As Americans Venture Out: Contactless Communication Rises in Importance
As Americans become accustomed to “living with” COVID-19, their thirst to regain vestiges of pre-pandemic life grow stronger with every passing month. Data shows that more Americans are beginning to travel – even if it is only to destinations within driving distance of their home. As they travel, however, they bring with them a whole new set of expectations for their hotel stay. From check-in to check-out, they expect a contactless experience as well as daily visible reminders of how the hotel property is making their health and safety a priority. To learn more about this topic, Hospitality Technology spoke with David Fox, Quore COO.
How are guest expectations changing – post-COVID19 – when it comes to check-in, in-room and on-site amenities, and checkout?
Guests expect their experiences at hotels to be different, just like every other interaction or experience they encounter outside of their homes. They anticipate visual cues that hotels have responded and adapted to health and safety mandates, for example furniture that has been spaced out in the lobby, easily accessible hand sanitizer, masks and maybe even plexiglass partitions. However, the discomfort in the changes lies in not knowing how to do something that was previously accomplished with a face-to-face interaction.
Right now, hotel guests expect an added level of cleanliness and contactless options for service. Just like many people have their groceries delivered or select “Leave at door” options when they place an order for food from Uber Eats, many guests expect a hands-free experience when interacting with hotel staff at this time. They also want reassurance about COVID safety precautions and procedures that will be taken during their stay for added peace of mind.
How do health/safety, efficiency, contactless experiences play into these changing expectations?
With the emphasis on health, safety and contactless experiences, guests expect more digital interactions with hotels. And most assume that “digital” or “electronic” automatically results in more efficiencies, which is challenging for an industry that is traditionally known to be a laggard in implementing technology.
Guests’ changing expectations mean that hotels have to find new ways to remain efficient while addressing new needs. These needs include additional health and safety measures and finding ways to recreate great guest experiences while remaining as socially distant as possible. Digital solutions are key here. Guests now, more than ever, expect the ability to communicate digitally with hotel staff to submit requests, complaints and generally communicate needs.
What technologies do you offer that help hotels address these changes in guest expectations?
Quore offers several solutions for health and safety during these times of changed guest expectations. Brands have done an exceptional job in adapting their cleaning and sanitization protocols and implementing health and safety procedures. Our role is to support the hotels in documenting their operational compliance and supporting their contactless communication efforts.
Quore’s customizable Checklists and Inspections app allows hotels to upload their own templates into Quore for easy access across departments and properties. Brands and properties can tailor them to fit their specific protocols and procedures so that everyone, despite role or shift, knows what to do.
New Logs were recently released for additional safety precautions, as a way to monitor temperature readings for staff and areas with capacity restrictions. Preventative Maintenance and Inspections Reports allow for deep insights into how new procedures and protocols are being followed.
On top of all of that, Quore’s Connect app provides teams with contactless communication options for messaging guests. Hotel staff can easily send guests customized text messages to communicate important information or procedures and handle simple guest interactions. Quore customers leverage this for welcome messages, expediting guest requests, managing lost and found, and capturing guest satisfaction upon check out.
What do your hotel clients have to say?
We recently interviewed Travis Maschino, General Manager of the Holiday Inn Detroit Northwest in Livonia Michigan. Here is what he had to say:
“Instead of having to talk with every front desk agent or every housekeeper or every maintenance person, we can put a log into Quore that communicates the upcoming policies that the hotel or company has put into place,” Maschino says. “Because of the pandemic we suspended housekeeping services during guest stays unless it’s requested. So, we added an excerpt in the Quore Connect welcome message to communicate this information to guests. They now know what’s going on and how we’re making sure that they’re safe and our staff is safe. I really truly love Quore because I feel like it’s allowing us to make the most out of our guest experiences even during a time where guest experiences are different because of social distancing.”