INTELITY

March 18, 2020 by INTELITY

3 Digital Guest Communication Strategies to Implement when Practicing Social Distancing

There’s no way around it – the hotel industry, and the travel sector in general, are facing unprecedented times. The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has effectively halted both business and leisure travel, dramatically reducing occupancy rates around the world.

At INTELITY, we understand the vital role that hospitality technology plays in increasing guest satisfaction and loyalty. Additionally, this same technology can be used to open up multiple communication channels between guests and staff at a time when social distancing is becoming the new normal. Effective digital guest communication is especially important in light of current events — not only will it allow properties to best ensure the safety of guests and staff while providing timely updates regarding an ever-changing situation, but it also provides opportunities for hoteliers to mitigate the long-term effects of the outbreak on the bottom line.

Strategy 1: Pre-Arrival Communications

Hotels that are still operating during the outbreak should implement clear communication plans for inbound guests. By sending a pre-arrival email to guests, hotels can ensure guest safety by clearly communicating the actionable steps being taken in public spaces and guest rooms to minimize the potential of viral transmission, including detailed cleaning protocols, hand sanitizer locations, staff health guidelines, and dining service changes.

Additionally, the pre-arrival email can be used to communicate any updates to cancellation/rescheduling policies. Guests’ travel plans are no doubt being severely impacted, and proactively messaging these policies can help assuage guest concerns while also reducing inbound call volume.

Finally, properties that offer mobile check-in can use the pre-arrival email as an opportunity to link to their guest mobile app. Mobile check-in technology allows guests to skip the front desk upon arrival and go straight to their rooms using a mobile key, which takes on even greater importance in the context of social distancing.

Strategy 2: Leveraging In-Room Tablets

In-room tablets provide another digital communication touchpoint between guests and staff. Guests can use tablets to submit service requests, order in-room dining, access property information, consume entertainment content, and much more. By allowing guests to communicate their needs through a tablet rather than a face-to-face interaction, potential transmission touchpoints can be reduced without a loss in service quality or timeliness.

In-room tablets can also be used to push personalized offers and promotions to guests. Given that guests may feel uncomfortable or unable to dine in on-property restaurants, offering a “virtual” happy hour or similar offer may still allow the property to capture lost revenue in a safe, guest-centered way.

Of course, tablets can also be a channel for sharing critical information around safety precautions, local updates, and more. The ability to manage tablet displays through a centralized content management system ensures that guests can receive relevant updates in real time.

Strategy 3: SMS Messaging

Increasingly, hoteliers are implementing SMS messaging into their guest messaging strategies. Similarly to tablets, SMS messaging can be used as a frictionless way for guests to request services, dining, and more, using a platform they are already familiar with. SMS messaging platforms are often scalable and can be either deployed to an entire database or be individualized to the guest, adding an extra layer of personalization to the interaction without putting guests or staff at risk. It also provides for timely two-way communication, which is critical in a fast-developing health situation.

By opening up a widely-used two-way communication channel, SMS messaging further empowers guests to do their part in ensuring public health safety. Guests who aren’t feeling well or who may otherwise require health assistance can communicate as such without needing to leave their rooms or potentially infecting guest room phones, minimizing transmission opportunities.

The hospitality industry has already been shifting to a more digitally-connected experience, and the coronavirus outbreak will likely accelerate the adoption pace for hoteliers looking to implement more robust multi-channel communication strategies. To learn more how to implement digital guest communication tools and best practices, schedule a demo with the INTELITY team today.

March 4, 2020 by INTELITY

Using the Right Technology to Connect Casino Hotel Guests to the Gaming Floor

By Benjamin Keller, INTELITY Senior Vice President of Sales, West

As travelers become more reliant on mobile technology, it is increasingly important to make sure the right tools are in place for staff to effectively connect with guests before, during, and after their stay. Enhancing your operations with the right technology options not only improves the way that guests experience the property overall, but it also introduces opportunities to make the check-in process more efficient, allow staff to better respond to guest requests, and entice guests to the casino floor with special offers and promotions.

Today’s core customers are 45 to 75 years old, and are increasingly using their mobile devices to play online casino games, check their point balances, “card in,” and even connect to their favorite gaming machines on the floor. Because these customers are already familiar with mobile technology in the casino context, introducing hospitality functionality into the mobile experience can be a welcome addition for a more seamless connection. Casinos are unique in that many customers return to “stay and play.”

