Guest satisfaction in hotels is an important metric hoteliers can use to help maximize revenue and create repeat guests. Properties with high guest satisfaction scores can easily attract loyal customers, generate positive online reviews and plentiful word-of-mouth advertising that help drive revenue to the property. Satisfied guests often become brand ambassadors for a property simply because they left feeling a high level of guest satisfaction.
So how does one begin to tackle guest satisfaction in hotels? Let’s dive in.
Guest Satisfaction in hotels is a concrete metric by which the overall guest experience can be measured. Every interaction a guest has from discovering the property and booking a room through checkout and departure contributes to the guest experience. Combining and measuring guest happiness throughout all of these experiences gives a holistic, measurable, metric of how the guest felt about their overall stay on property. The higher a hotel’s guest satisfaction scores the higher the likelihood of guests turning into repeat visitors, providing positive word-of-mouth advertising and glowing online reviews.
One of the best ways to improve guest satisfaction is to provide more personalized guest experiences. However, this can seem daunting and leave hoteliers wondering, "How can I possibly personalize the guest experience for hundreds of different guests at the same time?" Have no fear, today we’ll take a look at ways to improve guest satisfaction in hotels using simple tips and tricks that get you the most bang for your buck.
Clean, comfortable rooms and efficient service are major parts of ensuring strong guest satisfaction, but really this only gets you in the game. The modern traveler expects these basic features of their stay to be met upon arrival. Checking all these boxes will only serve to keep your guests from complaining. For a truly satisfying guest experience, hoteliers need to go above and beyond.
Begin your guest satisfaction enhancement efforts by obtaining a clear idea of what would truly satisfy the guests at your property. Though everyone certainly enjoys a little extra effort on behalf of their comfort, small luxurious touches (e.g., hot towel warmers in guest rooms) are likely to go a much longer way at a property where they are unexpected. On the other hand, if your property is known for delivering a luxury experience it's important to drill down on what that specifically means to your guests and make sure the hotel is properly delivering on those expectations.
Who is your typical guest? This is a simple, but extremely important question for hoteliers to answer if they wish to improve guest satisfaction scores.
A one-size-fits-all approach to guest satisfaction in hotels is a prehistoric concept. People in the modern era are living a largely customized, personalized existence. Everything from their phones, to their clothing, and even their luggage, is meant to be tailored perfectly to fit their specific lifestyle. Having an adaptable, customizable approach to satisfying each individual guest will pay dividends down the road in the form of, you guessed it, higher guest satisfaction scores.
One of the simplest ways to do this is to let the guest curate their own experiences. Here, smart hotel technology solutions can be of great help. For instance, while it may seem like a good idea to greet every guest at the front desk with a friendly smile it actually may feel like a burden for a guest who is tired and has been traveling for a long period of time. Not all guests will want to spend time interacting with a hotel’s front desk staff, but with the assistance of modern guest-facing technologies, they don’t have to. Contactless Check-In enables guests to go straight to their rooms and unwind right when they set foot on a property. Offering several options for check-in to your guests helps to ensure they get exactly the experience they want, which helps increase guest satisfaction in hotels.
It is important to remember that though we should treat guests the way we want to be treated, we are not the guest. Professional hospitality looks different than personal hospitality. No matter how much you read, understand, and study up on guest satisfaction in hotels, no one will be able to tell you exactly what the guests want more than the guests themselves.
Implementing a simple and efficient solution to communicate with your guests is crucially important to understanding and satisfying guest needs in real-time. Guest Messaging software, like that offered by Canary Technologies, can help hotel staff communicate effectively and efficiently with direct, broadcast and automated messaging to guests’ existing messaging apps (SMS, WhatsApp, etc.).
One key distinction between guest satisfaction in hotels and the guest experience is the chance to get it right. Let’s say a guest has a complaint; now, whichever way you slice it, the need to bring a complaint to the attention of hotel staff is already going to be a strike against a guest’s experience. However, if you can quickly and efficiently address the guest’s complaint, as well as offer a small token to make amends, many guests will still leave the property feeling satisfied with their overall stay. In many instances, efficient and fair resolution of complaints can create greater loyalty and repeat guests because the satisfied customer knows they are in good hands when they stay at your property.
