How to Improve Guest Satisfaction with Operations Software
A positive guest experience is what keeps guests coming back to your hotel stay after stay. Ideally, it’s your hotel’s hospitality and service that stick out in their minds, but there are so many more factors that go into a positive and memorable guest experience (your hotel’s breakfast menu, the quick valet service, and everything else in between).
While you can’t change the location of your hotel, or the size of the rooms (at least not without significant construction!), you can improve or change how your hotel operates. Maintaining a high-level of guest satisfaction means doubling down on what you’re already doing well, and fixing what needs work.
Hotel operations software enables hoteliers to personalize their guest’s stays, leverage their hotel data to meet guest expectations at scale, and align front of house and back of house departments for efficient task management. Here are three ways your hotel can improve guest satisfaction with the help of hotel operations software:
Personalize every guest’s stay — every single time.
As a guest, there is nothing better than being greeted by name or taken care of as if you’re a friend or family member. 86% of consumers say personalization affects their purchase decisions. With personalization playing such an important role in earning loyal customers and increasing guest satisfaction, front of house and back of house employees should have all of the tools they need to make it happen.
Connecting with guests before, during, and after their stay can help personalize their experience. Guest messaging software enables hoteliers to send messages in advance of a guest’s arrival with instructions for check-in or asking if they need pre-trip assistance from the concierge.
Mid-stay check-ins via text help hoteliers gauge how guests are doing (use these templates for contactless communication with your guests). On the off chance that they respond with negative feedback, this is a great time to jump into service recovery mode before small complaints turn into negative reviews on social media, and unhappy customers at the front desk.
Everyone at your hotel, including the concierge, room attendants, and maintenance teams can contribute to personalizing every guest’s stay.
Efficiently complete guest requests
In a world that is so focused on on-demand service and instant gratification, efficiently completing guest requests is a key component of customer happiness. Hotel operations software that helps with service delivery decreases response times, especially for guest requests that require collaboration among several different departments.
As hotel teams operate with fewer staff members due to COVID-19, getting work done in the most efficient way is a must. Hotel operations software eliminates the need for lengthy games of telephone, or sticky notes passed from department to department. Guest requests go directly into the hotel operations software (entered by staff, messaged in by guests, or even by voice-controlled devices).
Streamlined communication and task management is a must for every hotel working with a small staff. Requests get to the right people the first time, and mobile capabilities enable staff to be alerted and accept guest requests from wherever they are on property.
Use data and reporting features to act proactively
As a hotel operator, proactive actions can mean taking steps to improve the customer experience in tangible ways guests can see (dinner reservations based on previous stays or preferences, or personalized handwritten notes), but it can also mean doing behind the scenes data analysis.
As a general manager, making data-driven decisions means having access to reports that examine every micro-detail and large trend within your hotel. It can take time to dig into data, but every click of a button is recorded in ALICE, making each action a breadcrumb, leaving a trail of clues about how to operate efficiently.
What have the last ten customer complaints been about? Can you find any trends that can be addressed? Do housekeeping complaints happen on certain days? Perhaps some supervisors or shifts have better inspection processes than others.
Another way to personalize a guest’s stay is to keep a guest profile which all departments can access. Did this guest ask for extra pillows the last time they stayed with you? Consider proactively putting more in their room. They’re celebrating a special occasion? Send a bottle of champagne to their room.
How do you know if your guests are happy?
- Repeat guests: The number of guests who continue to come back to your property is a reflection of how satisfied they are! Get to know these guests and be sure to reward them. Customer loyalty is a gift.
- Online reviews: Keep an eye on your hotel’s online reviews. Are you seeing rave reviews? That is great news. Don’t forget to engage with guests and always welcome them back.
- Customer feedback: Gather feedback before and after guests depart: Use guest-messaging software to send texts and check-in with guests part-way through their stay. Encourage them to reach out to you, with positive or negative feedback, to let you know how their stay is going. Record all of your feedback and customer satisfaction scores so you have a benchmark to work from.
- Word of mouth: Ask your guests how they heard about your hotel. If they’ve heard about it from a former guest, you know you’re doing well. You’d never recommend a bad hotel to a friend, and it’s safe to assume others wouldn’t either.