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25% Off Travel+Social Good Academy Day using the code ALICEVIP

Join ALICE co-founder Alex Shashou in New York City on October 23rd for the inaugural Travel+SocialGood Academy Day, a full day of expert-led classes focused on topics within the nexus of the travel industry, tech innovation, and positive socio-environmental impact.

At this one-day special event, you will gain access to the experience and insights of field-tested experts in a variety of master-classes shaped to educate, inspire, and prepare you to be an impact-focused professional in whatever role you own in the world of travel and tourism.

We hope you can join ALICE’s President and co-founder Alex Shashou, who will lead an afternoon session on Innovating the Client Experience (3.30 - 5.00pm).  

Please use the promotion code ALICEVIP for $25 off the full ticket price for the first 50 who sign up. Sign up now before the ticket price increases on October 1st!

For more information about Travel+SocialGood visit their website and follow them on Twitter at @travelplusgood and @tsg_nyc. See the full Academy schedule and register here.

Write to us <info@aliceapp.com> or tweet us to let us know you’re coming!

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Could text messaging give your hotel an edge?

Messaging isn’t just for Millennials. Pew Research shows SMS-messaging is a favored means of communication for travelers of all ages. Text messaging is an essential expression of today’s instant gratification economy and is fast becoming a necessary component of customer service.

Marriott, the Four Seasons, and Loews have all started to offer guests text messaging in recent months. Early experiments show customer satisfaction improves considerably when hotels give guests the opportunity to communicate with hotel staff via text-style messaging. Hotels are also finding expanding communication options for guests is paying off, with improved TripAdvisor rankings and increased ancillary revenue sales.

Adding text messaging to your hotel’s communication stack is not for text messaging’s sake, but rather to provide your guests with a complete set of communication options and the leisure to choose the mode that best fits their particular circumstances and personal preferences.

Texting can have many advantages over other forms of communication, depending on the situation. Texts have a particular grasp on our attention (research shows 90% of text messages are read within 3 minutes) and are thus ideal for communicating information that requires immediate attention, such as last-minute late check-out requests or off-site dinner recommendations. Phone calls are declining in popularity and, texting, which is easier than trying to call (and being placed on hold), is gaining in favor.  

Giving guests the option of text-style messaging is not to the exclusion of providing them with a dedicated app for managing requests, but serves as a useful complement. Indeed, texting can also be a valuable gateway communication to inspire guests to download your hotel app. Once guests experience how seamless it is to make requests via text, the value proposition for your hotel app is likely to increase.

“Adding text messaging to your hotel’s communications, however, must not increase operational complexity for your staff. Texting should be treated like any other communications channel (like phone calls, emails, and in-person requests) and funnel to the same integrated back-end,” says ALICE’s Alexander Shashou. “The front desk and concierge already have so many channels and systems to worry about, adding texting into the existing solution is paramount.” Like these other modes, texting can then have its own organized text trail, and work to enrich a valuable customer profile.

Texting also has an operational advantage over phone and in-person requests as it provides fewer opportunities for error in recording a guest request. And unlike placing a call from the hotel room phone, or making an in-person request, texting gives guests the option to message the hotel on- or off-property, before, during or after their stay.

Customer service in hospitality or any other industry is about putting the needs of the guest first. Giving your guests the option to communicate with your hotel via text - in addition to communicating via app, email or any of the more traditional methods - shows your hotel prioritizes the guest’s preferred experience.   

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Highlights From This Week’s News: Sept 10 - 17

6 Leaders on the Present & Future Importance of In-Room Tech

Why it matters: Our CEO, Justin Effron, was recently invited to participate in a great Skift podcast on the future of in-room tech and this roundtable on in-room tech is a nice follow on.

In-room tech has continued to be a topic of much interest and debate. For marketing it seems to be a real gem, who doesn’t want to write about the next big thing. But we have to agree with Mr. Wali here that “personal technology has surpassed in-room hotel technology to the point of no return. With annual upgrade cycles for consumer technology devices, hotels can no longer spend enough to catch up.” With this in mind simplification is key. Enhancing the guest experience through technology is “not about filling a room with all the possible gadgets” says Mr. Högefjord. Agreed - it is about simplifying the existing experience and habits your guests have through easy to use and relevant technology.

