Customer experience is one of the most important driving factors behind the success of any business. However, it holds even more value in the tourism and hotel industry. After all, the main responsibility of a hotel is to show hospitality and provide the best possible experience to its guests.
But improving customer experience is no easy feat, especially when the expectations are high and diverse. Every guest has their own preferences and requirements, making it tricky to cater to all your guests. More importantly, the competition between hotels and other vacation rentals makes it more challenging, as tourists prefer to stay in a place that provides the best customer experience.
Fortunately, you can use technology to ensure guests have a comfortable stay in your hotel. Here are five ways technology can be used to enhance your hotel’s customer experience and gain a competitive edge during peak seasons.
Table of Contents
Use management software
Management plays an essential role in improving customer experience. From using hotel resources in an efficient and effective manner to booking rooms and scheduling maintenance, proper management is required for several tasks. However, it can be tough to manage a hotel, especially if you have a lot of guests, staff, and too much manual work to do. As a result, customer experience can start to slip. Au contraire, using software to automate some managerial work will reduce the overall workload and improve customer experience. In an instant, a management application can schedule several tasks, track reservations, and manage your entire hotel automatically.
For example, a vacation rental housekeeping software can streamline bed-making, cleaning, and other maintenance-related tasks. This way, your hotel, and its rooms will be tidy just in time for guests’ arrival, and your customers will always feel welcomed. Similarly, you can use software to automate other managerial tasks, such as reporting, payroll, resource management, etc., to free employees’ time so they may attend to guests.
Provide high-speed internet access
In today’s world, guests expect hotels to provide internet access. While most hotels keep this in mind, they often make the mistake of providing slow and unreliable connections, which only affects the customer experience negatively. Slow internet connections can be quite frustrating to use, especially if you intend to rely on them throughout the day as a hotel guest. You may indeed save some money by installing a slow internet connection, but you’ll lose a lot more by reducing your guest’s satisfaction. So, be sure to provide high-speed internet with enough bandwidth to cater to the needs of every guest.
Alongside a fast and stable internet connection, it’s equally important to avoid charging your customers for internet access. Today, internet access has become a basic need and must be made free to use. In fact, 7 out of 10 guests give free Wi-Fi more importance than parking, hotel location, and even free breakfast.
Incorporate automation
You can provide your guests with smart lighting and thermostats that automatically change the room’s atmosphere according to the guest’s needs. As a result, guests feel more comfortable during their stay. You can also provide fully automated customer care in the rooms. This will allow guests to control everything from room service, food ordering, entertainment, and room atmosphere with the help of an app. Additionally, you can deploy robots in your hotel. Robots capable of delivering food and cleaning rooms are already making their way into the hotel industry.
Use data analytics
As mentioned earlier, every guest has their own preferences and needs. Data analytics makes it possible to understand the needs of each of your customers and provide them with the right experience. As more people visit your hotel, you can collect data about their preferences through surveys, complaints, reviews, and observation. Once you have enough data, it can be analyzed and used to create customer personas that allow you to understand the needs of every type of customer. For example, if data collected on a certain age group suggests people like their rooms warm, you can set the right temperature before they arrive to ensure a pleasant welcome. According to the results of a study, 83% of millennials want travel brands to monitor their preferences if it’s used to give them a personalized experience.
However, when it comes to data collection, it’s crucial to focus on its security as well. You don’t want hackers stealing or destroying valuable customer data being used to enhance the guest experience. So, be sure to implement a foolproof cybersecurity plan.
Easy check-in
The traditional check-in process can be a hassle for many guests. Sometimes people just want to go directly into their rooms without going through an unnecessary process that wastes their time. Therefore, it’s a good idea to allow customers to check-in and out through their mobiles. As a result, your guests will comfortably check-in, leading to an improved customer experience. You can also allow guests to unlock their rooms through the same app used for check-in. This way, they wouldn’t have to keep track of cards and keys.
Mobile check-in also alerts hotel staff of the arrival of guests in advance. Your hotel staff can then make the right arrangements for your guests beforehand. For example, if a guest is about to arrive, you will prepare their room according to their needs for a pleasant welcome.
Conclusion
The experience guests encounter while staying in your hotel can make or break your business’s reputation. So you’ll want to do everything right to ensure high satisfaction levels. This article mentions a few ways you can use technology to upgrade your hotels and provide customers with a comfortable experience. These tips will also help you cut operational costs and maximize profitability during peak travel seasons. So, upgrade your service now.
