Personalization in the Hotel Industry Can Drive Brand Loyalty and Repeat Business
Across industries, personalization has become a leading force for customer satisfaction; in a survey from McKinsey & Company, 71% of customers expect personalization from the brands they interact with, while 76% get frustrated when they don’t find it. In turn, it’s essential for any business to prioritize personalization — and hotels are no exception.
Read on to discover what exactly hotel personalization entails. Then, discover five hotel personalization examples that hotels can use to improve their visitors’ experiences and increase customer loyalty.
What is Hotel Personalization?
Hotel personalization encompasses all strategies, messaging, and services used to individualize guest experiences throughout their journey — from booking a room, to their actual stay, all the way through post visit follow-up.
Today’s travelers want more than just a comfortable place to stay; they want a personalized experience tailored to their needs. According to a survey from PWC, business travelers and leisure travelers 30+ specifically value acknowledgment of program membership, welcome gifts, and welcome emails as key preferences to where they choose to stay. With personalization, hotels can deliver on these expectations.
At a core level, all hotel personalization strategies contribute to the overall goal of creating a custom-tailored guest experience. Hotels can deliver these strategies through various guest touchpoints, including:
- Digital Compendiums: Hotels can provide digital compendiums accessible via computers, mobile app, or in-room televisions. These compendiums offer personalized recommendations for dining, activities, and local attractions based on guest preferences.
- In-Room Entertainment Systems: Guests can personalize their hotel room entertainment experience using in-room entertainment systems pre-installed on their TV screens. IRE platforms allow guests to personalize their access to streaming content, order room service, or explore local activities tailored precisely to their interests.
- Managed WiFi Portals: When implementing guest WiFi log-in, hotels may choose to implement log-in portals. For returning guests or guests known to be with a specific group, hotels can personalize these portals with specialized upsells and advertising based on interests of their demographic.
These are just a few examples of personalized touchpoints that hotels can utilize to enhance guest satisfaction and create a seamless experience throughout their stay. However, the different strategies & techniques that fall under this umbrella term vary greatly. While it’s impossible to list every strategy hotels can use to personalize guest experiences, there are a few select strategies every hotel should keep in mind.
5 Key Hotel Personalization Examples
When beginning to implement personalization in hotels, some strategies are key to building a groundwork of customization. Using these five strategies, hotels can increase customer satisfaction and improve profits, brand visibility, & the likelihood of future visits.
Targeted Marketing Before Visits
Targeted marketing campaigns can also help hotels channel their advertising resources towards specific customer demographics. Once hotels have guest preference data, many potential marketing opportunities emerge, including social media promotions, personalized itineraries, and marketing material featuring specific hotel benefits.
For instance, if a hotel knows that their guests prefer relaxation opportunities to adventurous tourist activities, they can emphasize deals for spa packages in their promotional material. This type of relevant content increases customer engagement by giving them what they want to see and interact with before they make a decision about your venue.
Customized Promotions and Upsells
Providing guests with tailored offers based on their unique preferences is another essential strategy for personalization, extending marketing throughout a guest’s stay. While generic incentives work for broad marketing efforts, understanding guests’ desires empowers hotels to curate promotions that exceed standard upsells. Whether guests are keen on specific cuisines for in-hotel dining, recreation packages, tour guide experiences, or anything in between, hotels can provide offers that meet their needs.
Unique, personalized deals also enhance guest satisfaction. Personalized deals make guests feel welcomed & included, recognizing a hotel’s genuine interest in their happiness. Guests who receive a special upsell for a spa package or a competitive discount on a specific type of room are more likely to reward a hotel with their business in the future than those who receive generic marketing packages.
Personalized Greetings, Both Virtual & In-Person
In the digital age of hospitality, virtual greetings are commonplace. However, personalized virtual greetings are a thoughtful & impactful strategy to bolster typical virtual greetings. Using customer preference data and past stays for reference, virtual greetings are far more likely to garner attention from guests. Hotels can implement these virtual greetings in diverse places, including emails and through in-room entertainment platforms.
Hotels looking to customize guest experiences should also look to personalize in-person interactions. Guest data and information empowers hotels to take advantage of unique opportunities to build customer rapport. A simple greeting at the front desk, from “happy birthday” to “enjoy the conference,” can make a guest’s stay that more meaningful.
Individualized Follow-Up Emails
While many hoteliers may think about personalization within the frame of a guest’s stay, strategy doesn’t shouldn’t end once a guest checks out. Thoughtful, considerate post-stay emails demonstrate a hotel’s commitment to personalized service in a way that guests truly appreciate. While generic post-stay communications are better than nothing, leveraging guest data makes crafting post-stay messages that reflect a guest’s unique qualities and preferences can be a game-changer for guest retention.
First and foremost, post-stay emails should express gratitude for the guest’s stay, including specific call-outs for amenity use and reason for stay. Then, follow-up emails should also inquire about guest satisfaction. If hotels understand a guest’s preferences, they can ask pointed questions about specific services and offerings that said guest values above all else. This dialogue fosters a personalized relationship between the guest & the hotel, contributing to a sense of mutual care.
In addition to soliciting information about guest satisfaction and offering gratitude, post-stay emails can also recommend future offerings for guests based on their previous choices. As already mentioned, tailored marketing strategies yield great dividends for hotels eager to maintain a connection with a guest for the future. Further communication after a guest concludes their stay can remind guests of positive past experiences and encourage additional visits.
WiFi Offers Catered to Guest Needs
It’s hard to imagine a modern hotel without WiFi service; fast, high-speed WiFi supports both business operations and guest activities. Whether guests use the Internet for business meetings and work, to connect with loved ones on social media, or simply for leisure’s sake, hotels must provide reliable and effective Internet.
With an understanding of guest internet usage patterns, hotels can provide personalized WiFi offers to take engagement a step further. Tracking how long guests use the Internet, what services and sites they access, and what devices they use can help hotel staff optimize network performance. For instance, specific bandwidth settings, routers, and servers may work better in different contexts than others. If a hotel understands what their guests are up to on the Internet, they can tailor their WiFi setup accordingly.
Once hotels know their guests’ usage patterns, they can also offer tailored WiFi packages to meet various guest requirements. A tiered system that ranges from standard internet access to extra high-speed, dedicated solutions provides guests with a range of options they can choose from depending on their unique circumstances. Streaming packages are perfect for guests eager to relax and watch movies during their stay, while a business professional package can help remote workers get their work done.
Tiered WiFi offerings provide guests with choices. The more choices guests have, the more likely they will find something that meets their needs. Finding something they need, in turn, adds to an overall environment of inclusion and synergy between the hotel and the guests.
Leverage Personalization in the Hospitality Industry With Responsive Connectivity from Hospitality Network
These five strategies just scratch the surface of personalization; hotel owners and staff can leverage near limitless personalization techniques to drive brand loyalty, increase customer retention, and improve overall business performance. From targeted marketing techniques and customized upsells to personalized greetings, individualized follow-up emails, and tailored WiFi packages, a proper understanding of what makes hotel guests who they are can help surpass guest expectations and offer unforgettable experiences that last a lifetime.
Notably, none of these opportunities are possible without responsive hotel WiFi. Responsive hospitality internet connectivity ensures reliable access to the guest data needed to personalize experiences, while providing the infrastructure to send emails, messages, and more. To implement successful personalization in the hospitality industry, hotels need to partner with a trusted internet provider.
Hospitality Network supports next level guest experiences with responsive internet connectivity for hotels — including personalization solutions. Request a consultation today to help futureproof your hotel and prepare for extensive personalization, both now and in the future.