Table of Contents:
Why Your Concierge Needs a Modern-Day Toolset • Changes in the Concierge Role • What Does a Modern Concierge Tool Look Like • Empower Your Concierge Team
ALICE Concierge is designed specifically for today’s hotel concierges. It understands the demands of today’s guests, as well as the higher expectations concierges have for the technology they use every day.
Why Does Your Concierge Need a Modern-Day Toolset?
No hotel role has been impacted by technology quite like the concierge. With mobile internet and apps at their fingertips, most guests rely less on the concierge than they used to, but that shift has changed what the concierges need from the tools they use at work.
ALICE offers a modern-day toolset for concierges. It meets the high expectations of both guests and staff, helping concierges deliver standout services in the digital world. The product is designed to tackle the new challenges and opportunities of the modern concierge role and the importance of the concierge role to the hotel when it comes to guest engagement and service differentiation.
See ALICE’s top 5 features concierges cannot live without.
What Has Changed in the Concierge Role?
Mobile devices and the internet have changed how travelers rely on the concierge.
Before Google Maps, guests almost always stopped by the concierge for directions before heading out. Today’s guests are more informed about their options and how to get there, often before they even leave their rooms.
However, there’s still a big need for discovery and local insight.
Even with all this information at their fingertips, 77% of trip planning still happens once guests are on the property. Guests continue to seek out the concierge’s expertise, particularly when it comes to distilling this abundance of easily accessible information. They also count on the concierge to help plan and organize their stays.
Today’s concierges need modern tools to leverage, organize, and share their local knowledge in a way that truly enhances the guest experience.
On-demand, consumer-friendly technologies have changed guest behavior and what concierges expect from their own technology.
Today’s technology has made it easy to deliver services and experiences instantly, and guests arrive at your hotel expecting the same level of on-demand services and instant access to information. Modern concierges need task management software that includes real-time guest communication and intuitive, easy-to-use technology that helps them handle guest requests quickly and efficiently.
Guests today prefer messaging, even when communicating with businesses.
Messaging has clear advantages for hotels looking to engage with their guests – it’s sticky, conversational, and tied to their identity, making it an ideal channel for hotels to engage with them. Today’s concierges need a modern communication tool that includes real-time messaging to stay connected with guests and deliver the personalized service travelers expect.
In many hotels, the concierge is the conduit for the guest experience, and guests often turn to them for services beyond the traditional concierge role.
Today’s concierges need hotel task management software that integrates with systems used across other departments. With the right technology, they can dispatch guest requests to the appropriate staff and track the status of those requests as they are being filled (information which they can then relay to guests).
Industry trends are reshaping what it means to be a concierge.
The rise of the sharing economy, the growing influence of reviews and social media to bookings, and the shift from traditional loyalty programs are all converging to make service the big differentiator for hotels. To stand out, today’s concierges need hotel operation tools that enable them to provide exceptional service and be the key differentiating factor that keeps guests coming back.
The growing boutique segment doesn’t always have a dedicated concierge, yet guests still expect concierge-level hotel services.
In many boutique hotels, front desk staff and bellmen perform concierge duties while juggling their own responsibilities. Concierge technology that integrates with other front-of-house and back-of-house hotel operation tools can empower these staff to deliver exceptional concierge services and other tasks.
Online shopping creates new challenges for hotel packages or inventory management.
More packages are delivered to hotels every year, and managing them often falls to the concierge. Yet, many hotels still handle guest packages manually or rely on systems not specifically configured for hotel inventory. That’s where modern package management software makes a difference. Today’s concierges need tools that include robust package and inventory management features and fully integrate with the hotel’s other systems to stay organized and keep guests happy.
Learn more about how ALICE’s Concierge software helps with package management.
What Does a Modern-Day Concierge Tool Look Like?
Today’s concierges need more than just a desk and a notepad. A modern-day concierge tool brings everything together in one place, making delivering fast, personalized services to guests easier. Here are the essential features of a modern-day concierge tool:
- Request Tracking – Stay on top of every request from start to finish.
- Reminders – Never miss a follow-up or important details.
- Local Vendor Database – Quickly connect guests with trusted local experiences and services.
- In-App Messaging and SMS – Communicate with guests in real time.
- Itineraries and Letter Confirmations – Build and share detailed plans that keep guests excited about their stay.
- Digital Logbook: Packages and Lost & Found – Track packages and manage lost items with a system that keeps everything organized.
Request Tracking
What it is: Request Tracking lets your concierge team manage, assign, and track all guest requests and internal incidents – all within ALICE.
