Author: Kate Ivers

This article was contributed by our partner, Benbria Corporation.

For the modern traveler, technology has become an essential part of almost every stage of their journey. Whether to research a hotel, purchase an excursion or communicate with staff, the reliance on technology can’t be ignored.

And although this tells us that having technology in place is crucial for hotelier survival, it also points to signs of a desire for immediate interaction. In fact, today 71% of customers expect real-time communication and 60% of customers want quick support to their inquiry.

As the landscape continues to evolve for hotels, real-time communication becomes paramount for effective communication, empowering customers to reach out and plan their trips on their own schedule.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at the current state of real-time communication, and how it can impact your hotel guest experience in the years to come.

The State of Hotel Communication

Historically, real-time engagement could be defined by a phone call or text message to concierge. However, today, many channels allow for immediate conversation. Apps like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter are growing in popularity, with customers reaching out on more than one channel and expecting conversations on two or more channels. 

Immediacy has quite evidently become an essential part of the experience. It allows customers to continue on their whim of planning with little interruption or delay. Those who aren’t meeting customer expectations can experience a ripple in reputation and lose out on valuable loyalty. Let’s explore this further with how real-time directly impacts hoteliers.

How Real-Time Impacts Hoteliers

Seamless Requests & Alerts

For the hotelier, real-time communication allows for a seamless flow of conversation. Whether you choose to notify a guest when their room is ready, send updates on room service, or alert guests of COVID-19 precautions, it’s a great way to keep guests alert. 

And it works both ways. 

Guests can also leverage real-time communication to request items and updates on services, streamlining operations and ensuring greater satisfaction. 

Room Service, Simplified 

Today, room service takes on a completely new meaning as hotels around the globe opt for responsive and real-time devices. Instead of having a physical menu and phone, in-room tablets have become a tool to offer an array of hotel services. 

For instance, in addition to restaurant menus, an in-room tablet can offer meal recommendations, spa packages, in-room fitness apps and a whole range of experience-enhancing services. This allows for up-selling your hotel’s offerings without the massive uplift.

Immediate Recovery

It’s been reported that  82% of consumers look for an immediate response from brands. In addition, “78% of customers expect your brand to solve their problem (regardless of how complex it might be) with a single contact”.

Real-time capabilities, such as asking for feedback or having a channel open for communication, can help deter negative sentiment online and encourage a healthy flow of communication. If a customer writes in, staff are immediately notified, so you can recover the experience and reduce churn. 

For the modern guest, having someone available to talk to in the moment can make all the difference in whether they leave with a good or bad experience. 

Holistic Engagement

Real-time opens up a new world of communication pre and post-stay that isn’t available with simple on-site communication. Rather than being restricted to in-stay, you can build a strategy (that includes upselling and collecting feedback) to continuously engage customers. 

With greater opportunity to start a conversation and build a loyal brand relationship, having real-time capabilities can help you stay top of mind and competitive.

Streamline Operations

Your guests aren’t the only ones impacted by real-time capabilities. In fact, your employees benefit from it greatly. 

With real-time capabilities, you can gamify the experience for hotel staff, encourage them to maintain a level of customer satisfaction, answer customer queries in record time, encourage friendly competition and so on. 

Further, with real-time insights, your team can hold regular meetings at the beginning or end of their shift to ensure employees are performing to your brand standards.

Strategically Enhance Future Stays

Insights gathered from real-time conversations can help you understand trends to forecast for the future. Understand busy times of day, average customer sentiment and trending topics that can shape future experiences. 

As an example, knowing what days customers are writing in can help you schedule employee shifts. In addition, knowing trending topics like “very clean” or “great service” can help you allocate spend and resources accordingly.

Taking the First Step Towards Real-Time Engagement

Implementing real-time capabilities comes with its benefits. From deterring negative sentiment to streamlining back-end operations and keeping your team on top of hotel trends, it’s a great way to grow your business. 

However, taking the first step can be complex if you’re new to real-time engagement. With so many channels available and no previous data to build a strategy, it can get overwhelming. 

It doesn’t have to be this way. 

With a customer experience solution, you get a team of dedicated experienced specialists to assist you every step of the way. In addition, managing channels is simplified as you can consolidate all guest conversations into a single inbox; Facebook, Twitter, email, it all gets sent to a unified inbox for immediate response. Saving employees time toggling between tabs.

Further, an experience solution can provide you with detailed insights on customer sentiment and operational performance. Whether you’re looking to gain insight on time to respond or the average sentiment of a customer, an experience solution can consolidate data on a customizable dashboard that suits your needs. 

For hoteliers, engaging guests in real-time is a great way to build a solid reputation and reduce churn. As expectations continue to sore and businesses become more competitive, offering real-time communication and feedback can keep you ahead of the curve.