“Stay and play” guests represent the perfect use case for implementing advanced technology into hotel operations. As repeat guests become familiar with having access to the freedom mobile technology offers, they will show preference to properties offering mobile solutions. It goes without saying that guests who stay at a casino resort are often very interested in spending time gaming, so by streamlining the check-in process with mobile check-in, management teams not only reduce long check-in lines and front desk friction but can also increase the amount of time their guests spend on the casino floor.

As a result, casino-resorts often have a high rate of mobile check-in. For example, INTELITY customer Angel of the Winds Casino Resort has seen a high percentage of its guests checking in on their smartphones using the hotel’s guest app.

Angel of the Winds Assistant General Manager Jeff Wheatley said that incorporating the INTELITY platform throughout their property has helped them create a seamless, highly-connected guest experience. “It’s important that casino-hotels provide guests with a friction-free experience that allows them to move effortlessly between their hotel room and the casino floor. Incorporating INTELITY’s hospitality platform has helped us create this connection. We’ve seen our guests, especially the repeat visitors, quickly adapt to using our mobile guest app and mobile key solutions to expedite the check-in and check-out process and access their rooms.”

INTELITY’s mobile and in-room platform components can easily be integrated with existing loyalty programs and used to streamline a casino resort’s entire guest experience. In addition to providing guests with a digital connection to staff, mobile apps and in-room technology can also be used by management teams to serve guests customized, targeted offers and promotions that encourage them to visit the casino floor or engage further with the property.

The INTELITY platform includes in-room tablets and customizable mobile apps containing robust guest-facing functionality, as well as a back-office dashboard that enables casinos to capture detailed performance data and streamline staff operations. In addition, the INTELITY solution integrates with over 150 software and hardware systems, including PMS, POS, in-room controls, spa management, and loyalty programs. INTELITY is in use by major casino properties, including Hard Rock Hotels & Casinos, The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Angel of the Winds Casino Resort, and more.

Benjamin Keller and his team will be present at NIGA 2020. To schedule a time to meet with him at NIGA, click here to schedule a meeting or visit us at booth #806 during the tradeshow.

February 20, 2020 by INTELITY

Using Technology to Increase Guest Satisfaction and Loyalty

Hospitality technology solutions are playing an increasing role in improving guest satisfaction, and subsequently, guest loyalty. Investing in experience and management technologies is an effective way of providing an exceptional experience before, during, and after a guest arrives at their destination. By improving guest satisfaction and loyalty, technology also plays a critical role in driving optimized profitability by reducing acquisition costs and increasing repeat bookings.

Pre-Arrival: Stand Out from the Competition

Before booking a reservation with your property, many prospective guests are evaluating where to stay based on the available technology. According to Software Advice and their research on guest preferences, “A combined 60 percent of respondents are ‘more likely’ to choose a hotel that allows guests to check in and open doors with a smartphone than a hotel that doesn’t.” That number is a clear indicator that offering technology solutions can set you apart from the competition before guests even arrive.

On Property: Personalize the Guest Experience

Once guests arrive, technology remains important for creating a positive experience and developing that coveted loyalty. According to Comcast Business, “Technology is a critical component in delivering exceptional guest experiences in hotels, conference centers, and other hospitality locations.” With an understanding of your guests’ preferences, such as desired room temperature and extra towel requests, offering personalized touches not only streamlines hotel operations, but also creates a unique and valuable stay for guests.

Providing a personalized experience with technology extends to hotel offerings. With custom messaging through in-room tablets and mobile apps, guests can receive targeted messages to encourage further participation in individualized options, both on and off property. These might include a night out at a restaurant for guests who indicated they are celebrating a special occasion or a discount on spa services for guests who reserved their rooms as part of a wedding block. Guests aren’t receiving an impersonal email after they’ve checked out; they’re receiving real-time invitations that are relevant to their stated preferences. This personalization leads to a better guest experience as well as an increase in topline revenue.

According to data from Gallup research, the most significant prediction of organic growth is customer engagement, defined as an emotional connection with your brand. Staying somewhere for a night and only interacting upon check-in is a vastly different experience than a number of positive interactions throughout a stay. According to a Gallup Poll, “Guests who are fully engaged spend 46 percent more per year than actively disengaged guests and represent an average 23 percent premium in terms of share of wallet and revenue compared to an average customer.”

Post-Stay: Keep Connected to Your Guests

A guest’s impression of their stay is not solely determined by on-property interactions. How and when you choose to communicate with a guest after they’ve left your property can also have an impact on their likelihood of returning. With loyalty-related bookings making up more than 50 percent of all bookings for the first time in 2019, staying engaged with guests is critical for acquiring bookings at the lowest cost.

If your property has a guest-facing mobile app, you have a direct line of communication to guests even when they’re not on your property. By sending timely promotions and offers, you can ensure that your property is top-of-mind for guests over your competition while creating relevant value for your audience.

