SMS, unlike email, is a highly personal communication channel. It’s also super fast and comes with a sense of urgency. Brands use it to get closer to their customers and take advantage of those famous 98% open rates rather than having their important messages sit in a limbo of spam boxes and unopened emails.
When it comes to 2-way guest communication and ensuring your guests actually read your messages, SMS is the best possible channel with an incredible 45% response rate. That’s almost half of your guests potentially interacting with your announcements, offers, etc., which could do wonders both for guest satisfaction and your incremental revenue.
When you combine messaging automation with the right channel, you’ll remove guest communication bottlenecks throughout the guest journey without adding to your staff’s workload.
From booking to post stay, there are so many important engagement points for you to start a conversation with your guests. You can leverage automated SMS messaging to send scheduled announcements or messages based on specific triggers (guest checks in, guest makes a request, etc.) and let the system do the work for you.
“90 percent of hotel guests in the US and the UK said they would find communicating via messaging with a hotel useful,” source.
Let’s take a look at some of the best use cases for automated messaging in hotels.
Support, Guide & Inspire Your Guests
Automated messaging is great for handling early guest requests because it helps you start off the relationship in the best way possible.
Whatever information your guest needs relevant to their stay (e.g. menu queries, directions, parking options, etc.) they can just text you and get an instant response even when your staff is tied up. This is where automated AI messaging makes all the difference in response time, while at the same taking the load of hotel staff.
What’s even better is that you can start a conversation and get your guests excited about things they can enjoy during their stay at your property, like your best amenities, activities, events, and more. You can even suggest local restaurants, museums, shows, etc. It’s all about using automated messaging to inspire your guests and help them design their dream vacation.
Boost Event Attendance with SMS Announcements
Automated messaging is a great way to get your guests to register for on-property events. Whether you decide to send a simple, gentle reminder or a CTA offering some kind of perk for those attending, you’ll undoubtedly increase event attendance.
Whether you’re throwing a live music night or a special gastronomic experience, with a guest engagement platform like LasoExperience, you can send dynamic messages to your guests automatically to get them excited and remind them to attend.
Send Ancillary Offers Your Guests Will Love
Send timely offers for ancillary services based on guest preferences and historical data directly to your guests’ phones. Personalized, timely offers that can enhance your guests’ stay are essential for positively impacting revenue. Here’s just one example – you can use automated guest messaging to send offers for upgrading their choice of the room in the days prior to their arrival.
Speed Up Time to Resolution
Your guest wants a new pillow? There’s a problem with a leaky faucet? Let your guests know they can text you to request any service, from maintenance to housekeeping. The right staff will be instantly notified and the guest will get an SMS letting them know when they can expect a staff member to come and resolve their request.
The biggest benefit of automated messaging for guest service and support? Guests can message you with questions and requests 24/7 and get instant responses which will make them feel good about reaching out to your staff throughout their stay.
Get Guest Feedback When it Matters the Most
When it comes to collecting guest feedback, timing is everything. After the guests have left, you want to learn about their experience while it's still fresh in their minds.
With automated messaging, you can send scheduled questionnaires to ask guests about their stay and even add a link to Tripadvisor giving them an option to leave their review. Plus, with a touch of personalization you can show that your hotel genuinely cares about guest experience.
Takeaways
An automated messaging platform can help you enhance all aspects of your guests’ stay, from pre-stay communication to check out and beyond. It is a useful, easy-to-use tool for guests and another channel for your hotel to add value, offer the right information when needed, and better communicate and sell to your guests.
Automated SMS messaging is just one of the tools your property can use to enhance the overall guest experience and boost revenue, now the question is – are you using them?
LasoExperience is helping hotels improve guest communication throughout the guest journey while maximizing guest lifetime value. Contact us to have a chat and see how we can help!
