A brief breakdown on how a guest experience platform can meet today’s guests’ unique needs.

In the past couple of years, consumer behavior and preferences have shifted as they became accustomed to engaging in personalized and digital experiences in their daily lives such as using fitness apps, ride shares, and food delivery. Hotels need to meet the expectations of this new digitally driven audience in order to remain competitive. But finding out what digital technology will work best with a property can seem like a daunting task. Consider adopting a guest experience platform.

Just what is a guest experience platform? In general, it is a cloud-based software that enables guests to access and request hotel services right from their smartphone or in-room tablet. A comprehensive guest experience platform will include features such as mobile key, mobile check-in, guest messaging, and staffing tools. A guest experience platform is often flexible, able to adapt to any property’s unique needs by adding or subtracting features, it’s easily scalable, and often includes reporting tools that can be used to provide a more personalized guest experience.

Read on to find out how a guest experience platform can help hoteliers meet next-generation guest expectations and set hotels apart from competitors.

1. Hoteliers Looking for Solutions to Deliver a Modern Guest Experience

Today’s guests are looking for greater control over their hotel stay and a more personalized guest experience. With a guest experience platform, hoteliers can meet these modern guest needs and have the ability to exceed expectations.

The great part of a comprehensive guest experience platform is the range of guest-facing features that can give guests more control over their stay such as voice-enabled room controls, TV casting, in-room dining, and more. For example, INTELITY’s mobile check-in includes ID verification and payment tokenization which enables guests to check-in pre-arrival and completely sidestep the need to go to the front desk upon arrival. As guest behavior continues to evolve, having the option to add features can help ensure a property has access to future hospitality tech developments they may want.

With a guest experience platform, hoteliers can also offer a more personalized guest experience. Guests today are looking for unique stays, want promotions and offers tailored to their personal preferences, and desire more authentic experiences. Consumers are experiencing more personalization in other areas of their lives so it makes sense that they are also looking for the same experience in their hotel stay. With a guest experience platform, hoteliers can collect a wealth of guest data which they can in turn use to provide greater personalized service for each guest.

2. Reduce Tasks and Increase Efficiency

A guest experience platform can also include back-of-house solutions that can streamline operations, improve staff workflow, and empower staff to deliver a better guest experience. A robust guest experience platform allows for countless added touchpoints for guests to connect with staff and management, without physically interacting with them. For example, in-app information pages can be built out as a digital concierge; digital service requests can send updates through notifications, so guests can track the progress of their requests; and texts can be sent directly to guests with special offers or room upgrades they might be interested in. A holistic guest experience platform is designed to reduce unnecessary tasks and increase efficiency. The role of the platform is to support the staff and elevate the guest experience.

3. Properties With Working Systems to Add Onto

When implementing new tech, try to use solutions that will build off what’s already working for you. Integrations are the key to a guest experience platform. A holistic guest experience platform can work in tandem with current systems. For a hotel that already has a guest app, a guest experience platform that has a ticketing and task management solution can help the hotel staff maintain a better work flow, save time, and be able to focus on guests’ needs. For hoteliers looking for more ways to connect with guests (without adding stress to their staff’s workload) using smart-room tablets can enhance the personal touch points by giving guests a control center to access digital features and room settings.

Whether a hotelier is looking for specific features or tech that does it all, a guest experience platform can provide the unique setup. As guests continue expecting greater digital access during their stay, choosing a guest experience platform that will evolve alongside cutting edge tech and guest behavior trends is paramount.

To learn more about INTELITY’s guest experience platform, start a conversation today.

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Discover five guest marketing strategies to boost revenue

According to a recent survey by Hotelogix, 83% of guests prefer to receive hotel service promotions on their mobile devices. As more travelers become accustomed to using their mobile devices to manage their daily lives, a hotel app creates endless opportunities to reach guests when they are paying the most attention, help them discover all the amenities and activities a property has to offer, and ultimately improve the overall guest experience. A hotel app also enables hoteliers to incorporate guest marketing into their guest communications, offering guests rewards and other promotions with a personal touch. To help boost guest engagement, upsell services, and strengthen brand loyalty, start with these five best practices for guest marketing.

1. Create Engaging In-App Promotions

Create eye-grabbing banners so when your guests use a hotel app to check-in, view a digital menu, or look up operating hours, they are drawn to the item or event you are promoting. Rotating banners as well as stationary banners on the top or bottom of the screen allow you to put special offers in front of guests in ways they are more likely to see and engage with. A little extra time upfront spent on making a great in-app promotion ad goes a long way.

2. Make Communication a Two-Way Street

When it comes to guest marketing through an app, sending a text to a group or a specific person enables them to respond to the message. For example, instead of a generic message on a website to entice a guest to upgrade their room, consider sending a welcome text with an upgrade offer such as, “We see you are arriving at our hotel tomorrow. Would you be interested in upgrading to a room with a beautiful view of the ocean for an additional 30?” Messages like these eliminate barriers for your guest to act on them because they are easy to respond to and are more personal than an upsell option when booking online.

