In today’s hospitality industry, the competition is fierce, and guests’ expectations are higher than ever, making it the perfect time for your property to focus on increasing your service standards to boost guest satisfaction.
NB: This is an article from RoomPriceGenie, one of our Expert Partners
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From personalisation to smart up-selling, this blog post will explore six actionable tips that will elevate your property’s service levels, increase your bookings and guest loyalty and, as a result, maximise your overall revenue.
Always Aim to Overperform
Customer satisfaction equals perceived performance minus expectations; in other words, the more you outperform a guest’s expectations, the happier the customer will be. For this reason, keeping a couple of surprises up your sleeve is a good idea.
Research shows that arrival and departure are the times that stick in guests’ memories, so enhancing one (or both) of these experiences will likely lead to a better review score. Remember that you should be looking to give thoughtful but not expensive value-adds.
On a related note, the owner of a well-run hotel told me that he organises surprise meals for his staff to show recognition for their hard work and dedication to customer service, which has been very positive for morale and staff retention. In short, happier employees result in more satisfied guests, so incentivising your team to stick to high service standards is a win/win.
The Importance of Personalization
Your PMS enables you to keep notes about your guests, their specific needs, their habits, and any other pertinent information – all of which will be helpful for you to improve your personalised service offering the next time the guest books a stay with you.
Use the guests’ names when you talk to them, and reference things they previously did or told you about. At a basic level, saying, “Welcome back, Mr Smith. It’s good to have you here again,” is a great way to make a guest feel seen and appreciated and start their stay off on a positive note. In addition, remembering what room he stayed in before, that he likes an extra pillow and that he always requests an early wake-up call will further show the guest that you are providing the best quality service possible. All this info will be easily accessible from your property’s PMS (an excellent reason for implementing a PMS that gives you these functionalities).
Attention to detail and personal service go a long way, and keeping good notes in your PMS is vital to offering personalised services to each guest.
Offer a Best Price Guarantee
Before your customers book through your website, they will want to ensure they cannot get a better deal elsewhere. This is why you should always state on your website that you offer a “Best Price Guarantee” and back that up by clearly showing your OTA rates for comparable rooms on your website and in your booking engine.
Strict OTA rate parity requirements are no longer legal, so you could always offer a lower price on your website (keeping in mind the negative impact that might have on your OTA rankings), or you could keep rate parity. Either way, you should always incentivise direct bookings by offering potential guests upgrades and value-adds if they book through your website, so they know they have gotten the best available rate and the best value by booking with your property.
A final note… At times, the OTAs will (by reducing its commission) be able to offer your room at a cheaper rate than is stated on your website. You must honour that rate if you provide a “Best Rate Guarantee” and a guest finds this price.
Up-Selling & Cross-Selling
Here is a question: how often do your property’s suites fill up independently?
If you’re like most hoteliers, the answer will be “Not often.”
Do you ever sell out of doubles and then miss out on potential guests because they don’t want to pay the price of a suite (but would have booked a double)?
This is where upselling comes in: rather than upgrading a guest for free, you can try offering the upgrade as a paid option. While this upgrade fee wouldn’t equal the full room rate, many people will happily pay more (knowing they are getting a great deal) to stay in the nicer suites. And it will help you free up more double rooms to sell to price-conscious guests. Win/win.
In addition, cross-selling is a great way to increase your non-room revenues. Ask yourself: apart from your rooms, are there any additional, valuable products or services you provide, or could provide, to your guests? With cross-selling, both at booking and/or upon arrival, you can encourage the guest to spend more money at your hotel on these services.
Offer Discounts to Repeat Guests
As a rule, you should reward customers who book with you again because repeat customers may provide you with a lot of business in the future and be the most profitable guests. Go above and beyond to do everything you can to keep them happy. I suggest creating a loyalty program which rewards repeat guests with points that can be redeemed for upgrades, discounts on future stays, etc.
At the very least, when guests stay at your hotel, offer them a discount on all future stays booked directly through your property’s website – either by giving them a physical card at check-out or emailing the offer after check-out. This is a win-win for everyone. The guest feels special and rewarded for their loyalty, plus it might make them feel even more positive about their stay, which could increase the chance that they leave a positive review. If the guest does book directly on a future trip, you will eliminate your acquisition cost and have created a repeat customer, the most profitable of all guests.
Here’s the best part: up-selling and cross-selling don’t need to cause more paperwork or headaches; many tech vendors offer upselling functionality through solutions that integrate with your PMS to facilitate these transactions easily.
Offer Local Advice & Tips to Boost Credibility & Improve the Guest Experience
Engaging, interesting content about your destination can be a great way to attract new visitors to your website and improve your guests’ stay by offering them advice on must-see local hotspots.
Use your blog to offer value to potential and current guests by sharing the best local destinations and restaurants; if someone Googles “Things to see in London” and your site has a blog post about cool, lesser-known things to experience in London, then people will click on your link to read the article. When booking a hotel, there’s a reasonable chance they’ll choose yours as you have shown yourselves to be helpful, trustworthy experts. If they enjoy your recommendations, it’s more likely that they’ll leave a positive review after their stay.
By implementing the strategies discussed in this post, you can create strong connections with guests, ensuring that every stay is good and truly share-worthy! As you consistently exceed your guests’ expectations, your online reputation will improve (through more positive reviews). Optimising your service standards is a highly effective way to make your property stand out from the online competition and boost overall profitability.
To learn more ways to maximise your property’s revenue, download the free RoomPriceGenie guide, “49 Tips to Supercharge your Revenue”. Trust me, your bank account will thank you for it!
