Optimizing guest personalization
As hospitality continues to experience bouts of uncertainty throughout the recovery and guests continue to practice new travel behaviors, historical data, i.e. predictive analytics that mirrored past performances as a benchmark, is by and large, no longer relevant. Forecasting hotel occupancy for example, using past data has been a reliable tactic. However, COVID-19 dramatically altered that.
One thing however that has not changed, despite the massive shift, is the opportunity to optimize guest personalization. Consumers want to be treated as individuals with their own tastes. Brands that recognise this and put those unearthed insights into useful action will stay ahead of the competition.
Many hotels collect a wide range of data from around the property – from operational costs to guest preferences. Unfortunately, most do not use the data to its fullest potential, particularly when it comes to enhancing guest personalization.
The guest journey begins long before the arrival at the hotel. Savvy hospitality operators put all aspects of the guest journey under the microscope. From the ‘looking’, through the ‘booking’ phrase and the ‘on-property’ interactions to the ‘post-stay’ follow-up, where each touchpoint along the guest journey provides an opportunity to ‘wow’ the guest, cement their loyalty and improve the property’s reputation.
Some hotel chains, by looking deeper, have now taken it to the ‘next stay’ stage – where guests who have stayed at any of their hotels, could, after the passage of time, receive an email suggesting that they are perhaps overdue for a vacation and are presented a list of hotels in various destinations that the chain operates at.
Let’s reenact a typical scenario in a well run hotel; When you arrive at the hotel, the staff knows your name, they are aware that you prefer a non-smoking room on the 5th floor with a nice view, that you require a bed board under your bed mattress, that you like to read the ‘Wall Street Journal’ during breakfast and that you always need a late checkout.
The information on your preferences were a result of capturing details that went beyond seeking your name and contact information. It began from the time you made your reservation – including check-in/out requests (late departure), to room preference (5th floor, nice view), to the newspaper you read during breakfast as well as your need for a bed board.
Ideally, at every interaction, be it human-to-human and / or guest-to-machine, preference data that can be recorded and stored within appropriate legal means, then comes together to set up a cohesive guest experience. And hotels that accomplish exactly that; no longer need to ask “Have you stayed with us before?”
Once a guest profile is created and shared, particularly in chain hotels, and in those that offer a loyalty programme, any specific hotel can convert even those who have not stayed with them into known guests.
Hotels began capturing guest history long before the advent of technology. Although termed ‘guest history’ it really was mostly ‘reservation history’. When a guest made a repeat visit, a card was opened under his or her name where every visit was entered manually. The guest history card contained a history of past stays of the particular guest, such as the date of arrival, departure (nights), room type, room number, daily rate, plan, and brief preferences (likes / dislikes). A few hotels went beyond to record total spend during each stay. Thus, when a regular guest made a new reservation, the information from past reservations was retrieved and loaded into the new reservation – all done manually and rather time consuming.
As hotels began to adopt technology, the process became faster, enabling the reservationist to personalize the reservation process in real-time when a repeat guest calls. For example, the reservationist may say, “Mr. Harrison, would you prefer a 5th floor non-smoking room with the bed-board, again this trip? And would you be confirming this reservation with your Amex card # 2344328765432?”
Today’s technology makes it simple to retrieve the hotel’s guest history instantly and to welcome guests accordingly. Knowing one’s customers matters, because it leads to a better service, improved customer satisfaction and valuable repeat business.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
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