The New Hotel Guest Experience
As Americans slowly return to travel, guest expectations surrounding the experience have changed significantly. From the time they begin their first internet search to the time they leave your property, they desire a clean, safe environment filled with personalized touches and minimal inconveniences. To deliver on these expectations, however, may require that hotels rethink the way they have “always done” specific processes. It might also require an investment in new technologies. Here, we’ll look at what exactly guests want and how some hoteliers have been able to meet those guest expectations — from booking to checkout.
PERSONALIZATION AND COMMUNICATION
Travel, now, has a new level of risk associated with it that wasn’t there before the pandemic. The industry’s severe loss of revenue is a testament to how serious many Americans believe that risk to be. Those who are willing to travel, however, want to be rewarded for their loyalty, says Pierson.
So what type of “rewards” are these customers looking for. Well in many cases they want an “ideal experience,” says Barron. This means that their on-property visit meets their primary concern of sanitation and safety “while also achieving their goal of having a personalized, authentic experience with minimal physical touchpoints.”
Prior to the pandemic, personalized experiences and excellent communication was already becoming table stakes for consumers. The pandemic has just heightened the need for this type of interaction.
“The pandemic has only increased the urgency and necessity for personalized experiences,” Pierson explains. “Brands have quickly realized that there is not only a real, measurable upside in applying data to improve customer experiences - there is also a concrete risk of losing business if they fail to do so. Missing the opportunity to communicate new safety protocols, to recognize a long-time customer, to provide up-to-the-minute recommendations on available travel and activity options −- all of these could be the difference between winning a long-term customer or losing them to the competition.”
One way hotels can offer personalized communication is via a variety of contactless messaging channels: chat, text, messaging, etc. For example, a major international hotel chain uses Zendesk Sunshine Conversations to facilitate direct communications between staff and guests, explains Caitlin Keohane, VP, Strategy & Operations. These guests can message room service on their preferred channel (such as WhatsApp) and in their preferred language, allowing them to provide a contactless and personalized experience.
“Zendesk is at the core of our Omni channel contact center technology, and it has helped us to improve the way we engage and recognize our guest by merging all communication channels in one platform,” says Marcos Cadena, Vice President Digital Marketing, Distribution, CRM & Loyalty, Minor Hotels. “Our consumer nowadays starts multiple conversations on multiple devices and channels. This has been a key differentiator in our strategy as we can personalize our messages and make sure we recognize our guests.”
Karen Stephens, Chief Revenue Officer, Revinate recommends that hotels make it easy to evaluate their outdoor experience during the discovery/booking phase. There are three effective ways to do this, according to the CRM provider: Feature outdoor space and experiences within marketing campaigns, update website and OTA listing photography to showcase the property’s outdoor features/experiences, and drive reviews or testimonials that speak specifically to the outdoor experience.
Potential guests will also be carefully considering the measures a hotel is taking to mitigate risk for COVID-19 transmission among staff and guests.
“Guests want to review and understand what safety and health precautions hotels have implemented across the property for a low-touch/contactless experience and how it will impact their entire stay,” says Tanya Pratt, VP of strategy and product management, Oracle Hospitality. “Health and safety are the driving force behind consumer’s changing expectations. Industry recovery is dependent on putting the changes in place that will ensure consumers feel comfortable traveling again both for leisure and for business.”
Paul Barron, EVP Client Engagement, Hospitality, Amadeus, agrees, noting that communicating the hotel’s unique “culture of clean” should be easy to find and clearly understood by guests whether they are using booking channels, on the hotel website, using the hotel call center, or reading emails from the brand.
On the hotel website, specifically, hotels should list specifically what their brand is doing to keep everyone on-property safe. Allan Nelson, CEO and co-founder For-Sight, encourages hotels to list their enhanced hygiene measures, physical distancing measures, and active reduction in physical touchpoints.
Ultimately, “hotels that can effectively meet the primary need for sanitation and safety and clearly convey this through all booking channels and communication touchpoints will emerge as the leaders,” Barron believes. “In many instances, hotels will have to identify how to do this with reduced staffing, creating an increased need for technology to help automate and optimize processes. Leveraging connected technology solutions across the marketing, booking, communication and on-site engagement will allow hotels to deliver the ideal guest experience to create loyal, returning customers and achieve both short and long term success.”
In addition to communicating sanitation/safety measures, Nelson recommends that hotels also make their flexible booking and cancellation policies easy for guests to understand and find. “While guests are eager to travel, they need reassurance that should the situation change suddenly they are protected,” Nelson says. “Making sure that your cancellation policy is clearly written, takes into account the unpredictability of the situation, and is available during a guest’s research is likely to make them feel more confident in booking.”
One of For-Sight’s partners, online reputation and feedback expert GuestRevu, recently conducted a survey of 2,500 travelers and found that 67% of respondents said that a hotel’s cancellation policy would affect their booking decision.
Remember, “consumers expect the guest booking experience to account for everything that’s different about traveling in the midst of a pandemic,” says Corey Pierson, CMO of Amperity. “Everything from language and messaging to offers and promotions needs to reflect and provide constructive answers to the new set of questions consumers face when traveling anywhere. It’s also critical to understand whether travelers are new to the brand or long-standing customers. Consumers expect their booking experience to account for and learn from their past experiences.”