Improving Customer Experience through Automated Solutions in Tourism
Hoteliers are turning to automation to reduce manual errors in transactional processes and focus on their guests across the entire customer journey.
With 80% of customers saying they will switch to a competitor after more than one (50% on just one) bad experience, it is pertinent that the tourism and hospitality industry adopt automated solutions to support delivering a high-quality service consistently. Ryan O’Grady, Founder and CEO of Fotaflo, breaks down the details of leveraging technology to improve customer experience in the hospitality and tourism sector.
When it comes to choosing where to eat, play or stay, consumers have a great deal of choice. While the taste of the dish in the restaurant, the smile on the tour guide, and the hotel’s atmosphere are all equivalate to the customers’ perception of their experience, their journey with a brand can continue way after. Hoteliers are turning to automation to reduce manual errors in transactional processes and focus on their guests across the entire customer journey (from initial search to thanking them for their stay) and making sure those human interactions are extra special.
Let’s discover how automated customer experience solutions can help improve the customer life cycle and what small changes players in tourism need to make to get the most out of automation tools.
See More: 5 Ways To Connect With High-Value Audiences
A Tech-infused Customer Experience (CX)
Increased remote working, reduced need for business trips, and quick changes to Covid-19 travel regulations have changed consumer buyer behavior. They are spending more time considering the experience they are looking for and making flight, accommodation, and activity purchases much closer to the desired travel date.
Businesses such as Airbnb are winning the online customer with seamless digital journeys, consequently leading guests to become less focused on brand loyalty and more interested in their fellow consumers’ reviews, convenience, and overall experience. However, while Airbnb is contactless and easy, it is down to each property manager and tour provider to engage with their customers and provide a personalized experience. This is why hotels, tour, and activity operators need to improve their online presence and customer support and reengage their existing customers by digitally reminding them what a great experience they are continuing to have.
At the same time, when the opportunity arises, and there is physical contact, staff must rise to the challenge and offer their best service. But even here, tech reaches into the experience. Let’s imagine a customer has a birthday reservation in your restaurant. Rather than waiting for the customer to request a photo, a staff member actively offers to take one (or plenty) of them. They eternalize the special moment, assuring all participants are in the photo. The customer immediately receives the photo(s) in their inbox and is overjoyed. Six months later, the restaurant resends the photo memory to the customer’s delight, which triggers a positive emotional connection to the restaurant. They return or respond to say thank you, and you’ve just secured another visit.
How Automation Improves Customer Experience
Let’s go through some examples of how hotels and tour providers can leverage automation in their day-to-day operations:
- A customer is purchasing your activity online but is having doubts about what to bring. They may benefit from an automated chatbot triggered by product selection, asking them if they would like any more information about their choice of experience. This will save a phone call or trip to the physical payment desk and reduce waiting times in the venue.
- Automating feedback channels to collect feedback post-visit. Customers providing feedback scores above 80% satisfaction could be automatically notified, asking them to write a review (perhaps your website or a review channel such as Google Reviews), telling potential leads how great their experience was.
- A customer that has visited the place of interest and will soon go on their next trip can receive automated and personalized email messages, including promotions or upgrades, improving customer retention.
Driving Personalization through Data
Customer feedback is precious when it comes to gaining data that allows you to provide automated, personalized solutions. For example, if you are interested in increasing the value of loyal customers, building a digital ‘visitor history’ within your Property Management System (PMS) could be a good option. Guest profiles, showing their preferences and requirements gathered from customer feedback, can be valuable for personalizing the guest experience.
By integrating this with booking data, reservation features like VIP flagging and pop-up reminders can help your staff elevate service for your most loyal guests. You can even go the extra mile and add their photo so your team can easily remember the guests’ experience and better recognize them on their next visit.
One of the challenges found in the tourism and hospitality industry is a widely diverse range of customers, from young families to couples, to girls’ days to business events. Yet, one thing stays the same; since they all interact with the brand, they all have a memory. Automatic notifications to capture this memory at a special moment for the customer (after a Spa treatment, at the end of their visit) and ensuring insights are automatically centralized from feedback sources means you can enhance that memory and even share it with them a retargeting tool.
The undisputed best-performing content in email marketing includes your guest’s photo or video memory. You can expect to gain the highest open, click, and conversion rates compared to any other email content. Clients at Fotaflo have proven that remarketing to guests with their memories reaches a whopping 134% open rate and 30% click rate (Fotaflo data 2021). Emails are getting reopened and shared, creating measurable brand advocates.
Similarly, re-engaging customers with a video from their tour guide or sharing the customer’s review can easily remind them how much they enjoyed the experience in their own words. In turn, this brings that memory back to life in an extremely personalized way through automated technology. Offering these services after a client visit ensures a unique experience and keeps your brand at the forefront of their minds.
See More: Balancing Personalization and Privacy: 3 Ways To Successfully Do It
Leading with Experience
Consumers are becoming market hunters, trawling through reviews and product websites, bypassing human interaction, and trained staff members, to find the place of interest that best suits their needs. Brands need to stand out and make sure customers write about them positively. Customer service teams must be ready and accessible in real-time, while the front-of-house staff is kept stress-free with their primary focus to make the guest experience exceptional.
To capture positive reviews, a customer’s visit must remain memorable – and for all the right reasons. The more detailed the memory and the better the data you retain around it, the better the insights gained and the more likely you will be able to re-offer the customer a personalized experience of all the elements of the trip that they especially enjoyed.
Which aspects of the hospitality industry could greatly benefit from automated tools? Tell us why on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook. We’d love to know what you think!
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