Technology is a deciding factor for where guests stay as well as an effective driver for engagement and revenue, which means hoteliers cannot afford to limit the solutions they offer. Investments made in technology will continue to pay dividends in guest experience, loyalty, and the bottom line.

To learn more about the INTELITY platform and our client results, contact INTELITY to schedule a demo with our team.

January 23, 2020 by INTELITY

The Mobile Connection Your Guests Crave

How to forge a mobile connection with guests, improve guest experiences, optimize business operations, and stay ahead of competitors

Technology continues to play a crucial role in meeting the expectations of mobile-first travelers. According to a recent study conducted by American Express and Ebiquity, the top three expectations from travelers are:

Excellent service
Timely delivery of that service
Personalized connections and experiences

These areas of focus should be top priorities for hotel operators of all sizes and scope looking to stay ahead of the competition.

Mobile technology is often used to deliver upgraded service offerings, including mobile check-in, mobile key, and in-app messaging, but investing in those solutions can be costly and not all solutions are created equally. Improving the guest experience remains a balancing act with real-world budget constraints. Before implementing a mobile solution at your property, it’s essential to consider its capabilities to determine if the investment is worthwhile. This not only includes expected improvements to the guest experience but also to business operations.

Streamlined Processes

With over 92% of guests carrying a smartphone (and 40% with an existing hotel app installed), implementing solutions such as mobile check-in, mobile key, and messaging through a branded mobile app just makes sense. Mobile apps not only better connect your guests to your property, but they also streamline daily workflows for your staff. Completing mundane tasks like finding reservations and distributing room keys does not necessarily elevate or enhance the guest experience, but quality social interactions between hotel staff and guests do. The right tech allows hotel operators to automate repetitive tasks, which lets staff focus on providing guests with more personalized attention and assistance. This streamlined model continues past check-in for requests such as in-room dining, extra towels, or reservations at the spa.

Increased Loyalty

Mobile technology offers guests access to great brand experiences in real-time, which helps increase guest loyalty. A recent Oracle study found that “when it comes to immediate benefits versus accumulating points as part of a loyalty program, 78 percent of guests preferred immediate benefits.” This means an immediate, personalized offer will engage guests and drive brand loyalty.

Guests today have high expectations for seamless, personalized service and a mobile connection. With the right technology, hoteliers can deliver all of that and more, while also gaining workflow efficiencies and driving guest loyalty.

To learn more about the mobile solutions INTELITY offers, sign-up for our bi-weekly newsletter or schedule a demo with a member of our team.

December 17, 2019 by INTELITY

4 Digital Pain Points Impacting the Hospitality Industry

How a smart digital strategy can help overcome digital pitfalls

Do any of these problems sound familiar?

Engaging mobile-first guests
Creating personalized experiences that resonate with your customers
Maintaining a competitive advantage in a highly saturated industry
Handling costly and time-consuming training for high-turnover staff

Solve these problems, and you’re exponentially closer to delivering on a truly exceptional guest experience. But modern problems require modern solutions—and that’s where a digital hospitality strategy comes in.

Provide a quality mobile experience

Most consumers are accustomed to using smartphones for just about everything. Mobile and in-room technologies help enhance the guest experience by allowing mobile check-in/out and digital payments. Guests can access their guest rooms using their phone as a mobile key, which allows them to avoid the front desk altogether. Providing access to mobile technology does away with front desk friction, which can be a major pain point for most hoteliers. A customized mobile app can also be used to integrate with existing loyalty programs to encourage repeat business and brand loyalty.

Personalize experiences for every guest

86 percent of travelers value personalized offers, particularly those that make them feel like a unique and valued individual rather than just a number in a ledger. To create this kind of feeling requires effective use of your guests’ data and shared preferences to enhance their overall experience.

Navigating the digital world can be challenging for hoteliers that are already juggling multiple tasks and projects. By investing in technology that helps connect you and your staff to your guests, you can simultaneously address these common digital pain points and elevate your guests’ experience.

Maintain a competitive advantage

From a marketing perspective, there are many ways integrated technology can help you maintain a competitive advantage. Be smarter about reaching your guests by sending timely, targeted offers in real-time, and you’ll see guest engagement spike.

A competitive advantage can further be achieved through increased operational efficiency. Streamline your company’s internal processes by using a back-office dashboard that allows you to organize and manage information in one central location. Whether you choose a single platform or a combination of systems that complement each other, incorporating solutions that allow information and data to congregate in one place will help you streamline operations and enhance guest interactions. Your employees will be more efficient and internal processes more effective.