At ALICE, we recently released the ability for hotels to text guests. By our own admission, this is not ground-breaking in its nature (it may even be a step back from the rest of our tech!) but our hotels weren’t facilitating this increasingly preferred method of communication, and the early results are extremely positive. Who here has really ever had trouble turning their lights off? Instead, who would love to have an alcoholic beverage waiting for you upon your arrival after a 12-hour journey? Or better yet, have the peace and mind that your room has been cleaned because you received an update on your mobile app…? Using your smartphone as a remote control for your room will surely come, but for now, let’s get the simple and essential tasks completed first.

Four Seasons Uses Big Data & Gamification to Upsell its F&B

Why it matters: Four Seasons has started to track the average check amount of its waitstaff. We love this -- not for its Big Brother-esque potential increase in revenue (although that is one nice take away from the article and one that will surely get Avero a few calls) but for its Gamification. For so many years we have seen innovation and creativity by hotel employees blocked by corporate rules and procedures. And here is a big company pushing their staff to dig deeper and do more to service the guest. And even better, they are rewarding, and more importantly (in motivational psychology), recognizing their staff for doing so.

Such a data-driven and gamified approach can apply to every facet of the hotel world. Every single team back and front of house should find ways to gamify operations and to allow the entrepreneurial employee to deliver a magical moment. Yes, there need to be some rules, but why not give your employees some creative license to improve the guest experience, or push the boundaries on the quickest way to clean a room? For one, they know your hotel better than anyone and if there is going to be any process innovation or superior experience, it will more likely come from within. For those of you that want to geek out on Gamification: Octalysis by Yu-Kai Chou is a great framework. For the rest of you, let your employees compete in some arenas - it can only add to the fun and reward you in happier guests and more aligned and eager staff. 

Hotel Gift Giving Guide: Rethink your Vouchers Program - It Could Make you $1.5M in Pure Profit

Why it matters: We’re sure some of you will skip this, but if you are a hotelier or were previously a marketer please note that “some luxury hotels generate in excess of £1M ($1.5M) a year” on an item that is rarely even redeemed: vouchers. So for those of you thinking about creative ways to push through your year’s end numbers, here are some great tactics on re-energizing your loyalty program and some tactical ways to help the marketing team in so doing. Recalling the above piece about gamification -- don’t feel the need to come up with creative experiences yourself. Host a competition for all of your employees and reward the winning vouchers (those that sell best) with free nights at the hotel. Both of these suggestions are free and since most of the vouchers won’t even be redeemed, this is practically a pure profit experiment. Our one request: please send the best (and worst) ideas to us, we would love to see them!

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Highlights From This Week’s News: Sept. 2 - 9

Hotels that engage well on TripAdvisor rank 63% higher. Here’s how to do it:

Why it matters: It’s tough not to include a tactical guide to increasing your rank on TripAdvisor as our first highlight. 

Okay, a quick recap: TripAdvisor has the largest user ecosystem in the entire travel space with 375M unique monthly users, over 250M reviews and an average of 160 contributions per minute. 

Why does this matter? Well, word of mouth (which includes review sites) is the primary factor behind 20-50% of all our purchasing decisions (2010 McKinsey Study) and most importantly, 50% of all travel bookers visited TripAdvisor specifically at some point in their search (ComScore 2015). 

Still not convinced TripAdvisor holds weight? A study by Cornell University’s Center for Hospitality Research found that for every percentage point a hotel improves its online reputation, its “RevPAR” (revenue per available room) goes up by 1.4%; for every point its reputation improves on a five-point scale, a hotel can raise prices by 11% without seeing bookings fall off. These are big numbers! And here is a guide to how to engage better on this hotel booking dynamo. 

However, if the sceptic in you wants to point out that TripAdvisor published this themselves, look no further than their 2013 Phocuswright study, which showed 87% of users agree management response to a bad review improves their impression of the hotel. 

Now we are no fools. Surely everyone who has a role in a hotel’s eCommerce has read this report. But if we were reading this and it was our hotel, we would sure make double sure the simple steps to a better engagement strategy had been taken yesterday.

“How quickly is it that the world owes us something we didn’t know existed only five seconds ago?”

Why it matters: We absolutely love this quote. This article isn’t on the hotel industry per se, but pertains well to the challenges of integrating technology into an established industry like hospitality.

