A Personalized and Differentiated Hotel Experience
Our survey data demonstrates that hospitality guests are embracing digital transformation like never before. How can operators best respond to demand for mobility and self-service?
Hotel operators are deploying new mobile applications and digital technologies to automate the processes for check in, keyless entry, dinner reservations, room service, reserving entertainment activities, screen-casting their phone apps to TVs, checkout services and many other capabilities. Self-service options are expected by Millennial and younger generations and guests often choose brands based on those that best meet their service requirements. Providing a personalized and differentiated experience based on guests’ individual preferences (for those that opt-in) is key to cultivating guest loyalty. Many operators are listening to their guests more than before as they are adapting technology and processes to meet elevated guest expectations to rebuild market demand after the downturn during the pandemic.
Technology now allows operators to communicate with customers at a variety of digital touchpoints — how can brands leverage those communications to improve service and ROI?
Leveraging digital touchpoints for guests can improve the experience and enhance loyalty. Personalizing messaging specific to your customer preferences makes them feel like you know them. The large demographic of millennials and digital natives wants a very personal experience, which can be easily achieved with the use of CRM and analytics solutions that enable hotel operators to customize communications and offers for each guest. Communicating special services and personalized offers or promotions through digital touchpoints allows guests to make more spontaneous decisions and can help hotels increase revenues and improve profits.
Please speak to the role that Verizon’s “automated retail” can play in the customer journey?
Autonomous checkout enables hotel operators to offer retail services without the need for dedicated employees to be present. With the labor shortages that have plagued hotels and other service industries, autonomous checkout technologies in hotel retail spaces can reduce labor requirements and offer customers the convenience of shop and go experiences.
Millennials and digital native customers desire control over their shopping experience and this technology not only allows them to get convenient access to food, snacks, beach items, and other sundries, it allows them complete control in the shopping process. Imagine needing over the counter medication at 2 am. With a 24/7 autonomous checkout store, guests can walk into the store, scan their credit card or mobile QR code, grab their merchandise and walk out. Their scanned credit card or payment card on file (for customers that have an account) will be automatically charged as they exit the store.
Data breaches and hacks continue to plague restaurants and hotels. What are some critical considerations for implementing secure transactions?
Cybersecurity and data breaches come from a variety of sources and, as retailers ourselves, we understand how important it is to stay vigilant protecting and monitoring customer data and protecting transactions according to PCI standards. Our recommendations for secure transactions would be to continuously monitor your infrastructure to protect the security within your network to keep hackers out, implement solutions that provide Zero Trust capabilities and embed security within your networks to keep your infrastructure safe. Hotel operators will need to prepare for and implement new payment security practices related to PCI 4.0 across all transaction-based applications from the online, store and mobile applications. For hotels that don’t have a dedicated security team, it may make sense to have a security partner to rapidly investigate any potential breaches or simply changes that are concerning to help you ward off data security, fraud or ransomware issues.