Today’s travelers seek personalized guest experiences, which in turn require robust, flexible hotel technology. Personalization is no longer a trend—it’s an expectation. However, it doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive.
NB: This is an article from WebRezPro
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In fact, small, independent lodgings are perfectly positioned to curate individualized stays for their guests. Here are seven simple ways to do it.
Build Guest Profiles
A customized experience starts with guest data. If your property uses an automated property management system (PMS), all the data you need should already be at your fingertips.
A good PMS allows you to record stay history, contact information, and other details in guest profiles, so you know what makes each person tick. You can also identify repeat guests and treat them with the extra attention they deserve.
Pay attention to additional details, such as birthdays, anniversaries, and preferences. Any disability accommodations or allergies are particularly important to record. (Anaphylaxis isn’t the anniversary surprise your guest is looking for!)
Use your PMS to track where bookings are coming from (for example, your online booking engine, OTA channels, repeat guests, etc.) and, therefore, which channels guests prefer.
Send Regular Communications
Communicate with guests before, during, and after their stay to let them know the logistics, offer additional services, and resolve any issues. Both email and text messages are effective ways to do this, with text messages achieving an open rate of 98 percent. If you’re interested in communicating with guests via text messages, there are a plethora of software integrations to get you started, including Akia, Breezeway, Revinate, and Duve.
Though text messaging is taking off, email is still worth pursuing. You can say a lot more in an email than you can in a text. Use templates in your PMS that pull reservation information so that personalized emails are automatically triggered by stay or booking dates and other parameters like room and rate codes. You don’t have time to type and send every email by hand!
Automating communications with your PMS ensures appropriate messaging is sent at the right time, according to each guest’s stage in the stay cycle. For instance, upsells and invitations for special requests can be offered in pre-stay messaging, and feedback requests can be sent post-stay.