This article on the “Age of Tech Disappointment” is about the ever-increasing expectations of today’s consumers. No longer is it satisfactory to produce a product without fault. The rapid pace of innovation and the seamless ability to interact with it has led hotel guests to continually demand more. You feel it as hoteliers trying to keep up with your guests, while the outside forces try to provide them services. We feel it as vendors who produce a beautiful product feature only to be asked about the next three frontiers we could help our hotels cross. Yes it’s exhausting, but it’s very real so let’s embrace the entrepreneurialism and keep pushing full steam ahead (and just a few months ago you were still debating free WiFi...! )

Mobile use by hotel staff helps efficiency

Why it matters: Of course it does. Radios are very effective means of communication. but mobile enables so much more context. A radio is an open channel, everyone on that channel has to receive that message even though it is rarely for them. We remember travelling to Europe and hearing the taxis’ radios all ride long. It was so disruptive to the beautiful European scenery outside. Now imagine how your staff feel. With a mobile solution you can not only send direct messages to the person who is going to do the job (think Uber driver getting the pickup location) but also track that the job was asked for in the first place and even how long it took to complete. 

So, what is stopping you from using mobile technology for your staff? Not price. The average price of a smartphone (or iPod) being used by our hotels is a one-time $180 fee all-in (they use the WiFi). The average price of a radio is $700. So, with mobile, you are able to save money while upgrading your operations. Yes, this article only talked about mobile check-in, and that is a another debate, but let this theme take you further; Like walking into an Apple store. What is beautiful about the experience is that the staff member who greets you can singlehandedly show you what you want, charge you on a mobile device, bag and tag you and you leave extremely happy (and with much less disposable income). Hotels can achieve this too. We actually had the pleasure of presenting on Staff Mobility at HITEC this year. Let us know if you want a deeper walkthrough.

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Tricks of the Trade Featuring: Michelle Santos, Front Office Manager, Skyline Hotel

Hospitality draws a unique cast of characters. No one knows this more than Skyline Hotel Front Office Manager Michelle Santos, who tells her staff to think of themselves as actors when they walk through those hotel doors. You are onstage, and the lobby is your theater, she says.

About Michelle

Going into hospitality wasn’t something Michelle planned for or went to school for: “The hospitality industry is something that just grabs you,” she explains.

Born in the US to Portuguese parents, Michelle started her career close to home, at the Holiday Inn at the Newark Airport, a place and a time she describes as “craziness.” This was before September 11th and the hotel was constantly busy. Guests were mainly crew members, airline professionals and distressed passengers. The latter she says might yell at you simply because their airplane was delayed.

Years later, Michelle came to the Skyline Hotel in New York City wanting to be back in the action. In the interim, she had taken a position at The Sheraton Hotel in Edison, Central Jersey, and always liked the city buzz.

Michelle’s Trade

As Front Office Manager (FOM) of the Skyline Hotel, Michelle enjoys interacting with her guests, who come from all corners of the globe. Every day brings a new challenge and she enjoys going out of her way to help solve problems.

Something you would not guess about Michelle’s role is that in addition to her FOM duties, she also manages the hotel’s event spaces, something not often part of a front office job description. The latitude of the role gives Michelle wide influence over the hotel’s front of house operations. “I’ve seen a lot,” she says.

Michelle’s Trick

Learning to read people is the most important skill Michelle has mastered over her years of industry experience. “There are some people who want to be heard and others who want something. You need to read the person to understand which is the best way to approach the situation,” she says.

Michelle also has advice for saying ‘no,’ without saying ‘no,’ a word she says should never be part of anyone’s vocabulary in hospitality: “I always apologize and say ‘I can’t say that it’s going to happen, but I will try my best to help you rectify the situation.’”

Michelle offers advice for rising talent...

Patience is covetable skill.

In order to succeed, you really need to love the business and what you’re doing. There is no ‘like.’ You need to build a relationship with the guests and you have to make sure to go out of your way. Sympathy and empathy are invaluable.

She also acknowledges that in our social media age, word of mouth is more important than ever. Everyone writes reviews and everyone reads them. The internet is pervasive and the ultimate tool for sharing your thoughts. If you don’t love what you’re doing, people will see it, she says.

Lastly, she tells us she instructs her staff to think of the hotel as their stage, the lobby as their theater. Like acting, hospitality professionalism requires a true embrace of the role.

