In the hospitality industry, it’s all about customer satisfaction and happiness in order to boost loyalty. Guest experience is crucial to the success of your hotel, so you need to provide the right amenities and overall service if you’re going to have your guests return.
Here are some of the amenities and features that guests are now expecting as standard within hotels.
Mobile Check-Ins and Digital Keys
Boarding passes, event tickets and reservations can all be loaded onto smartphones, so there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to check into your room on your mobile device either. This saves the guest time and allows them for a quick and easy check-in service at their own pace.
That way, they don’t feel too rushed and can breeze through this process on their own terms.
With mobile check-ins, there’s no point checking in and still having to wait at reception when you get there for your key to access your room. This is why digital keys, that let guests open their rooms with their smartphones, go hand in hand with a mobile check-in.
Simply check in online, receive your room number through a confirmation email or text and head for that room when you get there. It couldn’t be any easier and is a great way to save time.
Personalised Experiences
Guests don’t want to just feel like any other guest that’s stopping in the hotel for a night and then forgotten about in the morning. A personalised, tailored service is always expected by the guest and is a great way of keeping them 100 percent satisfied.
For example, a simple welcome message left on the TV upon arrival is a great way to get things off on the right foot and make the guest feel welcomed instantly.
Taking things to a more advanced level, guests can be reminded via push notification what they’ve purchased when stopping in the hotel before. Push notifications are a great way to entice sales.
Easily Accessible Communication Methods
Your communication levels need to be spot on before, during and after a guest’s stay in order for them to be completely happy with the service that they received. Should a guest ask a query before their stay, it’s a minimum expectation that you respond to them in a timely manner.
If you don’t, you may put them off completely and harm your reputation as a whole too.
There should never be a time that a guest can’t get hold of the right person to help solve their problem. Whether it’s from the phone in their rooms, their own mobile device, live chat or even face-to-face, communication is a staple expectation that will never go out of fashion.
Mobile Information
If you give a guest the option of making a phone call for a request or using an app on their smartphone, the likelihood is that they’ll use their smartphone for convenience. That’s why it’s important that your guests are offered an option in which they can find out everything they need to at the tip of their fingertips.
Whether it’s querying a check out time, requesting extra pillows for your room or wondering where to get a taxi into town from, you should provide your guests with this information on your site, application or a third-party website that can be found at ease.
A High-Quality Customer Service
High-quality customer service will continue to be a minimum guest expectation for years to come. That’s why it’ll continue to be a minimum guest expectation for years to come. Polite, helpful and approachable staff is a start, but a good standard of basic amenities contributes to great customer service too.
In a hotel, guests expect a comfortable bed, a good shower, clean rooms and corridors, a reliable WiFi connection and complimentary toiletries. But, great customer service goes above and beyond all of these things to make sure that their guests have the perfect stay with them, want to come back and are willing to tell all of their friends.
Always Put the Customer First
If you can meet and surpass all of the main guest expectations, then you’re well on your way to satisfying your customers and hopefully turning them into loyal brand advocates. Your customers should always come first and you should always strive to go above and beyond to ensure that they enjoy their stay.
Don’t worry if you’re not sure about the other ways in which you can guarantee your customers leave your hotel more than satisfied. We’ve put together a free comprehensive all-in-one guide that’ll explain everything you need to know.
Download it below.