Simple communication between FOH and BOH can help unlock synergies across the property that can be helpful in improving overall guest satisfaction. Does a guest mention at check-in they have an early flight tomorrow? The front desk should immediately alert your culinary team to check in with the guest to see if they may want an early breakfast delivered. Small, simple touches go a long way towards making your guests feel taken care of during their stay, ultimately leading to greater guest satisfaction in hotels.
Oftentimes, the simplest way to increase communication among departments is to have everyone meet and mingle with everyone else. Knowing a colleague or better yet, a work friend, through small social gatherings and team-building exercises makes communication much easier. When employees feel like a community they feel empowered and when they feel empowered they take initiative. Employees have direct interactions with guests. They are the frontline when it comes to guest satisfaction in hotels. Finding synergies through camaraderie can lead to better performance and increased guest satisfaction.
It takes money to make money. And if you’re looking to get the most out of your employees, they need to be motivated monetarily. Pizza parties, corporate freebies and the like have gone the way of the dodo bird with many employees likely to consider these gestures more patronizing than motivational. Monetary incentives are one of the few proven ways to make measurable improvements in your employee performance and self-ownership. One simple way to increase monetary incentives for your employees and encourage them to help you improve guest satisfaction is Canary’s Digital Tipping tool. Digital Tipping makes it easy for guests to provide tips and staff to get paid — without any negative impact on a property’s overall bottom line.
When employees feel properly compensated and incentivized they have a concrete reason to make sure the property is performing as well as it possibly can be. When a property is functioning at its highest level, guests can sense that, and increased guest satisfaction soon follows.
All travelers whether for business or pleasure hold their personal tech as an extension of themselves. Any opportunity a guest has to control their experience from the convenience of their own device creates a feeling of familiarity that goes a long way towards making the guest feel satisfied and putting the guest in a relaxed and serene mindset.
Below are a few important ways hotel operators can leverage modern technologies to improve guest satisfaction in hotels.
Upon booking a hotel room, it’s very common for guests to immediately wonder what additional amenities and upgrade packages are available during their stay. Everything from larger rooms to spa packages and early check-ins can be presented to guests for an additional fee easily with technology — and Canary’s Upsells solution enables hotel operators to do just that.
With just a few clicks on their personal mobile device, guests can curate their on-property experience and select which amenities and upgrades they would like to purchase. Offering the ability for guests to choose their own on-property adventure is a key component of improving guest satisfaction in hotels.
Take the guesswork out of guest satisfaction in hotels by asking your hotel guests what they enjoyed or didn’t enjoy directly. Direct customer feedback can help you find repeat issues or blind spots that you may not have been aware of. Customized surveys can easily be sent to guests using Canary’s Contactless Checkout upon departure and can help provide valuable feedback to help your property reinforce the positives and shore up any negative feedback. Plus, Canary will prompt those who provided positive feedback to leave an additional review on Google and TripAdvisor, which is a surefire way to boost online reviews across the web.
When it comes to guest satisfaction in hotels, the on-property guest may not be the only person who needs to be satisfied. If you’re working with, say, a corporation or travel group that has regular interactions with your property, keeping the person in charge of booking rooms happy is also an important part of guest satisfaction. Make sure there are no hassles when it comes to this. Credit card authorizations should be easy to process, secure and require minimal paperwork.
If your property is still using insecure paper/PDF authorization forms, be sure to check out Canary’s Digital Authorizations. Canary’s Digital Authorizations solution helps hotels reduce fraud and chargebacks by up to 90 percent by replacing paper/PDF forms with an easy-to-use, secure and PCI compliant online solution.
Guest Satisfaction in hotels is an important metric to which all hotel operators should pay close attention. By addressing various aspects of guest experience, hotel operations, and modern technology solutions, guests can be made to feel that they are important and independent, yet well taken care of. Higher guest satisfaction directly correlates to repeat hotel guests, positive word-of-mouth advertisement, better social media reviews and increased revenue.
In this blog post, we will examine the most popular trends of 2023, the benefits of investing in new technologies, such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and the Internet of Things (IoT), and how these technologies can enhance the guest experience.
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