Though hotels have been slow to adopt technology historically, hotel tech adoption is accelerating faster than ever. Since COVID-19, quick technology adoption within the hotel industry has become vital. And with technology, hotels can do more with less. The right technology can enable hotels to operate with fewer employees and thus reduces the property’s staffing needs, which is paramount in today’s staff shortage crisis. Here are five tech products your hotel needs during the pandemic and even after to keep up with customer expectations, employee safety, and more.

1. Up-selling Via In-room Tablets

Up-selling is a newer trend that’s becoming more imperative. The front desk is no longer the only party responsible for up-selling – Reservation, Concierge, and Guest Relationship departments all play a part. 

Volo can generate revenue through a variety of up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. Volo is an in-room tablet solution that gives your guests interactive, touchscreen access to all of your hotel amenities. Volo proves to be a profit center, not a cost, by driving revenue through up-sells and cross-sells of food, beverage, and amenities, and even push notifications for promotions or direct bookings. Volo also helps save money by ensuring real-time service recovery and improved reputation management, and cost savings from staff efficiency and reduced printing. Ultimately, more engagement and a better guest experience translate to real and measurable value to any hotel.

2. Guest Messaging

Guest Messaging Software (GMS) is a software platform that enables hotels to engage with their guests through various messaging apps in real-time. The messaging software allows hotels to send transactional messages, reply to guests, and manage guest requests. With this kind of text messaging platform, hotels can increase guest engagement, improve customer service scores, and get insight to their guests’ experiences.

Until now, most businesses have held back from using popular messaging services in the belief that they are reserved for chatting with friends and family. However, recognition of the convenience of real-time text chats with hotel guests is growing. Most guests would simply rather send hotel staff a message than call or speak in person. 

Hotels will need to have the necessary resources in place to handle real-time texts in order to ensure acceptable response times or that a chatbot can answer the most common queries. Messaging is an area where artificial intelligence is helping. Messaging AI can even be used to simply route conversations to the right departments. The benefits are likely to be increased customer satisfaction levels and up-selling opportunities.

The Loop Experience Platform’s messaging service allows guests to chat with your staff seamlessly. Loop is an omni-channel service that aggregates all of your messaging channels – whether it be email, SMS, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Twitter Direct Messages, or other service. With Loop, you have the necessary resources in place to handle real-time texts in order to ensure acceptable response times.

3. Staff Tipping

Tipping has always been an essential part of the hospitality industry. Tips don’t just help hotel staff make ends meet; they contribute to a culture of financial wellness and security. However, fewer guests carry cash on them than in earlier years.  With eTip, your guests can tip your housekeeping or concierge staff with the touch a button without needing cash. Tipping has never been easier or more convenient, and your staff will certainly appreciate it!

As COVID-19 spreads, many hotels instituted new contact-less measures of check-in, amplified deep-cleaning methods, and other hygienic implementations to assure guests’ safety and reduce physical interaction without losing that personal, human touch that sets hospitality apart. However, these new touchless practices are by no means exclusive to a pandemic year. Tipping methodologies are part of that touch-less change, too. Hotels are adopting cash-less tipping solutions like eTip to help reduce the spread of germs while keeping staff paid well.

4. In-room Fitness

With in-room tablets, your guests can enjoy workouts in the comfort of their room. Guests will benefit from complimentary on-demand and live classes viewed on a tablet in the privacy of their rooms with no time constraints or the need to access a gym or fitness equipment. Our fitness partner’s platform allows for you to save money on staffing and maintaining a fitness center. 

“Fitness and wellness has become a top priority for travelers, with studies showing that 48% of guests rank a property’s wellness options as ‘very important,’” says Volo Solutions President and CEO, Benjamin Londa. “With hotels adapting to the new normal, the option of an in-room fitness amenity could very well become a necessity.”

Guests are also becoming increasingly concerned with the health and safety of themselves in crowded and unkept spaces. A hotel’s gym is no exception. Give guests multiple options for fitness opportunities by adding an in-room fitness feature to your in-room tablets. 

5. Panic Buttons

With the sweeping implementation of new safety standards and legislations, hoteliers are quickly shifting focus towards employee protection. Historically, the hospitality industry has been guest-centric, but recently there’s been more attention to employee safety. Even before the pandemic, reports of unsafe working conditions for hotel staff were in the media. Fortunately, technology is now able to keep workers safe. Next-generation panic buttons are leading the way as the true future of worker safety. 

Panic buttons also serve to reduce any legal fees, maintain your hotel’s reputation, can be deployed quickly on-site, and are just the right thing to have on your property.

Volo aims to deliver state-of-the-art software solutions to hotels and AirBNBs across the world. There are a plethora of things you and your guests can do with Volo’s in-room tablet interface. From scheduling wake-up calls to making a dinner reservation, there are so many ways that Volo gives your guests a better travel experience.

