HiJiffy and Booking.com are joining forces to provide a more streamlined and efficient communication experience between hotels and their guests.
NB: This is an article from HiJiffy, one of our Expert Partners
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This new two-way integration enables hotels to manage and respond to guest inquiries from Booking.com directly within HiJiffy’s Console.
By centralising communications on a single platform, this integration makes it easier and faster for hotel staff to manage guest interactions efficiently with the help of AI.
Key features of the integration include:
- Centralised messaging: Hotels can manage reservation-related messages from Booking.com within HiJiffy’s Console. This, however, does not include structured requests such as: Check-in/out, data changes, cancellation, parking, bed preferences.
- Proactive engagement: Hotels can initiate conversations with guests from the time of reservation until seven days after check-out. This proactive communication ensures guests receive timely and relevant information throughout their stay.
- Extended response period: Following Booking.com’s guidelines, guests can contact the hotel up to 66 days after departure, and hotels have an additional 14 days to respond, ensuring comprehensive post-stay support.
- AI-driven efficiency: HiJiffy’s advanced AI optimises guest communication interactions. With a simple click, agents can translate, expand, shorten, rewrite, change tone, and check the grammar of their messages before responding. Furthermore, they can utilise saved canned message templates. This reduces hotel response times and allows for more personalised and engaging interactions.
The integration allows hotels to directly engage with guests through targeted campaigns, improving communication effectiveness. Moreover, it facilitates a shift in communication from Booking.com to WhatsApp, offering a more convenient and familiar platform for guests.
Automatically answering FAQs with AI will soon be possible
While the first phase of this integration does not yet support automated FAQ responses with AI due to API limitations, it marks a significant improvement over traditional email-based interactions by centralising and managing communications in one place, except for the previously mentioned structured requests.
However, HiJiffy’s technical team is actively working on the second phase of the integration, and very soon it will be possible to enable AI to directly answer guests’ frequently asked questions automatically.
“If this first phase of this integration already brings substantial benefits to hotel operations by reducing the communication burden on staff and improving response times, I just can’t imagine how drastically we will be able to reduce the workload on the agents once our AI gets deployed”, states Tiago Araújo, CEO at HiJiffy.
“We’re really excited. This can definitely be a game-changer not only for hotels but also for all sorts of accommodation providers of all sizes,” underlines Araújo.
The new communication channel is already available to all current and new clients. Soon, HiJiffy intends to add other OTAs to its solution.
