We are living in an era where customer satisfaction is king. If a company wants to survive in this competitive world, they need to make their customers happy. Customer satisfaction comes through the guest experience.
A huge “86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience”
The guest experience is important to consumers, so hotels need to ensure they are meeting these needs.
Here are some ways hotels can improve the guest experience.
Presentation and cleanliness have always been very important for the hospitality industry. A dirty hotel room will result in guests being less likely to return and may even complain about it.
With the COVID19 pandemic, hotels have needed to improve their cleanliness to new levels to reduce the virus's possible spread.
To achieve these new cleanliness expectations, hotels have introduced all-new cleaning procedures. One of the ways hotels can reassure guests is by sealing doors with a just cleaned sticker. This is a visual method to show guests on arrival they’re the first to enter the room since it was cleaned.
As well as this, deeper cleaning schedules have been introduced. Ensuring all commonly used areas in the hotel rooms are sanitised, wiped down and replaced with fresh items.
Even service and cleaning robots have been introduced into many industries as a way to automate tedious tasks saving both time and money (with little human interaction- further reducing the spread of covid-19).
However, it's not enough to just have a clean hotel room, it needs to be comfortable too.
Comfortable hotel rooms are an important part of the hotel experience. They need to be designed to provide a relaxing environment for the customer. Warm colours, natural light and soft textures achieve this best.
Hotels that provide room amenities such as shampoo, soap, tea, and coffee enhance the guest experience by meeting simple physical needs.
Then some hotels think past needs and into luxury with their room comfort.
Heightening the senses with music as a way to relax the environment and create an experience for their guests.
The best way to improve guest experience is to provide great customer service, and that starts with the staff. All employee interactions with guests should aim to provide excellent service. Staff should be friendly, courteous, and attentive to the guests.
The hotel may have all types of amenities available, the physical structure of the hotel can provide some of these things. However, the staff is what makes a guest feel welcome and valued over the course of their stay.
Your team should all aim to provide an exceptional experience that will lead to repeat visits.
Your team should look at every guest interaction as an opportunity to create moments of magic. This is when your services aim to personalise and make each moment special for the guest, paying particular attention to meeting their needs.
This includes Introducing themselves and learning the guest names. Then going further with this, by remembering and using their names in interactions. Guests are left feeling important, valued and special.
This is the first and last point of call where your staff can make an impact on hotel guests.
As a hotelier, you want to make sure that your guests are having a good stay with you. One way to do this is by improving their experience as they check-in and out of the hotel.
First, greet them with a warm smile and ask them how their day has been so far.
Then they should be greeted with the name of the hotel and whether it is their first time staying there.
They should be asked about any preferences for amenities or room location, which will help to accommodate them better than if they had not given any preferences at all.
Finally, the staff should also provide information about the hotel amenities and services that are available to the guests on a timely basis. Thus, they can plan their stay and have a more enjoyable visit.
A hotel is more than a place to sleep. It is a place where people go to create memories with their families and friends.
Hoteliers need to focus on providing a memorable experience, from the time they book until the time they leave. They should inform guests of all hotel services before arrival. This can help guests pre-plan activities, spa treatments or restaurant bookings and avoiding any last-minute disappointment on the day they arrive if not available.
To ensure a great experience, hoteliers should focus on creating memorable customer experiences. One of the best ways to achieve this is through offering gift experience packages.
A gift experience package is ideal for guests wanting to treat themselves or someone they love to a memorable experience.
Many hotels will create their gift experience packages to combine several services with additional options to personalise the experience.
An example of this is a two night overnight stay with a three-course dinner and a 60-minute spa treatment for two.
Then to personalise this gift experience, hoteliers should offer the option of add-ons.
For example, the guest can opt to add-on champagne on arrival, or chocolate-dipped strawberries after their spa treatment.
Hotels can be as creative and flexible as they please when it comes to providing those subtle but impactful details which add the touch of luxury and excellent service.
For more ideas on creating unique experiences take a look at this post: Create unique experiences with gift voucher add-ons.
Technology goes a long way to enhancing the guest experience. While we strongly believe it should never replace that all-important human interaction, it can certainly be used to improve guest experiences.
With innovative technology solutions, hotels can offer their guests personalised services.
One of the most exciting innovations in hospitality today is chatbots. Chatbots provide important information about your room and services that you may need during your stay at the hotel. They also allow you to make reservations and requests without having to call or email the hotel company for assistance.
Some of these chatbot features are: checking in and checking out of your hotel room, making restaurant bookings, answering general questions about restaurants and services in the hotel, receiving tourist information on the local area.
This is similarly used with hotel AI.
Aside from the cleaning robots and self-service check-in. Hotel AI can be used to provide personalisation and service for the guests. It’s used to remember guests' details like their names, what they like to eat, preferences, and likes. They are used to monitor customer service quality, lobby functions, room services, and more.
By improving the guest experience, you’ll likely see a huge increase in hotel revenue and reputation.
Each hotel is different, and the types of guests visiting hotels are different. Try some of the suggestions above and see how it works for you.
We hope that you've found this blog post on how to improve guest experience in hotels helpful. For more information on improving the guest experience, take a look here: What is the experience economy?