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Highlights From This Week’s News: Aug. 27 - Sept. 1

Airbnb’s threat to hotels may be structural, going beyond tax fight 

Why it matters: Corporate business is the hotel industry’s bread and butter. Until now, the sharing economy has mostly catered to the leisure and budget traveler. What if that changed? How would you respond? If you have the mindshare, you might want to start acting now rather than reacting later. Just ask the NYC taxi community.

How Technology Can Deliver A Seamless Travel Experience

Why it matters: Will one piece of technology ever do it all? We don't think so, not at least for a very long time.

But there are places where the traveler experience can already be seamless. Let's take the hotel experience, which itself is quite disconnected. To you (the hotelier), housekeeping lives back of house, concierge, front of house. To the guest, however, it’s all the same house! We already have the technology that lets you connect services for your guests, regardless of their location (on or off-premises), their device, or the phase of the customer journey (from pre-arrival through to post-stay). If you're not providing guests with a seamless hotel stay, then someone else is doing it for you: Hotel Tonight with Aces, Facebook with M, American Express with their concierge… the list goes on.

One out of Four Hoteliers Still Use Pen and Paper to Manage Properties in the US

Why it matters: Although the results of this study are hard to believe in today's digital age, the findings really resonate: pen and paper (and radios) are still our biggest competition!

When we and other software providers launch hotels, we are asking staff and the hotel culture itself to become digital - something that doesn't change employees' work flow, but does change their tools. The data we collect is important, and being able to track work equally so. This report also touches on another trend - the consumerization of IT. For us, this centers on design. If the technology you provide your employees isn't user-friendly, it won’t be used for long. Design matters for everybody, not just for consumers and guests. Look at that beautiful iPhone of yours… why should you be able to use beautiful products at home but not at work? The answer is you shouldn’t… companies should prioritize design in tools they want staff to use or expect them not to use it.

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Highlights From This Week’s News: Aug. 19 - 26

Sizing Up The Competition The Right Way - How To Improve Your Comp Set

Why it matters: Performance is relative. For years you have been benchmarking your property’s occupancy, average daily rate (ADR) and revenue per available room (RevPAR) performance against a chosen competitive set to identify if your property is gaining or losing market share. 

As it happens, only 58% of hotels have changed their primary comp set within the past five years (from 2010 through 2014). How often do you analyze the chosen comp set and not just performance? 

Given today’s competitive climate, now might be a good time to re-evaluate. When you do, we hope you’re in second place, as a wise IT manager once said to us being first in a comp set is never preferable… it lets you take your foot off the pedal and relax. If you have no one to beat, then you have someone who is trying harder to beat you.

Want to be more successful? Embrace local, promote authenticity and hire the right people.

Why it matters: If unique experiences delivered through an authentic desire to serve are the drivers of the hotel industry’s success, then how are you making sure to deliver on this desire? 

In a hotel world that demands consistency in everything from rooms development to service levels, how can you break from the cookie cutter mold that is becoming so undesirable? We only have to look as far as the IHG purchase of Kimpton to see the importance of the boutique experience. 

Kimpton Hotels, as far as we understand, are able to draw more than half their occupancy from their loyal guests while IHG likely sits somewhere nearer the 15% mark. Why is that? Well among other reasons, Kimpton repositioned their strategy to focus heavily on the local experience and have reaped the rewards since. By embracing their local surroundings in everything from their website content to their marketing and most importantly to their staff interactions, Kimpton Hotels are able to give guests that authentic feel. This means losing scripts. It means empowering your staff. And ultimately it means hiring the right people.

What We Can Learn From Hilton

Why it matters: We can learn a lot from how Hilton (and most other chains) are embracing the need for technology in the guest experience. 

One such learning our team found compelling from this article is Hilton’s view that technology is not just for technology’s sake, but when implemented correctly, actually frees up time for staff to truly help the guest. If a staff no longer spends 5 minutes checking in a guest, that staff member can spend those 5 minutes servicing the guest, going above and beyond to build a great experience. 

We often see hesitations that technology can limit the interaction with guests and thus the perception of service. I remember a report out of Cornell Hospitality on “Cyborg Service” and the negative effect of technology in the guest-staff interaction. Looking back it seems they really missed the point. Done right, technology can and will free your staff to create great experiences that will leave lasting impressions on your guests. 

