Hotel app or guest experience solution has become very popular ever since the covid pandemic hit the industry and hoteliers needed solutions for strict rules and regulations. Everybody had to adjust to the changing reality and embrace a new way of working with technologies.
While the boom came because of covid, there are a number of other ways these apps can help you to run your business. I will highlight some of the major benefits you will gain by starting to use a hotel app today.
1. Improve Guest Satisfaction
Great reviews on various booking platforms remain a strong indication of future profits. That much is clear, but achieving them is not always so straightforward. Even when the entire guest’s stay seems smooth and positive, the final review often highlights unreported issues.
The best way to address this is by enabling guests to “complain” graciously and easily during their stay. This gives your staff a chance to fix these issues and thus remove these grievances from the final review. This functionality is often called Feedback forms, and it should be a part of every capable hotel app.
Another good way hotel apps increase guests’ satisfaction is the ease they bring to the entire stay. Instead of relying on room phones or unpleasant waiting at the front desk, guests will be able to find all necessary information on their smartphones.
The same works for ordering. The whole selection of the services your hotel offers is in one place, along with a clear price and availability. Better hotel apps will also allow your guests to book appointments (such as massages or trips) and rent various equipment easily.
Studies show that majority of users prefer chat as opposed to other forms of communication. Simply giving your guests an option to use the chat instead of talking in person helps bring down the language barrier, and it contributes to the overall comfort of the whole stay.
2. Boost Revenues
Users are used to shopping online. By offering the option of ordering directly from your catalog of services, you are using these habits in your favor. More sales mean more profit.
Upselling is just one of the tools that are unlocked by moving your selling process online. By letting your system offer more valuable versions of the service automatically, you will further increase the revenue from room service and other picks in your catalog.
By establishing a direct communication channel with your guests, you will enable your business to benefit from push notifications. When used to share updates about the order, it directly affects guest satisfaction. You can also use this technology to promote your services and create special discounts further stimulating sales.
This communication also gives your guests a sense of control. The warm and positive feeling of grabbing the right product for the right price.
3. Cut Costs
Countless hours and a substantial amount of money are spent in hospitality every day on repetitive tasks. With a quality hotel app, you will never have to reprint leaflets, brochures, and menus.
When your guests can find most of the information in your app, your staff will be able to focus their time on more valuable tasks. Automating various processes around ordering also helps save valuable time for your staff. Instead of front desk staff having to put the orders placed by the room phone into another system, the order will automatically find its way to the person who can fulfill it. Without hurdles and multiple communication channels.
4. Increase Operational Efficency
By putting all of these interactions into a centralized system, you will start gaining a lot of valuable data. A smart hotel app will then give you analytics reports with actionable statics you can use to increase the operational efficiency of your hotel.
Data around the ordering habits of your guests can help you optimize your catalog and increase the revenue from the more popular items. It can also help optimize the shifts for your staff to make sure there’s an adequate number of employees to handle the operations at any given moment.