.

Equipping your guests with the necessary information and tools in advance so that they are left with less or no queries is what a proactive hotel does.

6. Keep a separate database for Multi-Channels

Yes, you should provide clear information to your guests but that doesn’t mean you will provide it to them ten times in a row, right?

It seems funny and irritating at the same time!

But you are probably doing that.

Do you use multi-channels to get connected with a wide spectrum of your guests but end up connecting with the same one just on different platforms?

It has to stop already because it might be bothering your guests to receive the same text as an SMS, via e-mail, WhatsApp, sites of integrated OTA’s and the list is never-ending.

To curb this, you must filter your database at regular intervals so that your messages can hit the audience one time and make an impact.

Notifying the guests continuously can motivate them to shut their doors on you.

7. Personalized and authentic interactions

I’m sure you are familiar with that feeling when someone recognizes you, even though you meet them once in a while.

That is what personalization feels like.

For instance, you have a booking in a hotel and at FrontDesk, the receptionist remembers you and what special things you have asked for the last time.

Oh, she remembers that!

What an eidetic memory!

This kind of effect can buy you LOYAL GUESTS.

Not just that, you can also play the personalization game by your actions. 

Let me tell you how. 

Samay comes to your hotel for a week and you can see on your PMS records that tomorrow is his birthday. Now you can surprise him by sending a cake or providing free meals or offering a discount…

He will never forget this gesture and will tell this particular incident to his friends and family for sure. 

These personalized gestures will help you build a unique image of your hotel in front of your guests. 

Furthermore, you should also ensure authenticity while communicating with your guests.

If you give them the accurate and right amount of information with clear instructions only then they can work around it with ease. But, if you get them confused with a hefty amount of information at once, they will simply lose interest in your services.

8. Be available and responsive

Make sure that you are not burdened with tasks all the time. To give a hospitable ambiance to your guests, ‘being available’ is necessary.

Keeping them in wait can make them skeptical about your services and willingness to fulfill their requirements.

If they hardly get any responses, then they will lose interest very quickly.

Therefore, hotel technology solutions are a Must-Have for modern accommodation properties. So that the staff won’t compromise on the hospitality of their guests in order to handle extensive operations.

9. Ensure guest satisfaction

Though as a hotelier you and your staff are always providing guests with a wonderful experience while they stay, it can become unpredictable sometimes if guests have liked it or not.

You must amplify their experience and make them overwhelmed with your services and offerings so that they get open about how they feel about your hospitality.

This can only happen if you somehow manage to maintain a friendly touch with them.

And that’s the skill you should possess to know their final feedback in advance.

The post Guest Communication in Hotels: 9 Ways to Boost It appeared first on eZee Absolute.

Upon receiving the cake, I found that it was a strawberry cheesecake. So, as any of us would have done, I called the bakery and complained about the incorrect order.

The bakery’s owner noted my complaint and ensured to take corrective action about it. After half an hour, I was informed that they were sending two choco lava cakes to compensate for the earlier miss.

Now two things are worth noticing here – 

1. The wrong order ruined my customer experience
2. The apology gift increased my customer satisfaction

See, I was upset about the cake I got earlier, but receiving the new ones made me happy. This incident was a compelling factor in making me a loyal customer of the bakery.

I would even recommend it to my friends. 

The hospitality industry also works on these two verticals – Guest experience and guest satisfaction.

In this blog, we will dig deeper to understand guest satisfaction in hotels.

What is guest satisfaction in hotels?

Guest satisfaction in hotels is the measurement of how happy and satisfied your guests are with your products and services. It depends on three Q’s: Quality, Quantity and Quickness.

Let me explain this to you with the help of a scenario. You booked a stay at a hotel. Upon reaching there, you are allocated a suite room with a view of the magnificent Pacific Ocean. 

The room is well spacious, ventilated, and filled with ample amenities to make your stay a comfortable one. Even the room service and housekeeping are lightning-fast. 

With the above scenario, you can say that you had quite a satisfactory stay. Your experience was good and it was worth the investment. 

Let’s reverse the entire case. What if the room is small and missing essential amenities? How would you feel if the services are as slow as molasses? I am sure you would be disappointed.  

So, you can see that the quality, quantity, and quickness of a hotel’s services do leave an impact on guest satisfaction in the hospitality industry.

How is guest satisfaction measured in hotels?

Measuring guest satisfaction in hotels isn’t rocket science. All you need to look at is your hotel’s reviews and ratings.

You can assess guest satisfaction in two ways:

1. Use GSS (guest satisfaction survey) forms
2. Check online reviews

GSS forms assist in recording guest satisfaction scores at the individual property level. This data is available with the hotels only.

Earlier, it used to be a paper and pen method to record responses. Nowadays, a  link is shared with the guest to provide their feedback and rate their services on different parameters.

You can club all the feedback together and check for your average rating. 

Alternatively, you can check your hotel’s online reviews across all the OTAs. The best way to do this is to use online reputation management software. 

It saves you time and effort. Browsing every OTA individually and making a note of points is a hectic and time-consuming task. 

Instead, you can let the software do this work for you. It would provide you with a hotel’s daily performance report on each OTA.

It will showcase the guest satisfaction of each category separately. It could be room amenities, food quality, the hotel’s ambience and much more. 

