Tech Talk

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Merging High Tech With High Touch to Create a New Hospitality Paradigm
Posted: 03/23/2023

One of the key challenges facing today’s hoteliers is that of high tech vs high touch. Does technology conflict with personalized service? Is it possible to offer both during the same visit? And can hotels that utilize technology in favor of human interaction achieve guest loyalty?

Business travel is picking back up and families may be taking their first or second real vacations since the pandemic cancelled so many plans just a few years ago. To ensure that guests have the best on-site experience possible, hoteliers are increasingly looking to new technologies to make their stay more comfortable than ever. With an advanced property management systems (PMS) and integration platforms, hoteliers can increase operational and staff efficiency, but also meet changing guest expectations for a high-value but relatively low-touch experience. We looked ahead to see what changes we expect to see sweeping the hospitality industry this year.

Long-term readers of this blog know that I rarely focus on a single company or product. My goal is to help readers understand new and emerging technologies, when and why they might be useful, and what to consider if you are buying them.

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The Future of Hotels
Posted: 02/21/2023

Hotels have always been a high-touch low-tech business. Today, and into the foreseeable future, hotels are moving away from the pure ‘people serving people’ model towards a more high-tech low-touch business, and doubling down on digitalization. In the paragraphs below, I envision ways in which tech can innovate and enhance the guest experience throughout the guests’ 6 stage hotel journey: Imagine-Book-Stay-Report-Recommend-Return.

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Definitely Doug 2/10/23: Planning for June
Posted: 02/10/2023

The question I have heard most often in recent months is “where are you going in the last week of June?”. As most readers are aware, two trade shows featuring hotel technology are scheduled during the same dates that week. Many of you are still undecided which to attend. Knowing that your decision will be based at least in part on where others are going (hoteliers and exhibitors both), I decided to try to get some real data that I could share.

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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.