INTELITY Unveils AI-Powered Guest Experience Platform to Transform Luxury Hospitality

A Blog by INTELITY

At Your Service

The latest innovation and trends in contactless guest experience and the products that are revolutionizing the service industry.

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What Does Mobile Check-In Actually Look Like?

What Does Mobile Check-In Actually Look Like? Infographic

Mobile check-in is currently the hottest hospitality tool on the market, playing a key role in safety measures by allowing contactless guest entry and exit when combined with digital key. But, what does it look like? How does it work? How long does it take? See the entire process from start to finish—and how it can elevate your guest experience.

Before they even arrive on-property, the guest receives a message on their phone, letting them know mobile check-in is available for their stay and linking guests to the app to get them started.

  1. Once in the app, they can select the hotel mobile check-in screen, where they begin the check-in process.
  2. First, the guest logs in and selects their reservation, confirming the booking details that automatically populate thanks to integration with the hotel’s PMS.
  3. Then, the guest will verify their ID and add a payment method. These steps are optional for hotels—and, even when activated, can be bypassed if the guest details are already on file.
  4. As simple as any online payment, the guest adds their card details and the payment information is securely tokenized and passed along to the hotel’s PMS.
  5. After their payment details have been added, they move on to ID verification. This takes place over two steps: first, they take a photo of their ID document. Then, they take a photo of themselves in real-time, which is used to match the photo on the ID and confirm their identity.
  6. And just like that, the check-in process is complete! The guest is all set for their arrival. Meanwhile, the back-end is completely automated, ensuring the guest’s check-in is noted in the hotel’s system.
  7. Now, all that’s left to do is activate their key. When they arrive on property, they simply hold it to their room’s lock, and begin their stay. Fully contactless hotel mobile check-in and entry—all in less time than it takes to stop by the front desk.

Want to see Mobile Check-In in action?

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The Traditional Guest Experience Is a Thing of the Past. What’s Next?

An in-depth look at how global circumstances surrounding COVID-19 have changed the hotel guest experience before, during, and after stays.

Almost overnight, the definition of a top-tier guest experience has completely changed. High-touch service isn’t the ideal; touchless service is. And cleaning standards—always important, but never a top marketing tool—are now the single biggest draw for many consumers. With guest needs and wants shifting so quickly and dramatically, the question for hoteliers isn’t whether or not the traditional hotel guest experience is done for. Everyone knows it is, at least temporarily. Now, the question is, “What’s next?”

For many hoteliers and guests, this is what the new ideal looks like—upon arrival, during the stay, and as guests depart.

Before Guests Arrive

Digital Communication
Whether it’s email, text, or in-app messaging, communication with guests before they arrive on-property has never been more important. This is the time to communicate new policies, reassure the guest that they’re walking into a safe environment, and inform them of how they can contribute to safety. It’s also how you can notify them about contactless services, and encourage them to use those services from the start.

Mobile Check-In
Mobile check-in is now the single most important tool hotels can implement, empowering guests to maintain physical distance and protecting front desk staff from interacting with a large volume of guests. With mobile check-in capabilities, guests can check in before they even step foot on property.

During Their Stay

Keyless Entry
Once a guest has checked in from their mobile device and arrived on-property, they can download their digital key, skip the front desk entirely, and head safely to their room. But keyless entry doesn’t have to stop there—it can also be the gatekeeper for common areas and amenities spaces like meeting rooms, pools, and gyms, keeping contact to a minimum throughout the property.

Enhanced Cleaning Standards
From the moment a guest walks in the door until they leave, they should be surrounded by a new level of cleanliness, one tailored to the threat COVID-19 poses. From wiping down frequently touched surfaces regularly to performing deep cleans between guests, hotels are expected to provide cleanliness safety standards. But it’s not enough to just implement these new practices; guests should be informed and urged to do their part as well—by washing their hands, wearing masks, and following new hotel policies. It not only leads to a safer hotel guest experience all around, but also increases guest satisfaction by ensuring they feel safer and more comfortable throughout their stay.

Contactless Service
Low-contact service isn’t restricted to just check-in and entry. It can and should transform the entire stay. A guest needs extra towels? They’re now looking for a way to request service and receive their towels without direct staff contact. Room service? They’re now expecting contactless ordering, payment, and delivery. As a result, contactless service is a crucial piece of the new guest experience, eliminating the vast majority of face-to-face interactions between guests and staff without compromising service quality.

As They Depart

Mobile Check-Out
Keep things as simple and low contact as they started by giving guests the option to check out on their phone, at once notifying you of their departure without requiring anything more than a few simple taps before they’re on their way.

