How can AI improve guest experience?
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How do digital assistants benefit hotels?
By implementing a chatbot-like digital assistant, a hotel can handle typical guest requests more efficiently (room service, request for new towels, maintenance issues) and be accessible 24/7. Chatbots also don’t require guests to download an app, because they operate through the hotel website or the guests instant messaging apps such as Whatsapp or Telegram. This fact alone ensures that digital assistants in the form of a chatbot have a much bigger adoption rate with guests. But how exactly can they be used to improve the hotel industry?
1. Speeding up the check in process
Through a digital assistant in the form of a chatbot you are have the ability to check in before you physically arrive at your destination. It can be done by taking a picture of your ID or passport, or just typing up your personal info needs for the hotel system to check you in. You can save valuable time and just skip the line at the front desk and go straight to the pool!
2. Managing a Guest’s stay
From your arrival to departure, digital assistants can send a regular stream of helpful updates and information related to a guest’s stay. A chatbot, rather than the front desk agent, can notify a guest when his or her room becomes available, when and what is for breakfast and also inform them of activities or amenities that the guest may like. It can even be used to set wake-up calls and notify guests of any dinner, spa or other reservations they may have made. For hotel personnel, this level of automation reduces the burden of simple queries directed at human staff he front desk phone. It also significantly cuts down the manpower waste associated with missed reservations and appointments.
3. Personalized Upsell opportunities
The chatbots most graceful ability, though, hides in it’s 24/7 availability and communication with customers through concise answers, which can contain all sorts of notifications, whether it be about some available features like a room upgrade, spa services or some other add-on activities just to name a few. The very core of the digital assistant functionality, it being powered by machine learning algorithms, enables them to have pleasant interactions with customers, lacking any kind of ill-spiritedness. Thanks to that customers find the interactions to be helpful, informative and personalized to them, which as a consequence brings about upsell conversion.
4. Automating routine Guest inquiries
It has been found that about two thirds of questions and requests directed at the front desk are repetitive in their nature. They are some 5 or 6 odd tasks, which through proper set up of a digital assistant resolves with complete ease. For instance, the whole of room resupply aspect in a hotel can be handed over to a voicebot (think Alexa or Google Home), which would be placed in each room and could take in these request and answer some basic questions such as the working hours of certain hotel amenities and other basic information a customer could have at any given time while enjoying their stay.
5. Ordering room service
Using a digital assistant for room service orders such as; meals, drinks or amenities, is much more efficient than having a guest calling the kitchen, or even worse, having the guest call the front desk which then calls the kitchen. Chatbots have access to up to date menu changes and have the ability to provide visual representations of dishes on the menu, enabling guests to click on a photo and instantly order. Want to offer your guests special deals on meals and drinks that can be sent to their room? Using a digital assistant, the receptionist no longer has to call the room to inform them of special deals and intrude their privacy. Your digital assistant messages them with a carefully thought out upsell recommendation that is personalized for their guest profile. All of this automates processes that usually slow down the hotel operations, freeing up the staffs time to focus on the guest and provide the best service possible.
With the correct integration into a hotel’s existing CRM or PMS system, an AI-powered digital assistant can provide next-gen personalized experience the guest has grown to expect.
6. Keep in touch even after checkout
As the guests stay comes to it’s end, chatbots present the perfect brand representatives to request feedback from guest based on their satisfaction. They are also perceived friendlier than intrusive apps and can therefore even bring about additional room bookings as a direct consequence of that. This can be achieved through incentives given to past guests to fill out the feedback surveys, which in turn enable improvement of existing services and possibly development of new ones, if they are needed and guests are motivated to make a second booking, all the while boosting their brand loyalty.
Conclusion
Digital assistants are the perfect tool to add to your arsenal if you wish to successfully manage the continuous stream of routine guest requests, inquires and questions. By doing so, the AI can free up human staff from mundane tasks, and let them focus on providing the unique and human personal touch that, combined with the capabilities of modern technology, truly enhances the guest experience.
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