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After weeks of closures, hotels have reopened, and vacation regions in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland are well-booked for the summer season. The hotel industry is slowly but surely beginning to recover. The challenge now is to continue offering excellent service with fewer resources while minimizing and making guest interactions as contactless as possible during check-in and check-out, guest services, and communication.
The current crisis could be an opportunity for hotels to reinvent themselves and advance digital strategies. Especially in times of great uncertainty and social distancing, technology can help maintain accessibility for potential guests, stay connected, and provide good contactless guest service. Digitalization is becoming a critical success factor during the crisis more than ever before.
We live in a world where we are used to quickly and conveniently accessing information, products, or services. We have been spoiled by Google, Airbnb, Uber, etc. Hotel guests want easy access to information and services; they want quick responses. Hotels should be accessible on various relevant channels: on their website, social media, and messaging apps. If potential hotel guests are to book on the hotel’s website, it is even more important to be accessible for questions and requests directly on the website and to provide quick assistance.
Against this backdrop and with the goal of improving communication with guests, Hotel Merkur in Baden-Baden introduced a guest chat last year. This family-run 3-star superior hotel has enabled guests to chat with the hotel on the website, in the Facebook Messenger, and during their stay via the DialogShift Mobile Chat App.
“Our guests love the simple and straightforward communication in the chat – it is especially used frequently on the website. Guests usually don’t mind chatting with a chatbot. What’s more important to them is getting a quick response,” says Matthias Hirsch, owner and managing director of Hotel Merkur.
A chatbot handles the initial contact, answers frequently asked questions, automatically forwards booking inquiries to the booking system, and passes questions to staff if it does not have an answer. Even before the crisis, the chatbot helped ease the burden on the reception desk, as approximately 70% of inquiries are automatically answered, and inquiries via email and phone have decreased. With an IBE conversion rate of 18-33%, meaning every 5th to 3rd chat user is forwarded to the booking system, the chat is not only a communication channel for Hotel Merkur but also indirectly a tool that helps generate direct bookings.
During the coronavirus crisis, the chatbot became an essential tool for quickly and easily answering potential guests' questions and building trust through accessibility and open, proactive communication. People are planning their next vacations and trips but are still uncertain and have many questions. They visit hotel websites to find out about the measures and changes in place. For example, is the wellness area open again, and what should be considered? What precautions are in place in the restaurant?
If this information is easily accessible on the hotel’s website or proactively communicated, it builds trust with potential guests. An AI-powered chatbot on the hotel’s website can be a great help in this regard.
Guests want to communicate with hotels simply and efficiently. When seeking information or support, nothing is easier than asking a question in your own words and getting exactly the answer you need. According to the American Marketing Association, customers who use a website chat are three times more likely to purchase a product or service from the same site than those who do not use a chat.
One of the main advantages of a hotel chatbot is the ability to respond to multiple guests on multiple channels in multiple languages simultaneously. A robot doesn’t take breaks, works around the clock, and can communicate in several languages. The chatbot at Hotel Merkur speaks more than 100 languages. Automation is not meant to replace personal service but to support it. Automation relieves staff and creates time for more valuable activities in service.
In addition to shortening wait times, good and engaging communication with guests is more important than ever. If guests receive short and incomplete answers, the chances of them booking with the hotel drop significantly. When communicating with potential customers on the website, it is crucial to provide complete and engaging responses. The chatbot on the Hotel Merkur’s website not only provides answers but also leads the conversation in a charming way, offering additional information, recommendations, and insider tips.
Many processes in hotels have been or are currently being changed, from cleaning procedures to contactless guest services. We will have to live with the novel coronavirus for a while, and everyone, both hotel guests and hotels, is adapting to this new reality. A guest chat helps hotels be accessible to guests at relevant points and to make guest communication and service efficient and contactless. And the great thing is: many guests appreciate this, as they are already accustomed to chat communication.
DialogShift facilitates and improves communication between hotels and hotel guests with holistic and AI-supported chat solutions. Hotel guests can chat with the hotel on the website, through messaging platforms, apps, or the digital guest directory – hotel staff are relieved as recurring questions are answered automatically. Hotels can increase direct bookings by being accessible for questions on the website and automatically forwarding booking requests from the chat to the reservation system.
