In the hotel industry, success is driven by happy, loyal guests. To drive loyalty through guest satisfaction, your hotel staff must go above and beyond customer expectations. Without an easy-to-use hotel communication system available to staff, providing guests with the excellent experience they’ve come to expect is next to impossible.
Every day, guest requests get lost in the shuffle, announcements go unheard, and hotel lobbies are chaotic without proper communication channels, systems, and software. As a hotelier, the last thing you want is to have clumsy operations because your team doesn’t have the tools to operate efficiently. Poor communication will ultimately lead to a bad experience for your guests.
To avoid problems like poor guest satisfaction and low employee morale, here are six must-know ways to keep your hotel running smoothly and ensure every guest has a positive, memorable experience (that they will rave about online).
1. Establish a Mobile-Friendly Digital Workplace
Employees must have access to all the information they need to perform their jobs at the highest level. Unfortunately, the process for finding relevant information isn’t always clearly defined or accessible, especially for non-desk employees, who may not have corporate email addresses.
On average, frontline employees spend three hours a week simply searching for the information they need.
Hotels can combat barriers to knowledge transfer and information sharing by adopting a hospitality app that gives employees access to all types of resources, including incoming VIP guests, best practices, onboarding initiatives, health and safety instructions, maintenance announcements, etc.
This allows employees to find information at a moment’s notice from any location for any guest.
Watch how an employee app transforms team communication at Fairmont Royal York Hotel
2. Improve the Guest Experience Through Accessible Information
Give your frontline hospitality employees the information and time they need to create the ultimate guest experience.
Here are just a few ways to use your hospitality app to enhance the experience for your guests.
- Encourage employees to share customer service best practices
- Create group chats to share personal preferences of VIP guests with your staff
- Give your staff 10 minutes at the beginning of every shift to read through their notifications and get up-to-speed with the latest information and updates for the hotel
How Watergate Hotel Streamlines Operations with Beekeeper
When a rush hits Watergate Hotel’s frontline team, they rely on Beekeeper to keep their operations running smoothly. Watergate employees used hotel communication software to create a “Crunch” chat. Whenever there is a situation in the hotel that requires “all hands on deck” assistance, they simply post it in the Crunch chat and any employee on the floor immediately comes over to assist.
They attribute this Crunch chat to having increased engagement levels of their hotel employees and creating an atmosphere of teamwork that’s “beyond just sending an email.”
“We can get the entire hotel working together immediately rather than having one department struggle sending an email and hoping that a couple of people will help out.”
– Demi Tolomeo, Executive Assistant, The Watergate Hotel
3. Hold Frequent Employee Training Workshops to Upskill and Re-Onboard Hotel Workers
Many managers think employee training is a once-a-year occurrence. However, regular workshops and staff meetings help reinforce best practices, ensure compliance, and address new issues.
It also gives employees the opportunity to voice their concerns and be heard by management. These workshops don’t have to be in person. Workshops and automated sequences can help you improve your employees’ understanding of hotel operations, as well as the team’s needs.
A digital workplace like Beekeeper can help reinforce this training. Here are just a few features that our hospitality customers use to upskill their employees.
- Documents: A secure document library where employees can access training resources and SOPs right from their mobile phone
- Workflow automation: An HR chatbot can answer a new hire’s basic questions and offload some of the manual onboarding work for the HR team
- Integrations: Our Whispr integration allows room attendants and management to communicate. And housekeepers can let the engineering team know about maintenance issues in real-time to make sure every room is in perfect condition for guests.
4. Share Updated Health and Safety Information
As the hotel industry continues to recover from the devastation of COVID-19, maintaining strict health and safety standards is a must. Sweeping changes are being made to housekeeping, food safety, and guest check-in and checkout.
Here are just a few safety and cleaning precautions hotels have recently implemented in response to COVID-19.
- Enhanced disinfecting protocols
- Making cleaning procedures and guidelines more clear
- More sanitizing tools for guests
- Contact-free check-in and room access
- PPE and advanced training for hotel employees
Pro tip: Sharing instructional videos through an employee app is a great way to demonstrate new cleaning processes and procedures with your housekeeping teams.
Beekeeper hospitality customers are also leveraging forms and checklists to ensure that all sanitation requirements are met each and every time a room is cleaned.
5. Speed Up Issue Reporting and Response Time
Oftentimes, hotel staff don’t have the right hotel communication system in place to share issues with the appropriate group or team before customers notice them (yikes). If the bulk of your issue reporting is originating from customer complaints, then that’s a clear sign there’s room to improve your internal reporting process.
6. Integrate All Communication With A Hotel Communication Software
Hotel communication software is a digital tool that streamlines hospitality operations and communications onto a centralized platform. Actually, it is the tool to help you implement tips 1-5 more effectively.
Communication software takes hotel communication systems to the next level by making important information, tools, and resources easier to access for frontline staff. This ultimately makes hotel teams more productive, engaged, and connected, while also creating more positive guest experiences.
When looking selecting your hotel communication software vendor, remember to keep these tips in mind:
- Select a software provider that is built for frontline-majority industries, like hospitality
- Ensure the software is easy to integrate on all types of mobile devices
- Look for vendors with a solid customer success team that can provide implementation best practices
- Make sure the platform integrates with your other important workplace applications
- Ask about other essential capabilities, such as reporting and analytics, inline translations, and video sharing
A digital workplace can help your frontline hotel staff identify and solve problems before your customers even notice.
A mobile hotel communication system lets you put issue-reporting directly into the hands of your frontline staff. Imagine how quickly maintenance repairs can be escalated if housekeeping simply had to snap a photo and submit a form from their mobile device.
Tools like Beekeeper create a direct line between frontline staff and maintenance so on-site teams can coordinate to resolve issues before they affect the guest experience.
Providing mobile access to SOPs and training resources allows everyone to find the information they need and resolve problems fast. When your hotel staff are able to work together more effectively, your guests receive better service.
Looking for your new hotel communication system? Fill out the form below to schedule your Beekeeper demo today!
Most Frequently Asked Questions
1. Establish a Mobile-Friendly Digital Workplace
2. Improve the Guest Experience Through Accessible Information
3. Hold Frequent Employee Training Workshops to Upskill and Re-Onboard Hotel Workers
4. Share Updated Health and Safety Information
5. Speed Up Issue Reporting and Response Time
6. Integrate All Communication With A Hotel Communication Software
In the hotel industry, success is driven by happy, loyal guests. To drive loyalty through guest satisfaction, your hotel staff must go above and beyond customer expectations. Without an easy-to-use hotel communication system available to staff, providing guests with the excellent experience they’ve come to expect is next to impossible.