It’s not just global circumstances that have changed—travelers have changed as well. Even as travel resumes and they return, even as safety levels rise, contact will be regarded with more caution. Safety and cleanliness won’t be taken for granted. These priorities remain, and it’s the responsibility of the hospitality industry to provide an experience that satisfies those needs and rebuilds guest trust for years to come.

Ready to transform your hotel guest experience on every level? Find out how the INTELITY platform can help you reduce contact, increase safety, and rebuild trust post-COVID.

Request a Demo

3 New Features to Deliver Fully Contactless Dining to Your Guests

From delivery type to contactless payments, see how INTELITY has created a completely touchless ordering and delivery process for guests.

Across the globe, a contactless revolution is occurring. Contactless payments are exploding—with 82% of respondents from a global Mastercard study reporting that they view contactless as a cleaner, safer way to pay. Over 70% of consumers from another study say they are more likely to order delivery if given a contactless option. And hospitality is no exception, with even the AHLA “Safe Stay” guidelines recommending hotels adopt technology to reduce contact wherever possible for safety.

In light of this massive spike in demand for contactless service, the INTELITY platform—which already included contactless check-in, mobile key, and mobile dining capabilities—has been quickly upgraded with key new features that further reduce touchpoints throughout the guest journey.

Here’s a rundown of how mobile dining capabilities have been updated to produce a completely contactless dining experience:

What’s new for guests?

Choose delivery type: traditional or contactless.
As the popularity of restaurant and grocery delivery apps continues to rise astronomically, consumers are coming to expect convenient, streamlined mobile ordering experiences. In response to that demand, one feature has become standard across all of these apps in recent months: an option for customers to select their delivery type.

It’s a simple, but effective way to put customers in control of when and how they receive their food. Anyone uncomfortable with physical contact or concerned about safety can choose contactless delivery, and have peace of mind. Imitating these apps, the INTELITY team has updated our mobile ordering process with a similar drop-down menu to ensure that convenience extends to hotel guests and how they receive room service orders.

A fully contactless experience—from ordering to payment to drop-off.
In the quest for a contactless experience, payments can often be problematic. If a guest orders online and specifies that they’re looking for a contactless delivery—but then is greeted by a staff member at their door needing payment or a signature to approve charges, it can be an unpleasant experience.

In order to eliminate the physical exchange of cash or card, the INTELITY platform has long allowed the bill for a mobile order to be added directly to the guest folio. But now, INTELITY has also removed the need for a physical signature. With the new e-signature option that has been added to the mobile ordering process, payments can be handled during the order rather than during drop-off, ensuring there are no barriers to touchless delivery.

What’s new for hoteliers?

Communicate safety policies and service changes to guests as they order.
With fluctuating safety levels, you may need to institute, adjust, or lift safety precautions throughout the rest of the year. In that case, keeping in close contact with guests is the only way to ensure a smooth service transition.
Many hotels are making contactless dining deliveries their default. Others are halting all normal room service deliveries for the time being and only allowing contactless drop-offs. And in either of those situations, the hotel may also have new directions for guests about new protocols for dish and trash pick-up. Whatever policies you adopt, keeping guests informed is essential.

To facilitate better communication of new policies and how they’ll affect service, the INTELITY platform has added a notification option within the mobile ordering process that will cover any of these needs.

The demand for contactless isn’t going away: as consumers continue to request contactless deliveries and experiences, they will quickly become a standard of good service. And while COVID-19 remains a threat worldwide, hoteliers would be wise to adapt mobile dining capabilities that bring the same level of convenience as GrubHub and Postmates—and reap the rewards of increased guest satisfaction and in-room revenue. To find out more about what your hotel can achieve with contactless dining, read the dining one-sheet.

Read the Dining One-Sheet

How to Take Care of Hotel Staff as COVID-19 Surges

Discover the three steps hoteliers can take to increase safety for hotel staff, soothe fear, and drive recovery as COVID-19 surges in reopened countries.

In the wake of COVID-19, the entire hospitality industry has come to agree on one thing: making guests feel safe and regaining their trust is the only way to come back from the devastating losses of the past few months. Hospitality Technology wrote about it. Skift wrote about it. We wrote about it. And so did just about everyone else.

But the key to making guests feel safe and satisfied lies largely in the hands of hotel staff—a group that has suffered major losses since COVID-19 hit, with even industry leaders like Hyatt and Hilton implementing significant workforce cuts. Beyond layoff anxiety, there are serious health concerns. Coronavirus cases are surging in the United States and could rise in other countries as well. Are staff members who are still working endangering themselves and family members?

Frankly, there is no easy way to remove health and economic anxiety from your employees. So what can you do? Take their concerns seriously, and take care of them as much as you can. You’ll reap the rewards in the form of lower turnover rates and higher guest satisfaction.