We don’t remember our quick check-ins when traveling. We remember that moment one staff member took the time to make us feel special and unique, and that is what we will tweet about and write reviews on (and tip on!).

Apple watches may be all the rage, but success is still 5-10 years away

via Tnooz

Why it matters: We were surprised how many travel brands had Apple Watch apps ready right out of the gate. Such a dormant industry diving in so fast! We remember watching Starwood on the Apple Watch launch video, it was fantastic PR. But that is exactly what it is for now - and for the next 5-10 years, according to Gartner. At $399 a pop, the watches have a ways to go to reach their “plateau of productivity” or in simpler terms, a critical mass worth building an experience around.

Interestingly, the Connected Home - and its industry corollary, the Connected Hotel Room - is a similarly young technology. This is not to say this terrain is not worth exploring. Your guests will love testing them out and thank you for the opportunity to do so, but don’t put too heavy (or costly) an expectation on this just yet.

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Highlights From This Week’s News

Hospitality is Key to Customer Success: What Software Companies Can Learn from Shake Shack

“Perhaps the best model for customer success is that of hospitality. I’ve learned a lot about true hospitality by studying famed New York restaurateur Danny Meyer, the genius behind such enduring New York institutions as Union Square Café and Gramercy Tavern...” Click to read the full article.

via OpenView Labs 

Why it matters: It’s not just software companies that can learn from Shake Shack... and by Shake Shack the article is really referring to Union Square Hospitality, the restaurant business started by Danny Meyer that is known for its outstanding culture. I myself have had the opportunity to have breakfast with Susan Salgado, the pioneer behind Danny Meyer's fascination with culture. Back when Susan Salgado started, corporate culture was not a known word, let alone an initiative. Now it is imperative to the success of a boutique hotel brand. Look at hotels like The Mark in New York. When asked about their turnaround they revealed it simply started with the response "Yes" to all guest requests. I long to stay at hotels under brands like Firmdale who put customer service at the very core of their philosophy and reap the rewards in so doing. All hoteliers should embrace culture and empower their staff to go above and beyond. Scot Campbell told a story at HiTec 2015 about his first day in technology training at the Wynn Hotel Group. He recounted his first words from Steve "if one day you come to me saying you have made an error costing us $500,000 but have learned from it, no problem. But if I ever see a guest ask you where the elevators are and you do not pick up their suitcase and walk them there yourself, you are fired". 

Twitter Best Practices for Hotels 

“In the past year alone, 70% of followers are believed to have taken some action after seeing travel content onTwitter. Furthermore, an impressive 60M tweets are said to have mentioned hotels...” Click to read the full article.

via HotelRez

HotelREZ Hotels & Resorts have put together a list of best practices and tips for hotels aiming to get started on Twitter.

Why it matters: More and more the impact social media is having on purchasing decisions is becoming clear; we are more likely to act based on recommendations that we trust than we are on advertisements we see. With 60 million mentions of the word "hotel" on Twitter in the last year alone, there is a growing opportunity for hotels to benefit from a successful Twitter strategy. However, don't go blindly. Many (dare I say most) of our hotels do not have Twitter accounts, and those that do struggle to drive real value from them. This guide is a nice start to understanding the basic approach to Twitter and if you do go down this path we would be happy to recommend community managers that can do a nice part time job as you explore this channel. 

Four Point Checklist to Take Hotels into the Hyper-Connected World

“It is apparently not just the preserve of small, independent hotels that are trying to capture the attention of tech-savvy guests.” Click to read the full article.

via tnooz

Why it matters: As Marriott points out in the article, referring to the in-room entertainment system: “Increasingly, it is how we use that technology to communicate with our guests when they’re in the hotel." Emphasis on the word "in" here. Hotels have given up a lot of the guest journey over the last fifteen years. With the take up of the internet and the unbundling of the guest journey, many stages of the journey pre- and post-stay now lie in the hands of the internet companies. So when it comes to the one stage of the journey that the hotel truly owns, the stay itself, hotels can control their destiny and safeguard against the increasing "Uberization" of services. We have covered this topic in earlier blog posts and these four points are nicely written on how using the right guest-facing technology can lead to a consistently improving (and evolving) guest experience. 

