Leverage Hotel Guest Messaging to Boost Customer Satisfaction
Hotel guests expect nothing but the best service. Recent research says that as much as 78% of hotel guests say that high-quality service is their main priority when selecting a hotel. Integrating personalization practices such as hotel guest messaging into hotel services can make providing high-quality service an easy and intuitive process.
Read on to learn how hotel guest messaging works, four ideal situations where it can make a crucial difference, and a few specific ways hotels can deliver messages to their guests.
- What is Hotel Guest Messaging?
- 4 Key Hotel Guest Messaging Examples
- Communication Methods for Hotel Guest Messaging
What is Hotel Guest Messaging?
Hotel guest messaging refers to communication between hotels and their guests via any number of messaging platforms. While the method of communication may vary, hotel guest messaging provides an essential two-way communication channel between guests and their hotel staff. In turn, hotel guest messaging provides immense benefits for staff and guests alike.
Hotel guests often have specific inquiries or requests that require urgent attention. Through hotel guest messaging, guests can contact hotel staff quickly, helping them resolve issues in a timely fashion.
Meanwhile, hotel staff can deliver clear and concise messages about specific situations at a moment’s notice with guest messaging software. Plus, hotel marketing and personalization efforts are far more intuitive and easy to communicate with hotel guest messaging.
4 Key Hotel Guest Messaging Examples
There are many situations in which hotel guest messaging can be useful; here are four of the most common. Each of these can provide an ideal means to offer services to guests, receive feedback, and leverage skillful use of hotel personalization.
Welcome Messages for Guests Upon Arrival
Upon arriving at their hotel, guests may be tired or stressed. A welcome message can make guests feel seen and appreciated, conveying a sense of warmth and hospitality. These messages can also provide critical logistical information such as check-in details, unique amenities, and room features — eliminating the need for guests to find this information themselves.
Hotels can tailor welcome messages based on customer information and preferences. For example, if a particular guest has expressed interest in hotel dining, hotels can include special restaurant offers as a part of their welcome messaging. This direct, specific marketing increases the chances guests will use hotel services.
Celebration Messages for Special Occasions
Birthdays, anniversaries, family reunions: these are just a few of the special occasions guests may be celebrating while staying at a hotel. By leveraging customer data to provide direct, personal messaging, hotels can celebrate these celebrations with a personal touch — acknowledging a guests’ unique life experiences & personalities while building a rapport that transcends typical interactions between businesses and their customers.
Hotels can also use celebration messages to suggest specific services and amenities to guests. For instance, a message congratulating a couple on their anniversary can also include a special offer for the hotel restaurant. Altogether, messages celebrating special occasions can both make guests feel welcomed at your property and lead to direct ROI.
Personalized Farewell Messages for Guests Checking Out
Just as with their arrival, hotels can bid guests farewell with direct messaging. Staff can thank guests for their time and patronage, providing a unique, personal touch that further develops their connection. Such a measure leaves a lasting, positive impression on the guests, increasing their chance of returning to the hotel.
Hotels can also provide helpful departure-related information and special deals and packages for guests. For instance, if a guest needs fast, speedy transportation to a local airport, hotel staff can connect them with a local taxi or rideshare service with whom they partner. Guests will also appreciate having ready access to critical details such as their check-out time.
Farewell messages are also the perfect space for hotels to solicit feedback and reviews. It’s far more likely that a guest will complete a short survey or provide a comment if they can do it from a text or email window. Moreover, hotels can use this opportunity to resolve any final, pressing concerns before the guest leaves, demonstrating a commitment to their satisfaction.
Apology Messages to Upset Guests
Unfortunately, regardless of the quality of your property, it’s common for guests to experience hiccups or issues with their hotel experiences. Whether a specific room they requested is unavailable or they share concerns about a particular experience, direct messaging from a hotel to their guests provides a convenient way to deliver an apology. Apologizing to guests for specific inconveniences shows that the hotel cares about their well-being — putting them in a better mood and increasing the chance of conflict resolution.
In-person customer service often requires guests to find hotel staff first, making them leave their rooms or disrupt their activities. Direct messaging avoids disruption to the guest’s plans and occurs in real time, demonstrating a degree of responsiveness that would otherwise be impossible to achieve. Additionally, through messaging, hotels can send additional personnel as needed.
Communication Methods for Hotel Guest Messaging
Thanks to modern technology, hotels can take advantage of several easy, intuitive tools to keep in touch with their guests. Each of these options—text messaging, emails, and IRE—has its unique strengths, but they work best when used together.
SMS/Text Messages
Smartphones are a ubiquitous part of modern life. Hotels can easily solicit phone numbers from their guests and then use them for communication throughout their travels. In fact, hotels that don’t text their guests may be disappointing them— recent research suggests that guests who make frequent use of mobile texting for work tend to expect hotels to leverage texting as a means of connection.
Email Messages
Emails may be more formal than text messages, but many guests prefer being contacted via this method. For hotels, including larger amounts of information—along with more specific details—is easier to do with an email. Emails can include images, hyperlinks, and other features that further enhance the guest’s ability to read and understand the message in question.
IRE Platforms
The newest and most advanced means of hotel guest messaging are Interactive Room Experience (IRE) platforms. IRE platforms place guests in charge of their hotel experience. Usually, IRE solutions use in-room hardware that integrates with smart devices to give guests the power to order room service, change their room temperature, and research local information & recommendations for restaurants and tourist attractions.
Hotels can also communicate directly with their guests using IRE technology. Instead of sending formulaic, generic text or email messages, staff can have a one-on-one conversation with guests in real time, taking personalization to the next level.
Integrate Hotel Guest Messaging with Connectivity from Hospitality Network
Whether hotels want to target specific customers based on their unique preferences or communicate with their guests in a sincere and authentic way, there’s simply no better means of reaching out to guests than with direct hotel guest messaging. With text messages, emails, and IRE platforms, hotels can make use of multiple means of communication to establish lines of contact with their guests, furthering engagement and customer retention rates.
However, hotels need reliable and responsive hotel WiFi — along with high-tech IRE technology — to effectively utilize hotel guest messaging. Consistent Internet access makes communicating with guests a seamless and intuitive process, while premium-grade IRE software and support will amaze guests and decrease the amount of time needed for maintenance. There’s simply no room for error or second-rate services.
Hospitality Network excels at providing state-of-the-art, dependable hotel WiFi and IRE platforms. Integrating your hotel into the cloud and making use of IoT technology for hotel guest messaging and other needs is easy when you schedule a free consultation. Don’t wait: take your hotel to the next level by working with Hospitality Network.