3. Tailor Offers Based on Guest Habits

Whether you are coming up with promotions for your guest app, or you sending targeted offers via text, tailoring your promotions and upsells to your guests’ habits may bring better results. Do you have strategies or technology in place to track guest preferences? If not, now is the time to institute some form of data collection; if so, now is the time to act on that information. You don’t want to waste time on marketing items, activities, or upsell that your guests don’t want. You and your team know your guests’ habits better than anyone, use that knowledge to elevate their experience and increase your revenue.

4. Maximize Push Notifications

In the age of the smartphone, push notifications can be seen as annoying or disruptive. However, using them wisely can have a positive effect and a productive outcome. The key is two-fold: use push notifications with intention and avoid over-using. Timely push notifications can be of great benefit to you and your guests. Because guests can’t reply to push notifications, this means of communication should be informative, giving them details about the event or promotion that will encourage them to act on it. This could look like sending out a message about happy hour shortly before it starts or promoting a ticket sale for an upcoming event. Push notifications have many uses outside of marketing as well, like updating a guest on their service request status, which is why they should be used for marketing with great intention and care. You can think of push notifications as the secret weapon of guest marketing solutions, maximize their impact by sending timely information that is sure to pique guests interest.

5. Utilize Omnichannel Messaging

Omnichannel Marketing is a marketing strategy that leverages the various channels to achieve greater results. This might include a mobile app, smart-room tablets, and casting. The goal is to increase the ways in which your guests see and are able to interact with an ad. If, for example, you are promoting a discounted spa treatment, a guest might see a banner ad for the deal while they are out and when they return to their room they are reminded of the offer by seeing the same ad on their smart-room tablet and the TV. Utilizing omnichannel marketing keeps whatever you are prompting at top of mind, so your guests are sure to see it and are given increased opportunities to act on it.

Ultimately, the goal in implementing guest marketing solution strategies like these five listed here is so you don’t have to worry about your promotions getting lost in a sea of emails again. By sending targeted messages, personalized offers, and special promotions to your guests at multiple touchpoints you widen your sphere of influence and create great opportunities for revenue return.

Want to learn more about INTELITY’s guest marketing solutions? Request a demo today.

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Read how hoteliers can optimize their property and use tech to attract business travelers

It’s no secret that the pandemic caused huge losses in revenue due in large part to less business travel and canceled events. To offset the lack of business trips and conferences, hotels have rolled out creative ways for business travelers to utilize their spaces while adding new revenue opportunities. It’s safe to say now that remote work isn’t going anywhere, and why should it? A study by Owl Labs reports that 90% of employees surveyed say they are as productive or more productive when working remotely.

In response to many employers and employees moving to remote work, the hospitality industry has pivoted to catering to this new breed of nomadic workers with offerings like booking a room for a work day, “workcations,” and even extended-stay remote work packages. As events and conferences return to in-person gatherings, hoteliers have a huge opportunity to make up revenue lost to the pandemic, and set their property on the forefront of the evolving hospitality landscape. Here are a few key places to start.

Make Your Property Remote-Work Friendly

Offer easy check-in and check-out
Remote workers are a new breed of travelers who are looking for comfort and convenience above most else in their hotel stay. One key way to attract business travelers is offering them a quick and easy way to digitally check-in and use their smartphones for keyless entry so they can completely bypass the front desk and go straight to their rooms. Once they are ready to depart, the check-out process should be just as easy and mobile enabled.

Provide Great Wi-Fi
Giving your business guests the best experience possible relies on providing fast, secure and free Wi-fi. If hoteliers want business travelers to continue coming back for repeat stays, they need to prioritize reliable internet that has the bandwidth to accommodate a wide range of mobile devices as well as needs such as videoconferencing, web browsing and streaming content. Remote workers depend on consistent Wi-fi accessibility and the last thing they want is to have their work interrupted or lost because of a slow or weak internet connection.

Create Unique and Quiet Work Spaces
Consider how you can best provide office space for business travelers. Whether they are in town for work or they are a local remote-worker looking for a change of scenery, what can you offer to make their stay with you a success? This may look like renting out rooms as office spaces during work hours, or offering a remote-work package that includes a private office space for the guest to use. Make sure you have plenty of electrical outlets in guest rooms and charging stations throughout the hotel for business travelers to recharge their laptops, tablets or mobile devices. Also, provide a table top and comfortable seating in guest rooms for those long days of working. Consider creating a business center that offers a shared workspace and includes desks, fax machines and other office equipment.

