Jelena Cekic
Automation is taking hold in a number of fields and the hospitality industry couldn’t resist it. The modern customers’ needs and highly competitive landscape have made AI and NLP the most wanted technologies in the hospitality industry.
At first look it may appear as there are not that many ways for the hospitality industry to benefit from the automation based on AI and NLP, but is quite the contrary. Automation can resolve the current pain points in hospitality, such as increasing service costs, and make the industry more appealing to the modern consumer. How is this so?
The most prominent online search engines, Google, ranks websites by checking how relevant the content on the website is for the Google users. But how do the search engines rank the content you serve your customers in your establishment? It’s done via online feedback.
The better your establishment is ranked and the more positive feedback about you there is online, the more likely you will appear in searches of both local and global clients. To get more positive reviews, you’ll have to do all in your power to personalize and improve the customer experience.
The most prominent online search engines, Google, ranks websites by checking how relevant the content on the website is for the Google users. But how do the search engines rank the content you serve your customers in your establishment? It’s done via online feedback.
The better your establishment is ranked and the more positive feedback about you there is online, the more likely you will appear in searches of both local and global clients. To get more positive reviews, you’ll have to do all in your power to personalize and improve the customer experience.
With AI and NLP-powered automation, you’ll be able to significantly step up your game and make more customers happy. By reducing the friction in the most vital aspects of your business, such as reservations, information, and customer support, you will delight many customers.
As a result, your establishment will get better reviews and online feedback, which will help you establish a digital presence in your niche.
Thanks to the AI, these technologies are able to learn the customers’ behavioral patterns. This enables them to deliver custom-tailored and personalized offers to all your customers. When it comes to chatbots, this can be particularly convenient.
You can easily discover trends in how your customers contact your chatbot and what they require. Add the new options to your offer and delight them even more so that you can get some great feedback.
Like many modern tech solutions, chatbots are also powered by AI and NLP. They are great at streamlining communication and can be integrated into different channels.
Let’s say that a customer needs to check if there’s a room available in your establishment. This person is on an airplane traveling from the EU to the US on a business trip, but he just found out that there will be a few days left for sightseeing after the seminar. He contacts your hotel via Facebook Messenger, but there is no one to reply.
In fact, the customer won’t be able to get his answer before your manager comes to work, sees the message, checks if there is a room available, and types out a reply. By that time, your business executive will have made reservations elsewhere. With a chatbot, he can get an answer right away and even complete the booking process.
Chatbots can be integrated into many different communications channels. I’ve found out that free to use chatbot platform Snatchbot.me, supports all of the most commonly used channels. The service they provide is quick and efficient, and they can serve multiple customers simultaneously. And the most important fact is that they can service your customers 24/7/365.
Having a chatbot employee is crucial to success in the hospitality industry. More and more customers prefer to communicate via digital channels and expect to receive an answer in the shortest possible time. The cutting-edge chatbot tech is the only thing that can enable you to meet those expectations.
Delivering a service over online channels is difficult. With so many inquiries coming from different channels, it’s become borderline impossible for the current workforce to deliver the same quality of experience over long periods of time. But until now, the hospitality industry didn’t have any other options. The modern chatbot’s predecessors were very rigid and appeared very “robotic” and unnatural.
Meanwhile, advancements were made in the Natural Language Processing field. The newest version of AI used to power the chatbots makes them more appealing to the customers. They no longer simply automate, they now deliver a more authentic experience.
The way they communicate resembles human-to-human communication. This instills more trust in customers. The ease of use makes customers come back for more.
The power of great conversational experience was recognized by some of the biggest brands in this industry. Let’s see who these adopters of new technology are.
Everything started back in 2015. The following series of events took place only 3 years ago:
Hyatt started testing Facebook Messenger as a potential customer service channel.
Marriott enables guests to directly chat with the hotel staff 72 hours prior to their stay. Half a year later, Marriott expands this service to JW Marriott Hotels & Resorts, Residence Inn Hotels, Marriott
Executive Apartments, and Renaissance Hotels.
Henn na Hotel, a famous Japanese establishment, introduces a real robot that handles guest check-ins and check-outs.
The Starwood Hotel chain promotes the use of WhatsApp and enables their guests to directly communicate with the hotel staff.
Booking.com creates and launches a chat tool made to streamline communication between guests and hotels. The scope of this projects is immense, as Booking.com plans to extend this service to all the hotels found on their website.
SnatchBot launches a chatbot platform designed to make bot-building easy for everyone. In 2017, SnatchBot releases Hospitality Bot Template, ready to be used by companies in the hospitality industry.
Companies in the hospitality industry have to find new ways to combat shorter attention spans of modern customers, who have grown increasingly impatient. Whether you want to admit it or not, we live in a world of instant gratification.
If you can't instantly gratify the requests of your potential customers, you will lose them to the establishments that can. Truthfully speaking, no one cares if they are getting served by a bot, as long as they are not left waiting on hold.
Chatbots powered by AI and NLP, are not only able to deliver an awesome conversational experience to your target customers, but they are also able to completely automate this process. Since they can be integrated into multiple communications channels, and be available 24/7, chatbots are so far the most convenient technology to support the growth and development in the hospitality industry.
The hospitality industry is price sensitive and highly competitive. AI and NLP powered chatbots can help in cost reduction, guest services, and time management. After using several chatbot platforms, I’ve found SnatchBot to be one of the easiest to use and it has all the features needed to make a great chatbot for the hospitality industry.
Jelena Cekic is a creative writer and blogger at Podroom Creative with a Master’s degree in Serbian Language and Literature from the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad. She is passionate...