Streamline staff training

Using multiple software systems at your property means ensuring your staff is properly trained on each one. Implementing a single end-to-end platform or integrated solutions makes training, utilizing, and optimizing that tech much more straightforward. Look to solutions and platforms that emphasize ease of use and a clean staff interface, as these solutions typically require little training and provide a better user experience.

INTELITY delivers an industry-leading hospitality platform that unites mobile, in-room, and staff technology to transform the way hoteliers engage their guests. See how your property can embrace a digital hospitality strategy to elevate the guest experience now.

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November 29, 2019 by INTELITY

The Importance of International Adaptability

Connecting Hoteliers to Guests at a Global Scale

This article was originally published on Hospitality Technology on November 25, 2019.

The Pew Research Center recently reported that over 5 billion people worldwide now have mobile devices, and many people travel with up to three devices. In addition, the availability of 4G or better cell networks has increased at a global scale with 4G availability at approximately 80 percent across most countries.

The increase in cellular usage and availability has led to the need for the hospitality sector to meet the rising tide of digital-first travelers via the channels they’re most comfortable with—their mobile devices. We have already seen the airline industry adopt this type of mobile technology to great success and the ride-share industry was built using mobile, self-service technology as its foundation. Yet, the hospitality industry has been slow to embrace this technology, which has allowed entry for tech-leading competitors like Airbnb and VRBO.

The modern traveler wants to be able to book their flights to anywhere around the globe, check-in, access their boarding pass, track their luggage, catch a ride from the airport to their hotel, check-in to their room and order room service—all from their phone. The flow of information across international borders, currencies, languages, and even customs should feel seamless and completely natural.

While both airlines and ride-sharing companies have seen considerable success in utilizing mobile technology to the tune of billions of dollars in consumer and shareholder upside, why has the hospitality industry been slow to adopt mobile-first technologies at scale? Cost and ease of use are often key deterrents, along with high turnover rates that require training new staff and implementing new tech into an existing, often complex, tech stack. This list of barriers to entry gets longer when you add international brands and properties into the mix, as they also have to adhere to different regulations (such as GDPR) and various local currencies and taxes. Hospitality tech platforms need to be flexible and able to adapt to the industry’s wide range of needs.

Today’s mobile solutions and cloud-based platforms models make hospitality tech more accessible and affordable, reducing the barriers that hotels have historically faced. Mobile apps provide hotels with an instant connection to guests via the channel they’re already engaged on and create an opportunity to house many functionalities in a single location. Cloud-based platforms tend to be more flexible, customizable, and extremely easy to maintain compared to on-premise systems, which allows properties of all sizes to offer connected services and a guest experience modern travelers expect.

INTELITY offers customizable mobile app solutions designed to accommodate the needs of both smaller boutique properties and large enterprise brands across the globe. Mobile apps cross international borders by giving hoteliers a branded channel where they can connect with their guests before, during, and after their stay. Through INTELITY’s mobile solutions, hoteliers can offer mobile check-in and mobile key functionalities, as well as mobile dining, messaging, and access to existing loyalty programs, booking engines and more.

In addition to customizable enterprise mobile apps, the INTELITY platform offers cloud-based solutions that provide a seamless digital connection between hotel guests and staff. The solutions are multilingual, supporting all Western and character-based languages, including simplified Chinese, Spanish, French, Hebrew, and more. Guests anywhere can use INTELITY’s solutions to easily order everything from in-room dining to housekeeping requests in their own language. Language support not only makes it easier and more convenient for guests to interact with staff, but it also increases revenue opportunities for the property by leveraging promotional and marketing opportunities in guests’ native languages.

Multiple languages are also offered within the staff-facing solutions of the platform, allowing hotel staff to process guest requests, daily tasks, work orders, and more in the language of their choice. The INTELITY platform also supports local currencies and taxes and offers flexibility within its workflow management tools, giving hoteliers the ability to adapt the platform to their specific operations no matter where they are located.

The INTELITY platform is currently in use on six continents and in over 40 countries. We have gone to great lengths to ensure our platform is flexible and easy to implement into a brand or property’s existing tech stack. INTELITY’s platform currently integrates with more than 120 software and hardware providers, including PMS, POS, ticketing, and spa management systems that are popular in various across the globe.

To learn more about the international adaptability of the INTELITY platform, please visit our website or email demos@intelity.com.

A Blog by INTELITY

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INTELITY

By Benjamin Keller, INTELITY Senior Vice President of Sales, West

How a smart digital strategy can help overcome digital pitfalls

Connecting Hoteliers to Guests at a Global Scale

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