Provide Access to Amenities via a Hotel App
A hotel app can greatly enhance the business traveler’s guest experience by enabling them to manage their entire work day on their mobile device or smart room tablet. Business travelers are busy people and by allowing them to take greater control of their stay can set your hotel apart. With a hotel app, business travelers can order food or drinks and have it delivered to them wherever they are such as in their room, by the pool, at the business center or in the hotel lobby. For hotels who don’t have an on-property restaurant, offer business travelers the ability to use delivery services like Doordash or UberEats directly through the hotel app. Provide ride-share or shuttle options via a hotel app so that business travelers can go to and from their hotel to other nearby locations with ease.

Attract Smaller Business Meetings to Your Hotel

Although corporate travel and events are unlikely to return to pre-pandemic levels for another year, there is still a need for smaller team building events and business meetings. In fact, because many business teams now work remotely and do not have a chance to meet one another in person, there is an even greater need for in-person gatherings within companies.The need for these types of gatherings creates a major revenue opportunity for hotels.

Ensure Meeting Spaces are Fully Equipped
Hoteliers need to evaluate how they can best optimize the space they have for business travelers. For many hotels, this looks like setting aside rooms with white boards and other office equipment. Creating spaces where groups can meet makes the hotel more attractive for groups or small businesses looking for a functional work getaway. Provide in-room dining for your team during business meetings. Promote your amenities for team building exercises such as access to hotel’s golf course, yoga classes, and other recreational activities. Use a hotel app to offer a list of local restaurants and hotspots for after work downtime.

Create Custom Packages for Small Company Gatherings
To attract smaller business groups, offer unique packages that can include discounts to drinks and food or outdoor excursions. For local businesses who want a place to conduct small business gatherings offer special prices or a remote work membership. Partner with local vendors to supply team building activities such as escape rooms, wine tastings, and cooking classes.

Finally, whatever you plan to offer business travelers, make sure they hear about it. Marketing your remote-work or “workcation” opportunities and amenities is vital. The companies and individuals who would most benefit from this need to know the ways in which you’ve optimized the experience for them. Figure out what you can do, then make sure those who will benefit most hear about it.

Want to learn more about cutting-edge guest app technology? Start a conversation today.

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Nurturing employee retention by off-loading their workload through automation can help prevent burnout.

In the last couple of years, the hospitality industry was hit with many challenges from Covid-related lockdowns to most recently, a labor shortage. Now that travel is gearing up for a brighter year ahead, finding and retaining employees is more crucial than ever.

But how can hoteliers handle the resurgence of travel and tourism at the very moment when staffing is low? Fortunately, hospitality tech can help alleviate staff workload in a way that improves the guest experience. With the right technology, hoteliers can automate much of their operations, relieving staff from mundane tasks and reigniting their passion for hospitality.

Mobile Check-In Empowers Staff

With lingering staff shortages, remaining staff are overburdened with a greater workload and longer hours with little reprieve. Self-service technology, such as mobile apps, can alleviate some of the workload by enabling guests to take more control of their trip.  Hotel guest apps allow travelers to complete the check-in process on their mobile devices as well as use their mobile devices as a digital room key to enter their rooms. Not only does this provide a more streamlined check-in process for guests, but it also eliminates labor intensive paperwork for the front desk staff. With mobile check-in, hotel staff will have more time to engage with guests in a much more meaningful way, build relationships with guests, and feel more rewarded in their work

Automate Service Requests to Free-Up Staff

Whether it’s ordering extra towels or requesting room service, today’s guests prefer sending a service request through their mobile devices or smart-room tablets. Getting an immediate response via text or guest messaging is prized over being put on hold by the front desk. Automating service requests also optimizes operational efficiency and saves significant manpower and labor costs.  When service requests are automated, a small staff is empowered to provide quality service and have more time to provide more personalized attention to guests.

Clarity and Efficiency Go Hand and Hand

When lines of communication between staff and guests are muddy, tasks can fall through the cracks, guests can feel ignored, and both staff and management can end up feeling unnecessary pressure from all sides. Hoteliers should be taking a close look at their management systems and asking questions like:

• Are staff able to view and update tasks easily?
• Is management able to prioritize tasks and customize the workflow to fit the needs of their team?
• Are escalations flagged so they can be handled in a timely manner?
• Does the system in place integrate with on-property dining and amenities, and allow for digital storefronts?
• Are staff able to access the current system from any device they need throughout their workday?

With digital technology, communication between teams can be streamlined and time-sensitive requests can automatically be prioritized. And making task management easy for staff to view and access eliminates the frustration and time loss that comes with poor communication. Taking unnecessary tasks off your employee’s plate and communicating priority tasks clearly through tech contributes to a work environment where staff can thrive long-term.

As experienced employees return and those new to the hospitality industry learn the ropes, now is the time to set your staff up for long-term success. By investing in tech that mitigates busywork and promotes clarity, your teams are able to focus on the best parts of hospitality–serving and connecting with guests.

