Chatbots in the hospitality industry
About the industry
Despite the tourism industry being severely impacted by the global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that began in early 2020 and continues till now, it shows slight growth in 2022 compared to 2020. At the same time pandemic accelerates a few trends, and automation is one of them (like contactless payment, food ordering, using robots, etc)
The digitization of the hospitality industry has been underway for decades, but the past two years have accelerated tech adoption in hotels across the globe. The latest surveys reveal nearly 78% of hoteliers will increase their investment in hotel tech in the next three years. One of the top five most important points takes place digital guest journey
Pains and challenges
Waiting for check-in
Automated check-in at hotels is much faster than standing in line to be checked in by reception staff. “Why do low-cost airlines tools up with the process where you don’t need to wait on the check-in, you can do everything online, and in a hotel not uncommon for you to have to wait”. Such a question sometimes is wondered by many guests.
Language barriers
A lot of tourists are trying to avoid interaction with reception due to a lack of spoken language knowledge. It leads that some customer demands not being met and too low service ordering. Also sometimes the customer is not able to explain his issues.
Customer loyalty
When expectations are not met, customers can be very vocal about their dissatisfaction, complaining to staff, writing negative reviews, and posting complaints on social media. For preventing such cases, a hotel should stay with a guest at arm’s length 24×7
Personal attention
Guest experience is the top priority for the hospitality sphere. Personal interaction with customers is highly important for them to feel unique. For this purpose, hotels need a way to programmatically collect guest’s data, so that hotel staff can access and leverage it in real-time in different inn areas.
What kind of use cases useful to automate
Check-in and check-out
Online check-in automation enables the guests to book their room according to their own convenience. It minimizes e human involvement since check-in and check-out operations can be performed any time via the favorite messaging app. Guests can use their smartphones to check in to or out of the hotel, allowing them to skip the line at the front desk
Services and meal ordering
Using a chatbot, instead of calling reception, allows clients to make simple service requests without any language barrier. Just in a few clicks, customers can order meals to the room, additional room services, and reserve some hotel facilities. Hotels can implement not expensive chatbots that understand a variety of languages
Visitor management
Using integration with a visitor management system, the chatbot allows your residents in a few steps to provide access to the community area for their guests, relatives, or service companies. It’s easier and more convenient to run a favorite messager and share QR that grants access to the community area
Complaints
It’s crucial in a competitive environment to treat customer complaints in a fast way and avoid evolving them into problems. On the one hand, the customer if something happens can raise a complaint, on the other hand, hotel management can track what is going on and react if needed. Using chatbots for customer care allows for minimizing such cases by eliminating them in the early stages.
Get basic info
Every time clients have a lot of questions, related to services, nearest places, or open hours of the restaurant. A chatbot can answer these questions within a second using customer-preferred language. Using integration with the hotel management system, a chatbot can also provide personal answers, like bill status
Feedback and promotions
During customer staying, you can track customer satisfaction by doing some proactive interaction with guests by asking if everything is ok. Also to engage customers and increase loyalty you can do promotions via chatbot. You can greet them personally using the bot, and ask them about their opinion.