Businesses in the hospitality industry must continually meet new customer expectations and offer seamless customer service experiences in order to have satisfied customers. To accomplish this, they need to balance live customer service, personalization, and self-service offerings and invest in digital platforms that help optimize customer service. Below, we describe the role of customer experience in the hospitality industry.
Boost Loyalty
Since many customers decide to not do business with a company after only one bad experience, it’s especially important for companies to focus on customer satisfaction. Customers who consistently receive great customer experience are more likely to become loyal brand advocates.
Hospitality companies need to have robust and flexible customer service systems in order to retain customers. An example of this is a CCaaS system which offers omnichannel capabilities. With this system, airline customers can more easily book flights and make changes to their bookings. Strong customer service tools also allow hospitality companies to gather information on customers and their behaviors and find areas where customer support can be improved.
Before booking, travelers often look at company reviews to discover if customers were satisfied with their experiences. This also makes it important for companies to provide an excellent customer experience so that they can receive the best reviews possible.
Enhance Messaging
With the use of effective messaging systems, hospitality companies can boost efficiency as well as increase convenience and comfort for customers. According to Hospitality Technology:
“According to Hotel News Resource, 20% of consumers would feel more comfortable at a hotel if there were a digital messaging system that could limit physical interactions with staff. In another study, 67% of customers found value in messaging a brand through its mobile app. Nearly 80% of consumers had a valuable experience from participating in an online chat with a customer service rep.”
Messaging systems can add more touchpoints to the customer journey to engage with customers before, during, and after they use services, such as staying at a hotel or going on a flight. This helps to make using services more seamless and informative. These systems can enable check-ins and check-outs to be contact-free and begin the communication between hosts and guests. Through messaging, customers can also receive information such as online resources that can make their use of hospitality services more efficient.
Conveying Safety Information to Customers
In the post-pandemic world, being safe while traveling is especially important to customers. Through digital resources, hospitality businesses can proactively communicate safety information and procedures to customers and ease any uncertainty they may have. Simply posting safety information on a company website is not enough. Companies must provide this information to customers directly, and customers expect to receive detailed information in a timely manner.
Due to the pandemic, customers also want to be able to receive information with less human contact. Strong CX solutions can help them gain access to the information they need. Building relationship with customers digitally also helps increase the trust they have in hospitality companies.
Before going on a trip, travelers look at travel websites such as Tripadvisor to get information about how businesses are making sure customers are safe while traveling. Hospitality businesses that effectively help ensure traveler safety have better online reviews and more sales.
Increasing Interest in Travel
One of the roles of customer experience in the hospitality industry can be to increase the interest of people in travel, especially after something that interrupts the hospitality industry occurs, such as the pandemic. By offering customers the ability to make bookings and get information and support via omnichannel capabilities, quickly resolving travel issues, and offering excellent customer service, hospitality companies can help to create a great experience for travelers and increase their interest in future travel.
ASK helps hospitality businesses improve customer experience in several ways, from identifying gaps and opportunities, to streamlining processes such as CRM and WFM, providing warm and knowledgeable customer support agents and much more. Find out how we can help your business leverage the power of amazing CX to boost sales and loyalty. Visit asktelemarketing.com or call Ray Monasterski at 334.386.3458.
