Three ways hotel tech can help your property adapt to changing guest expectations and needs
When it comes to providing a quality guest experience, anticipating guest expectations and delivering on guest needs is key. Today’s consumers are used to being catered to and thanks to technology, they can have nearly anything they want — from a three-course dinner from their favorite restaurant to a package of paper towels from Amazon — delivered right to their doorstep within minutes with just a few taps of their mobile device.
Therefore, anticipating what a guest might need before they voice the need themselves will go a long way in creating a lasting impression and, eventually, repeat business and positive word-of-mouth. But oftentimes, this seems easier said than done. So, how can your property adapt to changing customer expectations? Using hotel technology is critical.
Here are three key ways technology can help your property adapt and anticipate guest needs.
Use Data to Your Advantage
Utilizing business intelligence is the first step to anticipating your guest’s needs and wants. By deploying a staff operations hub that tracks guest behaviors, you can better anticipate what a guest might want and when they might want it. For example, have you noticed a guest always orders a glass of red wine with their meal? Add this to their preference profile so your staff knows to automatically offer them a glass of wine next time they dine at your property’s restaurant. This will make their stay feel much more customized.
On a broader scale, business intelligence and data analysis can provide comprehensive data on everything from service request frequency to the average dining check size. Learning guest behaviors helps you gain insight into who’s staying at your hotel and what their digital activities are during their stay, allowing you to meet guest expectations and make their stay more personalized.
Customization Is Crucial
Speaking of personalization, offering guests a customized experience is critical for meeting changing customer expectations — and technology can help streamline this.
Using a hotel smart-room tablet, you can greet guests by name with a welcome message and even customize a welcome note for guests traveling under the same group. More customizations like in-room lighting and temperature controls can be selected to their exact specifications.
Additionally, casting enables guests to stream their favorite content directly to their hotel room’s television. Today’s guest is more likely to want to binge a show from their favorite streaming service rather than tune into the local news through a hotel’s cable package. Put them in the driver’s seat of their own in-room entertainment by offering a casting option.
Do More with Less
Just because your property might be feeling the effects of the staffing crunch, doesn’t mean your guests have to feel it. Using hotel technology like branded mobile apps and smart-room tablets allows your guests to place in-room dining orders digitally, so guests can sit back and relax while they track their order on a smart device. Their order can go directly to your property’s kitchen, eliminating the need of having someone answer room service calls and allowing them to get started on delivering orders. The same goes for the check-in and check-out process. A hotel branded mobile app lets guests check-in on their own time, and, with keyless entry, guests can skip the front desk altogether and head straight to their hotel room upon arrival, allowing your front desk staff to take care of urgent guest requests instead of being tied up with routine check-in tasks.
Interested in learning more about how hotel technology can accommodate changing guest expectations? Request a demo today.