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9 Ways In-Room Tech Is Changing the Hotel Guest Experience: Key Takeaways from Skift’s Podcast featuring ALICE’s Justin Effron and Starwood SVP Chris Holdren

To talk about the future of in-room hotel technology and the changing guest experience, Skift podcast host Samantha Shankman and Skift co-founder and Head of Content Jason Clampet spoke with both ALICE’s CEO and co-founder Justin Effron and Chris Holdren, Starwood Preferred Guest and Digital SVP.

Read on for 9 key takeaways from their talk or find the full transcript of the pod here.

1. Hotel services are being uberized to match guest expectations

Five years ago it was unthinkable you could order a cab with the push of a button. Now that’s the expectation. As young adults who have grown up in the on-demand economy start to travel more they will expect hotel services work in just the same way.

“I think that over the next 5 -10 years, it’s hard to imagine a world where you walk into a hotel and you can’t interact with it on your phone,” says ALICE’s Effron.   

2.  You need to make app downloads as friction free as possible

It can be hard to incentivize guests to download an app for each boutique property they visit.

Starwood leverages their loyalty program to encourage guests to download their app, which then unlocks personalized conveniences for users across their entire portfolio of properties. At ALICE, our platform approach allows for white-label customizations for individual hotels but removes the need for guests to download multiple apps. A little gamification doesn’t hurt either: Starwood offers secret off-menu room service items for those who order via the app.

“There is a friction involved in downloading an app. I don’t want 30 different individual hotel apps on my phone and I don’t think anyone really wants that, but by having that loyal relationship it gives you the platform to encourage members to download the app and that becomes their one- stop-shop for everything they need,” explains Starwood’s Holdren.  

3. Older generations will use the technology if you are solving a true pain point

When we first started building our technology we assumed the demographic most inclined to use the application would be younger generations. We’ve seen, however, adoption can depend largely on the use case. At one partner property (The Setai, Miami Beach) we allow guests to order directly to their pool and beach chairs. Here we see adoption across all age-groups because of the convenience - it’s much easier to order a drink from your phone than to catch a server’s attention on a busy day.  

“One of the big pain points in a resort experience today is that you are up by the pool, you want to have another drink, you want to keep the good times going, you have to get up and go find someone to place the order or flag down someone who is running by…. if someone can with beacon technology know exactly where you are sitting and hands you that drink, that creates a magic moment and it takes out a lot of frustration,” agrees Starwood’s Holdren.

4. The best technology makes your hotel stay feel just like home

Connectivity via a guest app means instant access to local information as well as the replication of on-demand services guests are accustomed to at home. But removing the language barrier is perhaps the biggest win in terms of guest comfort. We recently released our languages feature,  which facilitates guest-to-staff and staff-to-staff language translation in real-time.

As ALICE’s Effron explains: “[Languages] is a product we spent about a year developing, and we are starting to see some really powerful results. No matter where you are in the world, you always feel at home and that really enhances your stay and that’s something I think guests really look for.”  

5. Technology advances quickly. Outsourcing to technology startups keeps hotels nimble

Every new device generation, every new platform enhancement provides opportunity for better guest experiences. Yet the pressures of technological advances have encouraged many hotel groups, large and small, to take advantage of tech-focused companies who specialize in the various device and platform upgrades and can help hotels adapt more quickly.

Says ALICE’s Effron, “That’s kind of how we look at ourselves with our partner hotels. We say, ‘You don’t have to worry about keeping up with the changing times, we will do that for you.’”

6. Only when you combine the staff-side with the guest-facing solution do you see true value

For hotels employing guest-facing technology to provide conveniences for guests it can be hard to show ROI, at least in the short-term. It’s when these guest-facing solutions feed into an integrated back-end solution that the efficiencies from streamlining multiple systems into one connected platform show clear ROI.

“Because we are allowing the hotels to track everything through one system, regardless of how many guests are using it, they are seeing the ROI. That’s what we saw a lack of in the industry -- a lot of people were spending several thousand dollars to build an application and it was really hard to prove they were getting 10% more sales from F&B. So we think it’s not enough just to have one side of [a technological solution]. You really need both,” says ALICE’s Effron.