Here are a few simple ways you can start:

Enforce health and safety policies—even when it’s awkward

There will always be guests (and staff members!) who have no interest in following the health protocols you’ve implemented to keep everyone safe. Whether it’s requiring masks or limiting the number of people in common areas, your protocols will only work if you’re serious about them. The easiest way to lose employee trust is to let unsafe actions slide.

Be clear with employees about what they should do if a guest or a coworker is breaking protocol—and emphasize that all unsafe actions should be confronted or reported. Safety is not optional for anyone. It’s the type of thing that may seem obvious, but reiterating your commitment to their safety will go a long way to soothing fear and boosting safety for hotel staff.

Then, when issues are reported or confrontations arise, follow through, stand by them, and take decisive action to resolve the situation. It may not be pleasant at the time, but it will pay off.

Optimize and automate daily workflows to lighten the load

Because the hospitality industry has been one of the industries devastated by COVID-19 closures, many hotels have furloughed or laid off many of their employees. Even with many economies reopening, the teams coming back to work are likely much smaller than the ones in place at the start of the year.

With fewer hands—and more work, thanks to heightened cleaning and safety standards—it’s easy for hotel staff to become overwhelmed. As fear rises with case numbers, that’s only more likely. You may not be able to hire more people to help, but you can easily change your processes.

Using technology to automate processes and increase cross-departmental communication so nothing slips through the cracks can transform the daily workflows that may otherwise be difficult or frustrating. Without the stress of lost service requests and miscommunication, your staff will work more cohesively as a unit and be able to tackle the challenges they’re facing right now.

Reduce contact between staff and guests by implementing touchless service

Basic health and cleaning standards can do a lot to minimize the chance of spreading infection—especially in common areas—but they can’t do everything. There are certain staff members who will still incur significant risk as they go about their daily duties. Housekeeping, food and beverage, and front desk employees all traditionally require direct contact with guests to do their jobs well.

Yet contactless technology and processes can reduce those risks as well and, in some cases, eliminate them altogether. There’s no better way to show staff how deeply invested in their success and wellbeing you are than to provide them with ways to deliver excellent service without compromising their personal health. Currently, there are several contactless strategies hotels can implement: from mobile check-in and mobile key, which enable guests to skip the front desk altogether, to mobile dining and service requests, which make contactless deliveries possible.

The more you can turn face-to-face interactions into digital ones, the better for your employees. In this scenario, automation won’t dampen or depersonalize the spirit of great customer service your staff brings to your company, but will streamline processes and reduce contact so they’re better able to provide even higher quality service both during and after the pandemic.

If the past few weeks of surging American cases are any indicator, COVID-19 will remain a concern across the world for the foreseeable future. The bottom line is this: How you treat your employees now will affect how your hotel recovers. Now is the time to invest heavily in hotel staff safety and satisfaction—it’s not just good for them, it’s also good for your business.

Looking to increase guest and hotel staff safety with contactless service? See why mobile check-in may be the best place to start.

Read the Mobile Check-In One-Sheet

This Summer, Communication Will Be the Key to Guest Satisfaction

 As the new era of travel starts, ensure your safety protocols, services, and amenities are top of mind to create outstanding experiences for your guests.

The hospitality world is currently in limbo—some guests are convinced the COVID-19 threat is over and it’s time for a full return to normal while others aren’t convinced we’re out of the woods. But many agree on one thing: summer isn’t canceled.

According to Deloitte research, 31% of consumers are planning to spend at least one night in a hotel for leisure travel this summer. And when the New York Times interviewed epidemiologists, they were even more comfortable with the idea. 56% reported feeling okay to vacation overnight somewhere within driving distance. Those are big numbers.

With travel bookings expected to rise over the next few months and safety remaining a key factor in every stay, hotels and resorts are looking for ways to reduce face-to-face staff interactions and contact between guests while at the same time ensuring guest satisfaction doesn’t suffer. It’s a tall order—and the only way to achieve it is by prioritizing digital communication at every step of the guest journey.

Prepare Guests Before Their Stay with Pre-Arrival Messaging Through Email, SMS, or a Mobile App

Communicating with guests before they even walk in the door is your first big opportunity to reassure them from the start, as well as prepare them for the digital communication you’ll favor throughout their stay. This is where email and a hotel mobile app come into play. First, send them an email or in-app message soon after they’ve booked to let them know exactly what measures are in place for their safety, whether it’s hand sanitizer stations available in common spaces or a reduction in housekeeping visits to limit contact. It’s also important to include any restrictions you currently have in place, like reduced hours for restaurants or limits on how many people can be in common areas at once. You can also encourage them to make reservations at your restaurant(s), gym, and spa in advance to secure their spot.