In this blog post, we’ll cover one of the most crucial parts of a vacation – food! Going out to eat and exploring local cuisine is essential while traveling. Volo tablets give your guests ample choices for dining at your hotel’s restaurant or around the block.

Champion Your Hotel’s Restaurant

Have a restaurant or dining area on-site? We’ll display your restaurant’s menu, photos, hours, and more on our in-room tablets. With Volo, it’s easy to advertise your hotel’s restaurant and keep your guests on-campus. 

Once on your restaurant’s page, users can easily view your menu, make a reservation for any size party, and even meet your staff. 

You can use this page to include important updates about your restaurant, whether it be new COVID-19 restrictions, deals, or other news. Volo tablets also allow for sending push notifications, which means you’re able to send alerts, vouchers, restaurant discounts, or other messages directly to your guests before they even open your restaurant’s page.

Showcase Other Restaurant Options

Know the best dining spots near your hotel? Working with you, we’ll put together a list of local flavor destinations on every in-room tablet. Or, we can do all the heavy lifting for you by researching the best restaurants near your hotel.

Once a comprehensive list of restaurants has been created, users can browse for whatever they’re feeling at that moment. Whether the cuisine is Indian, American, sushi, or even frozen yogurt, your guests can choose which restaurant they want to support. Users can also read restaurant descriptions, view photos, and more. 

Give Your Guests What They Want

Having food options built into your rooms makes for a better guest experience. Food is an essential part of traveling, and without proper direction, your guests will look elsewhere or get frustrated with the lack of care.

Interested in amplifying your hotel’s restaurant or local scene? Send us a message to set up a no-obligation demo for your hotel or AirBNB. 

Hotels across the world are struggling to find and retain staff in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic. Staff shortages are a problem in every department of a hotel, but particularly with operational positions. Requests are going unanswered, check-in queues are growing long, and hotels cannot uphold the same level of service standards as before. However, new technologies pose solutions that are well within the average hotel’s reach. 

Why Is There a Staff Shortage? 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many hotel staff were laid off or experienced reduced working hours. Some were forced out of their roles because their employers downsized or even shuttered as travel bans were enacted. Other hoteliers and staff have been “rage quitting” in search of better pay and working conditions. As a result, many have decided to move on or try out a job in a different field, often with a higher salary. In fact, about one-third of former hospitality workers won’t return to the industry because they want higher pay, better benefits, and a new work environment in the wake of COVID-19. 

The Effects of Staff Shortages in Hotels 

Even as shutdowns have been lifted, many hotels are only operating at partial capacity because of their staff shortages. This creates massive revenue decline for hotels across the world. 

With fewer staff members comes reduced maintenance and housekeeping hours, dining and food options, front desk assistance, and an overall guest experience. With rooms to clean and guests waiting in the lobby, hotel staff don’t have much time to consider revenue management. To make matters worse, when guests have a poor experience, they’re likely to leave a negative review on travel sites such as TripAdvisor, tell their friends about it or post on their social media networks.

However, hotels need to do everything in their power to optimize the returning demand that is now booming in many regions. Luckily, one alternative that hotels can turn to is to outsource a solution. 

How Volo’s Tablets Solve Hotel Staff Shortage Problems 

Our clients mention that they view the tablets as an extension of their staff, even before the pandemic. Here are only some of Volo’s features that can help with staff shortages in the hotel industry: 

● Fewer front-desk calls. Volo’s software alerts back-end staff when a request is submitted so your front-desk staff aren’t bogged down answering phone calls. Volo’s tablets are also equipped with up-to-date menus, protocols, and more to keep guests informed without needing to call down to the front desk. 

● Better feedback generation. A hotel simply cannot afford to let their guests leave without knowing if they were completely satisfied with their stay. Save time by having Volo ask for you how a guest’s experience was. Capture any negative feedback quickly while the guest is still onsite to avoid a guest writing publicly online about their experience. Otherwise, busy staff at your hotel might not hear them and a negative review on TripAdvisor could surface. 

● In-room activities. Allow your guests to enjoy games, streaming, and even workouts in the comfort of their own room. This eliminates or reduces the need for common game rooms, activity centers, and fitness centers to be cleaned as often or even staffed. 

● Increased connection. With the inclusion of staff photos and bios, along with the customization of brand and specific facility information, Volo tablets serve to remind guests that there is a human element operating for their comfort and safety, even if there are fewer humans working for you. Real-time chat messaging and immediate responses to requests ensure that guests and staff can be in constant communication if they desire. 

Jump on board fast with flexible and cost-effective solutions from Volo! If Volo’s in-room tablets seem like they could help you, please reach out to us to schedule a quick demo for your business.

Get Started Using Volo!

Fill out the information below to receive a quote or answer to your question.