7. In-room technology is more about plugs, ports and charging stations. The fancy stuff can wait.

The rise of the smart-home, with its connected light bulbs, thermostats, and smoke alarms, has inspired hotels to experiment with their own smart in-room technology. Yet, guest expectations of in-room technology are far more modest than hoteliers might imagine. As Starwood’s Holdren explains, what guests want most are the ports, plugs, and charging stations that power their own suite of personal devices. Upgrading rooms to meet this rise in demand in a cross-compatible way might actually be a bigger challenge for hotels though than designing a friendly robot butler:

“What’s required to let people connect their devices is actually some pretty complex technology, especially as you look globally, where … standards do differ around the world. And as you look at Android, iOS other platforms, it’s not always easy to find that cross-compatible solution to really make that easy for our guest,” says Holdren.

8. It’s not enough to provide WiFi for your guests; your associates need good wireless connectivity as well

Hotels can be difficult places to install WiFi networks. It’s hard enough to equip the guest spaces of properties built in the 1400s or as massive concrete structures with expansive outdoor areas, without having to worry about the labyrinth of back-of-house spaces that have become de facto dead zones with regards to WiFi. Starwood’s Holdren admits upgrading the connectivity of these areas has become a focus for the hotel chain, as giving associates mobile technology does little to enhance the guest experience if connectivity back-of-house is an issue.

As hotel properties make the necessary WiFi enhancements, it helps to have a solution robust enough to withstand intermittent interruptions in connectivity.

Explains ALICE’s Effron:  “[While working on an upgrade] you do things to try to optimize the solutions, so on the guest-side if somebody enters a request and they are not online, that request will go through the minute that they get online, and same thing on the employee-side - that request will go through the minute that they get online and in dead zones it’s never too long of a delay. ...Things aren’t perfect, but that will continue to improve over time.”

9. Empowering your associates with technology might be your biggest lever for success

From day one we’ve been focused on the hotel associate experience. We realized early if the hotel staff doesn’t use the solution it will be back on mind, and if it’s back of mind associates will never encourage guest adoption. We’ve built ALICE on the staff-side so that it’s incredibly intuitive to use, and associates can be trained on the platform in under 5 minutes. We also recently launched ALICE Academy, an online training portal to support any questions associates might have. Starwood’s Holdren agrees investment in staff-side technologies is just as important as investment in guest-facing applications, because of the legacy of complex back-of-house systems that make hospitality operations such a challenge.  

Interviewer Jason Clampet recalls a recent travel experience that shows how an imbalance between guest-side and associate-side technology investments actually works to undermine the goal of improved customer service:  “That reminds me of a terrible few hours spent in a Phoenix airport last year. The flight was late and the poor gate agent for US Airways was telling everybody ‘You have better information on your apps than I have from my terminal.’ That’s the challenge of making sure there is a level playing field between hotel staff and the guests that are using the latest consumer-facing technology that you guys have.”

Head over to Skift to listen to the episode, or head here to read the full transcript.

Justin Effron, ALICE CEO and co-founder

Chris Holdren, Starwood Preferred Guest and Digital SVP

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Skift Podcast Transcript: How In-Room Tech Is Changing Everything About Hotel Guest Experience

To talk about the future of in-room technology and the evolving guest experience, Skift podcast host Samantha Shankman and Skift co-founder and Head of Content Jason Clampet spoke with ALICE's CEO and co-founder Justin Effron and Chris Holdren, Starwood Preferred Guest and Digital SVP.

We summarized the key takeaways from their discussion in an earlier post. We've got the full transcript of Episode 7: How In-Room Tech is Changing Everything About Hotel Guest Experience below.

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of the Skift podcast: Skift’s weekly conversations on the trend line shaping global travel.

This podcast is sponsored by MasterCard, one of the world’s leading technology companies. MasterCard and Skift recently announced a future series, an exploration of major destinations preparing for the new age of verbal mobility. From connected infrastructure to smart technologies, this upcoming series examines how global cities are creating seamless and personalized experiences for visitors and residents. Learn more about the project at futurecities.skift.com and join the conversation on twitter using #SkiftFutureCities.

