Technology helps you keep in touch with guests before, during, and after their stay.
NB: This is an article from Fuel Travel
When most hotels think of hotel guest communication tips, your first thought is front desk staff training. But there’s more to it than that. Guest communication starts long before the front desk. Your internet presence and specialized software are key to getting it right.
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Good guest communication improves customer loyalty, reputation, and revenue performance. Here are 6 tips to help improve your guest communication.
1: Take stock of all the ways guests can reach you
Broadly speaking, guest communication refers to all the possible ways for a guest to get in touch with your hotel. There are an ever-increasing number of ways that a guest might think to get in touch with you and missing even one can damage your reputation. Here are some of the ways you might miss a guest reaching out to you:
- Leaving a question via comment on a social media account you aren’t monitoring
- Sending a text message to your phone number (even if it’s not set up to receive SMS)
- Filling out a form on your website that’s not properly linked to an email inbox
- Responding to an unmonitored, transactional email (e.g., a confirmation email)
If you’re on the journey to improving your guest communication, the first step is to look at your website and third-party web presence to see all the ways guests could reach out to you. This leads us to tip #2:
2: Make communication paths obvious
Set yourself and your guests up for success by making it clear the best ways to reach out to you. With so many possible communication methods, you want to make it as obvious as possible how you would prefer guests to get in touch, everywhere they look online.
Put a contact email or phone number in your website footer. Double-check your Google My Business listing to ensure that the contact information is correct. If you have dedicated social media pages for your hotel, make sure they have contact information listed clearly at the top.
For example, there’s no ambiguity on how to get in touch with Bay View on the Boardwalk. They have a reservation phone number listed clearly on their site, along with a chat widget on every page. Make it clear how guests can get in touch so they can communicate directly with your team. For example, if you don’t receive replies to confirmation emails, make sure that’s included in the email itself.
By making your preferred communication channels clear, you can avoid guests accidentally ending up in an unmonitored channel.
3: Be proactive
Only communicating with guests in response to requests or problems is not a great way to create loyal, repeat guests. The easiest way to be proactive is to use a guest messaging solution that can automate the process.