Then, as their check-in date nears, send them a final message or SMS with information on their service options. The more mobile capabilities you have to offer, the more control you can give them over their stay. With that control, guests can create the experiences they want and select the level of contact they’re comfortable with—the importance of which can’t be overstated.

If you’ve implemented contactless services, such as mobile check-in and mobile key, encourage guests to check in from their smartphone and download their digital room key, so they can skip the front desk altogether. That way, they’re confident and in the know before they even walk in your door—leading to higher satisfaction throughout a guest’s stay.

Keep Your Guests Informed During Their Stay Through In-Room Tablets and a Mobile App

On-premises, in-room tablets or a mobile app can entirely eliminate the need for printed collateral. Through a tablet or an app, you can communicate in two key ways: provide key information that guests can access as they please and send personalized push messages. Both are critical to a good communication strategy.

  • Equip Guests with Helpful Information

    Start by updating hotel information to encompass key new services they can tap into. Change your homepage and add in property-specific resources for COVID-19 in case guests miss that information in your pre-arrival messages. But don’t stop at the homepage—it’s just as important to pepper in small updates throughout all of your content, whether it’s updating dining options to include touchless dining delivery or housekeeping information to reflect a change in cleaning frequency.

    Not only does it create a cohesive digital guest experience, but it significantly reduces the amount of questions and help guests need from staff. And if they can’t find the information themselves, they can immediately chat with a service representative straight from the app or tablet. That’s great communication and great service.

  • Take Full Advantage of Digital Push Messaging Capabilities

    Once self-service information is fully updated, push messaging comes into play. This should obviously be a smaller piece of your communication strategy—no one wants constant message notifications—but when used sparingly, it’s an extremely effective tool for communicating with guests and increasing revenue from on-property amenities. Send personalized messages with relevant offers and information at key points during their stay, like a dining message as dinner time approaches. The options are limitless, but the tailoring is key. Accurately predicting what guests want, and when they want it, leads to exceptional guest experiences and satisfaction scores. And that’s the goal.

Here’s the bottom line: you don’t want to overwhelm guests, but it’s never been more important to ensure they’re in the loop every step of the way. This summer’s hotel stays will usher in a new era of travel, unlike anything guests have experienced in the past. They’ll need—and appreciate—any extra guidance you give them.

Technology enables communication touchpoints during every part of their stay, so they’re never far from information or staff help, even if they’re uncomfortable with physical interactions. That leads to great guest experiences and great reviews, exactly what you’ll need to increase confidence in hotel safety and lift booking numbers.

Ready to learn how you can communicate well with guests at every step of their journey and increase satisfaction? Request a demo of the industry-leading INTELITY platform.

Request a Demo of the INTELITY Platform

A New Update on COVID-19

From INTELITY CEO Robert Stevenson

Since my last update over two months ago, the world and the hospitality industry have drastically changed. As we start to see the light at the end of the COVID-19 tunnel, I want to share a new update on behalf of the INTELITY team.

Over the past many weeks through this crisis, we have been fully operational and in regular contact with our customers, and we are seeing our portfolio of hotels carefully re-opening. Similar to the data being reported by the brand leaders, along with the key data sources for the industry, around 50% of hotels within the INTELITY family have reopened in June. While we continue to be concerned about the health of staff and guests, we are thrilled to see the progress our resilient industry has made in pre-planning and implementing safe, clean environments and enhanced re-opening processes. These steps will make a massive difference in traveler perception and trust as we advance into the summer season for the Northern Hemisphere.

As mentioned in my previous correspondence, our teams here at INTELITY have been fully functional. Still, I’m pleased to share that our offices are beginning to open back up, and we are carefully bringing key team members back into the office and the field. As we adjust to our new normal, our commitment to providing our customers with the best possible service remains. Our teams across Customer Success, Technical Support, and Implementations are available at all hours.

As a part of the re-opening across our portfolio, we have been busy working on best practices for implementing a contactless guest experience by optimizing the use of the mobile features our platform offers. Mobile check-in/out, mobile key, and mobile dining are just some of the key features that have been a top priority for customers, and we’re happy to offer the most advanced solutions available for a truly contactless guest experience. If you’re looking for more comprehensive details regarding our contactless mobile capabilities, have questions about our mobile features, or just want to chat, contact us now.

These are challenging times for the travel and hospitality sector, but as I mentioned previously, we’re proud of the speed and attention our industry has dedicated to putting safety first and tackling what the future guest experience will look like. At INTELITY, we will continue to do our part by supporting our hotelier customers in their time of need.

Be well, be safe, and let’s continue to look out for each other, even as this crisis wanes.

Robert Stevenson, INTELITY CEO