Make your hotel stand out by hoisting the guest experience using digital touchpoints – before, during, and after the stay. Mastering the digital touchpoints you have with your guests can do wonders for your business.
Digital what?
Digital touchpoints can be defined as any electronic interaction that your hotel has with its guests. It could be a promotion on a screen, an e-mail, a text message, info on the in-room TV or any digital communication without a human directly involved. Combined with the hotel service and atmosphere, the digital touchpoints define the overall guest experience – and the better the experience is, the more likely you are to retain that guest.
Before stay
Your first touchpoint might be your hotel´s own website or your presence on social media. Equally important is your direct communication with your guests, e.g. booking confirmation e-mails or welcome text messages a couple of days prior to the scheduled arrival. Make sure your communication is optimised for mobile devices and doesn’t require the guest to download an app to read it.
During stay
You have the broadest arsenal of digital touchpoints available on your premises. From the internet access portal, which can be used to advertise other digital services available to your guests; to the information shared on your in-room TVs. For hotels with conference areas the digital wayfinding screens provide an additional option for promotion.
After stay
Guest satisfaction surveys and promotional offers for returning guests are some commonly used digital touchpoints following a guest’s stay. According to a recent Hotel Guest Survey*, 73% of the respondents would welcome offers for future stays sent to them after their departure and 51% would like to give feedback to the hotel in general. This is great opportunity to pro-actively encourage them to book another stay.
To fully utilise any of these digital touchpoints it is important to manage your information efficiently, and to have a streamlined process in place for following up on the interaction generated from these touchpoints. This will lead to an increase in your guests’ average spend, increase their likelihood of returning to your hotel and increase your direct bookings overall.
What are your digital touchpoints today and how do you handle them? Hoist Group offers free consultation so get in touch today.
Markus Letuha, Sales & Product Manager – TV Systems, Internet Access & Managed Network
* Hotel Guest Survey conducted by SynoInt in 2017
To learn more about the guest journey, take a look at “6 Steps to Enhancing the Guest Journey”
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