Why it’s important: Today’s guests book all sorts of activities with the concierge before they arrive on the property. From dinner reservations that need to be booked months in advance to last-minute car service requests, the concierge team must work together to track all the requested services. No one wants to disappoint a valued guest, and a request tracking tool ensures nothing slips through the cracks.
Request Tracking makes it easy. Every request is logged and updated in ALICE, so no details get lost. Any team member–even team members working the night shift–can quickly check the status guests might have and provide an immediate, accurate update.
Reminders
What it is: Reminders give concierges control over when and how often they are alerted about a task that needs attention. This is designed to ensure that every important request for a guest is handled on time. Additionally, reminders can be packed with context, including guest information, phone numbers, internal notes, and even social links.
Why it’s important: A basic, one-time reminder isn’t helpful to a concierge. Most guest requests involve multiple steps, and each step needs its own follow-up. ALICE’s customizable reminders let concierges link multiple reminders to a single request in a way that makes the most sense for the particular task at hand.
Take dinner reservations, for example: If a guest requests a dinner reservation months in advance, concierges may set a reminder for their team to book the restaurant one month prior to the requested date, another to confirm with the restaurant a day before, and a third to print the confirmation in advance of the guest’s arrival. With ALICE, nothing gets overlooked, and every guest experience feels seamless.
Local Vendor and Contact Database
What it is: ALICE Local is your concierge’s digital black book. Powered by Google’s database, ALICE Local lets concierges and front desk staff save information for any business or contact they or their guests might need. Just type in a part of a restaurant or business name, and ALICE Local will automatically pull up the business address, phone, hours, website, categories, and social links (like Yelp, Facebook, OpenTable, Foursquare, and more). From there, your concierge can add personal notes, such as a contact person’s name or favorite menu recommendations, and create customized lists to save and print for guests looking for recommendations.
Why it’s important: Your hotel’s neighborhood is part of its identity and helps set it apart. As such, building up a rich local database gives your guest-facing teams the tool to create memorable trips filled with great activities and dining experiences. By putting all this information at your concierges’ fingertips, ALICE Local’s vendor database saves valuable time and helps your hotel deliver service that leaves a lasting impression on your guests.
In-App Messaging and SMS
What it is: With ALICE’s in-app messaging and SMS texting, guests can easily communicate with your hotel’s concierge in real time—no app download is required.
Why it’s important: Studies show that increasing guest engagement leads to improved satisfaction and customer loyalty, and messaging is quickly becoming the go-to interface for business communication. With ALICE, guests can reach out to your concierge team on their own terms, whether via rich in-app messaging or a simple text.
Room not ready? “We’ll text you when it is.”
Stuck in town? “Send us a text, and we’ll arrange a car for pickup.”
Additionally, request status updates and notifications give guests peace of mind that the work is being taken care of.
Itineraries and Letter Confirmations
What it is: With ALICE, you can print, email, or text your guests their itineraries and confirmation letters—customized with your hotel’s branding. The itinerary tool organizes all guest bookings and events into a clean, branded PDF document, complete with walking, biking, bus, or driving directions from your hotel.
Why it’s important: Guests often ask for confirmation of their booked activities. The Itinerary feature makes it simple for concierges to create a polished, hotel-branded document that organizes everything together to email, print, or text the guest. This ensures guests have easy access to confirmed reservations made by the concierge during their stay. Concierges love how quickly this document can be generated, customized, and sent to guests or printed through ALICE. No more creating their own documents in Microsoft Word.
Logbook: Packages and Lost & Found
What it is: The ALICE Logbook makes it easy to track incoming and outgoing packages, as well as lost and found items. Our easy-to-use solution can be shared across multiple departments to optimize communication and, ultimately, deliver better customer service to your guests.
Why it’s important: Inventory management can take up a large part of a concierge’s time, and most concierge tools and most tools aren’t built to handle it. Every minute spent logging a package is a minute taken away from guests. And the longer it takes to track something down, the more frustrated a guest can become. Leveraging innovations from residential buildings that receive hundreds of packages daily, ALICE has built a quick and easy solution to save time logging and finding a guest’s belongings. Staff can spend less time searching and more time creating great experiences.
Empower Your Concierge Team with ALICE
ALICE’s concierge features are built to help hotels manage the details that matter most, from guest communications and itineraries to package tracking and vendor databases. With ALICE, your team can stay better connected, streamline daily operations, and deliver the kind of service that keeps guests coming back.
Are you ready to see how ALICE can help your hotel run smarter and serve guests better? Let’s get started.