To learn more about how a comprehensive management system can support your team’s communication and workflow, start a conversation today.

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Get strategies for accommodating your guest’s schedule before, during, and after their stay through a hotel guest app.

As the hospitality industry prepares for the Spring and Summer travel seasons, guest loyalty is a top priority. In fact, Hospitality Technology reported in their 2022 Lodging Trends study that 77% of hotels rank driving guest loyalty as their top tech initiative. How can properties encourage new visitors to rebook and keep repeat guests? And how can tech be used to cultivate guests’ loyalty? The best place to start is by giving them control at every touchpoint.

Before Their Stay: Give Guests the Best Information

Travelers are already balancing a number of details in order to make their trip a success.  Booking their hotel, navigating flight details, keeping expense reports, coordinating transportation, and working around the needs of travel companions are just some of the tasks guests have to get to before they even step foot on your property. Whatever you can do to make their arrival smooth and hassle-free can ensure a great first impression for those headed to your property.

Make the App Worth the Download
First things first, in order for your guest app to facilitate your guest’s ideal trip, they have to download it. Last year, we wrote about how to increase initial app adoption through a welcome email that highlights app features and links directly to the app download. If your guests are able to quickly see how the app will make their stay more convenient, they’ll be more likely to download and use it. Make a good impression by proactively drawing them in with the features and capabilities available to them.

Ride Shares/Shuttle Service
Adding transportation information such as hotel shuttle schedules or rideshare services provides an extra level of convenience for guests. Guests can request valet services or an Uber via a hotel app right on their mobile phones eliminating the need to make a trip to the front desk. Whether it’s going to the airport or going out at night, arranging for transportation via a hotel app becomes so much easier and made entirely on the guests’ terms.

Mobile Check-In
Today’s travelers want a simple process that allows them to check-in and immediately go to their room without the need to visit the front desk. With digital check-in, guests can input their credentials, confirm their payment method and access their room key right on their mobile devices even before they arrive at the property. They can also arrange for food or make special service requests via the app pre-arrival. And in the third year of the pandemic, this has largely become an expectation.

During Their Stay: Give Guests Control of Their Itinerary

Enable your guests to use their mobile devices to plan and manage their entire guest journey –from ordering room service to finding local hotspots and attractions. With an app, guests can design their hotel stay to fit their needs, get hotel and local information and set the level of interactions they want with your staff.

Digital Concierge
Highlight local activities, hotel amenities, and on-property services directly on the guest app. Spruce up app content with descriptions and enticing copy, and enable guests to book reservations for spa treatments and other amenities. Whether you have guests who plan everything ahead or spontaneous travelers who choose their next activity in the moment, the hotel guest app can be there every step of the way.

Housekeeping Preferences
It should be easy for guests to pause, skip, or add housekeeping services–easy as one touch through your hotel guest app. Whether your guests are environmentally conscious, concerned about airborne germs, or just don’t need someone cleaning their room everyday, allowing your guests to set when they want housekeeping service means every guest gets exactly what they need.

Dining
The best way to work around your guest’s schedule is to give them adaptable options so no matter what the occasion is, they can get food how and when they want it. From reserving a table at an on-property restaurant, to browsing highly rated local spots, to ordering for pickup so they can grab their meal as they head out– it can all be done from the palm of their hand. A comprehensive hotel guest app can process payments, communicate with dining staff, and keep track of guest orders so the information can be utilized when the guest returns for another stay.

After Their Stay: Motivate Guest Loyalty

Mobile Check-out
It should be as easy, if not easier, for your guests to leave as it is for them to arrive. If you want to help them achieve their ideal stay, don’t add unnecessary steps to their departure. Mobile check-out means simplicity, easing the annoyance of having to make a stop at the front desk, or worse, wait in a line.

Reviews
Does your hotel app prompt your guests to leave a review? When guests leave a review while their stay is fresh on their mind, you and your staff get vital details about what you are doing right and what needs to be addressed. If it’s a positive review, the app can prompt them to post it, while mediocre or negative reviews can funnel straight into service recovery.

Follow-up
Do your guests know what loyalty points or programs you have available? Driving guest loyalty doesn’t end when your guests step out your door. The communication they get from you after they check-out sets the precedent for future interactions and stays. So let them know how glad you are they chose you and why they should come back. Email, or message through your hotel guest app so you are the first place they think of next time they go to book.

The Term “Personalization” is Buzzing Through the Hospitality Industry

That’s because guests appreciate when their preferences are remembered and when they are treated as valued customers rather than faceless wallets. For hoteliers investing in guest loyalty strategies, ensuring sure your tech responds to and accommodates your guests schedule makes their experience feel individualized to their desires and elevates their experience at every touchpoint.

Want to learn more about how hotel guest apps can promote guest loyalty? Start a conversation today.

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