Based upon ratings, guest satisfaction score has five levels – 

5 Star - Very Satisfied 
4 Star - Satisfied 
3 Star - Neutral 
2 Star - Dissatisfied 
1 Star - Poorly satisfied

So, you can easily check how satisfied your guests are and start working on improving it.

How to improve hotel guest satisfaction?

Certain factors affect customer satisfaction in the hotel industry; either positively or negatively. You can use 3Qs to ensure that the services offered to guests are top-notch.

Here are some easy ways to improve guest satisfaction in hotels.

a. Give a personal touch to their stay

“The single most important thing is to make customers happy. If you are making customers happy, as a side effect, they will be happy to open up their wallets and pay you.”

Derek Sivers, Founder CD Baby

That’s true. A bit of attention towards guests can do wonders. 

When I say personal touch to their stay, it implies assisting them during the entire stay. All you need to do is greet guests warmly and ask how their stay is going on, or if they are facing any issues. 

This simple gesture will give you early feedback about the guests’ experience. You will be aware of any issues the guests may be facing and have enough time to rectify the problem. 

It will eventually result in a better guest experience, thereby improving guest satisfaction in your hotel.

b. Quickly resolve guest complaints

As I said in my previous blogs, ignoring guest complaints is fatal. It could be either one shared by guests during the stay or in the form of a negative review on any OTA.

But ensure you keep a record of these complaints and provide an on-time resolution to them. For in-house guest complaints, you can instantly take corrective actions.

However, for the complaints, which are in the form of negative reviews, it’s a bit tricky. I would recommend addressing this issue personally. 

Initially you can reply with an apology for the inconvenience caused to them to calm down the situation. Post that, you can connect with guests over the phone or by mail. 

If possible you can provide a complimentary service as a gesture of goodwill. Trust me! This step works like a miracle. 

c. Don’t ignore feedback and suggestions

Whilst you are replying to reviews, you should work on those feedbacks also. Every feedback is a learning lesson. Be it a positive or a negative review.

The positive reviews will give you factors that can give you an edge over your competitors. Meanwhile, the negative ones are potential areas that need prompt attention.

These reviews are actual mirrors of your hotel. Once you start working on the services with the lowest ratings, it will automatically increase your hotel’s guest satisfaction score.

d. Offer rewards to loyal guests

Let me tell you one of the best experiences I had with a loyalty program. A couple of years back, a new cloud kitchen chain started operating in our city. 

One fine day, I saw its promotional ad on Facebook and gave it a try. The food was so great and at such reasonable prices that I recommended it to my entire office.

Guess what happened after a month? I was ordering for almost half the office daily. Soon, I reached the required benchmark to be an elite member. 

I received enormous benefits from that membership. Buy one get one free offer, a gift of hazelnut brownie on every alternate order, free delivery and many other amazing deals. 

Similarly, hotels need to create attractive loyalty programs to attract maximum guests as well as retain existing ones. 

Once you enroll guests in the loyalty program, you can offer them multiple rewards on reaching a milestone. When guests achieve the required criteria, they can receive benefits as free room nights, weekend packages, tickets to an event happening in a hotel, and such likes.  

This will leave a good impression on the guests.

Quick-tip: If you don't want to create a loyalty program, you can opt to give a farewell gift to guests at their check-out. 

e. Stay in touch with guests post-checkout

Even after check-out, guests remain your potential prospects. It’s advisable to stay in touch with them after they leave your premises.

The initial post-stay activity is sharing GSS forms via mail or WhatsApp. Hotels using chatbots can program them to deliver this service.

As I said earlier, you can work on the feedback they share. Apart from this, you can keep your guests engaged by sharing on-going offers, their loyalty membership rewards, upcoming events, and much more.

f. Keep your staff happy

“Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person – not just an employee – are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled. Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, which leads to profitability.”

Anne M. Mulcahy, CEO XEROX Corporation

I do believe in this quote. When I used to work as an intern in Lemon Tree Hotel, I was treated like a family member.

Even for a second, they didn’t let me feel like a temporary employee. In fact, I remember an incident that made me feel lucky to be a part of the hotel staff.

I had my grandparents visiting my workplace. So, I showed them around and took them for lunch in our hotel’s in-house restaurant. 

I had ordered a complete meal for them and expected an employee discount on the bill (Well, I was earning a stipend but not enough). But, when I went to make the payment, I was informed that lunch was on the house. 

It was a great feeling. And the next day, I was working happily with high enthusiasm. Eventually, it resulted in providing guests with extraordinary services.

So, you need to treat your employees in the right way. Listen to them, ask for their suggestions, reward them for their services and they will be cheered up all the time. 

This will impact on services your guests receive. Over the time it will improvise your guest experience, thereby increasing hotel guest satisfaction score.

g. Invest in technology

Technology is a vital tool in improving guest satisfaction. From AI-enabled chatbots to implementing voice-controlled gadgets, hotel tech has advanced at a breakneck pace. 

As predicted by many hoteliers, ROBOTS are the future of hospitality. But that day is still years away.

But talking about the present scenario, you need to invest in hotel technology to improve guest satisfaction. It could be a basic thing such as tablet-based room service. 

It will help guests to request room service over the tablet. It could be ordering food, room cleaning or any amenity they want to use. 

Many hotels have AI-based chatbots installed to assist guests with activities they can enjoy at the hotel. You can opt for other options as well, such as a self-service kiosk, contactless payments, virtual reality tours and others.

The post Guest Satisfaction in Hotels: 7 Ways to Improve It appeared first on eZee Absolute.