This is a guest post by Kim Adams, Marketing Coordinator at GuestDriven.
Hotel stays are inherently physical experiences. As such, hoteliers have a need to manage communication, engagement and service at properties of all sizes as guests move about the space. These efforts can be more efficient for hotels and more rewarding for guests with the use of beacon technology.
In terms of the guest lifecycle, beacons are used during the in-stay period of the fuller journey, just as other strategic tools are used by hotels in the pre- and post-stay periods.
Timeliness and automation are two very key benefits of configuring beacons to trigger smart campaigns, an example being when a guest enters the lobby and is sent a welcome message or offer. As you can imagine, the conversion rates on this type of engagement - contextually relevant - are difficult to beat using any manual or human effort engagement strategies.
Hotels seek to deliver the right message, to the right person, through the right channel, at the right time - and in merchandising cases - for the right price. Beacons enable hotels to get it right on all counts, with a variety of interaction scenarios possible. These include campaigns to increase engagement, personalization and revenue for example, using carefully designed calls-to-action.
In a 180-room urban boutique hotel in North America, the following results were seen across a 90-day pilot period:
So what do these numbers mean? If hotels understand the amount of time spent on-property versus off-property during a stay, they can understand their key windows of time and best physical touchpoints for engagement. In some cases we have found that up to 90% of guest time is spent away from the property. Hotels find themselves left with little time to engage with guests, so making this engagement automated and personal is key to achieving maximum results.
The power of prompting and suggesting certain behaviour at key moments is invaluable for hotels. The thing is that so much goes on behind the scenes, so much manpower and care, to make an incredible guest experience. We’re not at the point yet where technology fully replaces that. However, if certain high-conversion and high-ROI functions can be automated and taken care of by technology, the human touch can remain to be just that. Being high-tech and high-touch at the same time is possible. And profitable!
About GuestDriven
GuestDriven is a mobile guest engagement platform, that enables hotels to engage with their guests to deliver an authentic and memorable travel experience.
Express is a pre-stay solution enabling guests to begin their check-in process online while allowing hotels to drive new revenue through upgrades and offers.
Engage is an in- and post-stay solution bringing real-time engagement and smart merchandising to hotels’ fingertips. Estimote Beacons work with the Engage solution.
A full-suite dashboard provides meaningful analytics, rich guest profiles as well as campaign and request management functionality, enabling hotels to elevate the guest experience while driving their bottom line.
Kim Adams, Marketing Coordinator at GuestDriven