Tech Talk

Recent posts

Definitely Doug 11/17/23: The Hotel TV Dilemma
Posted: 11/17/2023

In case you missed the memo, people no longer watch television the way that they did ten years ago. Not at home, and not at hotels. Nielsen reported that streaming services cornered 34.8% of TV screen time in July 2022, when they overtook cable for the first time.

Property management systems (PMSs) fundamentally have changed very little since the 1980s. And many hotels still use systems that were built in the eighties, nineties, or aughts. Since then, massive technology changes have occurred: the mobile revolution, cloud computing, distributed ledgers, AI-based large language models, Web 3.0, and other innovations have fundamentally changed both the technological capabilities of software, the way it is designed and built, and expectations for user experience.

Read More +

Definitely Doug 10/20/23: Gluing It All Together
Posted: 10/20/2023

Hardly a day goes by that hotels do not express frustration about the inability to tie together key data sources and technology systems. This is not a new problem; it has been around for decades. Progress has been made on many fronts to be sure, but digitalization has created new issues much faster than solutions.

Read More +

What’s the Buzz Among Today’s Hoteliers?
Posted: 10/17/2023

What’s on the minds of hoteliers? What’s keeping them up at night? And what makes travelers happy and eager to return? Some of the best places to have these candid discussions are at the industry’s conferences and events, and this year’s lineup has not disappointed. From AAHOACON and BITAC, to HITEC and The Hospitality Show, I’ve been traveling steadily, attending 13 events since January.

Technology has become an indispensable part of the guest experience. As travelers increasingly expect tech-enabled convenience, hospitality businesses must continue innovating to meet these demands. While WiFi was once the primary tech offering for hotels, today's guests want more. Integrated proptech solutions are becoming the new standard.

Read More +

comment on this article

Checking In before Checking Out

12/19/2016

by Scott Schaedle

Today, nearly 60 percent of travelers book hotels using a mobile device and 81 percent find user reviews important. With mobile devices serving as a natural extension of travelers, hotels must engage with their guests where they’re talking and listening before, during and after their stay to manage the guest experience from check-in to checkout.

Streamline Operations
Before a guest even steps foot onto the property, hotels should incorporate mobile technology into their internal operations to streamline communication between departments and shifts. Replacing physical logbooks and finicky radios with mobile devices is one way to ensure transparency and accountability between frontline employees and management, shaping the guest’s first impression and ensuring consistency from day to day.

Encourage Engagement
Once checked in, guests should have a way to communicate requests and complaints directly to hotel staff via mobile device without being required to download an app or call the front desk. Requesting more towels or expressing a noise complaint via text encourages guests to engage directly with staff in a manner that is intuitive and natural for today’s traveler. Opening this additional line of communication between the guest and staff not only creates a highly personalized guest experience, it also provides the opportunity for management to address an issue that might otherwise only be discovered after the guest checks out and publishes a review.

It is imperative that mobile-initiated complaints are escalated quickly, handled appropriately and logged correctly. While a complaint may have been initiated via text, hotel management should not necessarily continue the dialogue using the same medium. Instead, the manager should quickly take the complaint offline by engaging with the guest verbally or face-to-face. After the issue is remedied, the incident should be logged so that staff can be aware of and sensitive to the guest’s issue during future stays.

Keep it Simple
If technology overcomplicates the guest experience, don’t implement it. Completely replacing traditional staples in the hospitality industry like the front desk associate or housekeeper with technology removes the opportunity to personally connect with guests and create the highly customized experience we’ve all come to expect.

While comment cards on pillows might be obsolete, the concept is certainly not. Hotels should automatically send a brief survey to the guest’s mobile device after checkout requesting feedback on their experience. Many hotels offer points as incentives to completing these surveys, which ultimately provides a wealth of information to calibrate operations and increase guest satisfaction.

While we most certainly have not seen the extent of mobile technology’s role in the hospitality industry, it’s clear that hotels seeking to increase customer satisfaction must connect with guests where they’re engaged through mobile technology. Through technology, savvy hotels should proactively shape the guest experience by streamlining internal operations, opening a new line of communication and implementing technology where it makes sense.

About The Author

Scott Schaedle
Founder and President
Quore

Scott Schaedle founded Quore in 2012 after identifying the need for and creating a solution to revolutionize and streamline hotel operations. Raised in a family rooted in the hospitality industry, Schaedle grew up and worked in hotels his entire life. Schaedle is the driving force behind the vision of the company and designed Quore through a collaboration between hoteliers, designers and software developers. Under his leadership, Quore now has more than 20,000 users at more than 1,000 hotels, including properties in leading management companies throughout the country.