Samantha - I’m Samantha Shankman, and this week I’m joined by Skift Co-founder and Head of Content w. A hotel used to be measured in stars, but today it’s better judged by Wi-Fi strength and the ease with which room service can be order through an app. Guests expect a seamless tech experience from the moment they walk in a hotel’s door, mirroring the on-demand reality that exists with everything from ordering a cab to dinner. Smartphones are at the center of this revolution with hotels and third-party services quickly developing apps and tools that transform personal devices into portals for the hotel experience. With the rapid change of consumer technology, it can be very difficult for any tech initiative to stay relevant for long, leaving hotels and a constant struggle to keep up with consumer demands. To talk about the future of in-room technology, we are speaking with Chris Holdren, Senior Vice President of Starwood Preferred Guest and Digital and Justin Effron, CEO of on-demand concierge app ALICE. Holdren has worked with Starwood for fourteen years, overseeing many tech initiatives from the group’s first virtual hotel to QS entry. Effron co-founded ALICE two and a half years ago, the startup now works with 35 hotel groups, providing a tech platform for guests and staff.

Justin, Chris we are so glad to have you with us today, thank you for joining us.

Today we are talking about in-room technology and Justin you are the CEO of ALICE, why don’t you tell us a little bit of what ALICE does.

Justin – Yes absolutely, ALICE is a mobile engagement platform that allows both guest to staff communication as well as staff to staff communication. So the view on it is rather than using different systems to control your guest experience and your staff work-flow, you can have it all combined into one.

Samantha – And how are hotels using the platform? Where did you see this need for that want being fulfilled before?

Justin – Like most companies, it was really born out of personal frustration as far as actually traveling with a few friends and really just noticing the same inefficiencies, like you request something for instance, a towel, you call downstairs, 30 minutes later the towel is still not there, they have no idea what you are talking about so that idea didn’t really make sense and we will want to understand why. So we dove into the space and spent 9 months interviewing and shadowing 500 managers, GMs etc., and what we realized was that a lot of these inefficiencies stemmed from a lack of technology or the fact that there were so many distinct solutions running a hotel, so we figured that that was a pretty good problem to solve.

Samantha – And you have about 35 hotels using the app now. Who have been the first adaptors, what kind of hotels are really looking to innovate their technology?

Justin – Well, we have been really fortunate to work with some very, leading edge and well known boutique groups. So typically groups that have anywhere from 5 properties to about 50 properties. So some of the notable ones here in New York are groups like the Gansevoort, which is one of the early adopters and actually helped us continue to refine our product so we very much believe in a partner mentality. We work with groups like Gansevoort and Starwood to work through innovation to this solution and make sure that it best fits their needs.

Samantha – And what about customer habits about using the app. How is the app being used by customers?

Justin – Yeh, it’s a great question. On the guest side it still continues to be adopted. Mobile is becoming more and more prolific in everything we do, but in hotels the idea of using your phones to connect to hotels is still fairly new, so it depends on the property and the highest used items are typically housekeeping and food and beverage, but because the numbers are still typically around 10% – 15 % for most properties in our space, that’s really the value of the backend, the ability to track every request, even if it comes in person, over the phone, etc.

Jason – You know for ALICE and then for other apps being used by larger hotel chains, larger properties, the focus really is on the user first and as a hotel guest I get the sense that everything really isn’t always for me. How does digital open the door for the direct relationship with guests at Starwood?

Chris – No it’s a great point Jason, I think it’s what really transformed the guest experience from a technology perspective is mobile you know, before mobile really evolved, before we all had iPhone and Android devices it was very hard for us essentially to interact and enhance the guest experience when one of our guest was in one of our hotels through a digital channel, like a website is not going to help a guest when they are actually staying with us, and so having mobile has really revolutionized what we can do and having that, being able to enhance that guest experience through that technology,

Justin – Yes I will agree the fact that you have that personal devices with you everywhere you travel, and that has a lot of information about you, it makes it really easier for a hotel to serve up personal recommendations, they can understand what part of your stay you are in. Whether you are actually on the property based on location, or you are arriving the next day and they can use that to really customize your stay.

Chris -- But one additional point, I think you are right that most of the hotel company groups have really started with our guest you know and building applications and trying to enhance their experience but I still think there are tremendous opportunities to enhance the experience of our associates to help them deliver better guest service, so a great example you know, last summer we embarked on a project to gather unique characteristics of every single individual room in our system and typically before the mobile app that may have taken months to do you know, people carry around clipboards and loading a laptop room to room, but we built a simple mobile app and in a 6 week period, we had over 10 million pieces of information gathered about our rooms that now we have centrally so now we can more ably monitor that the hotels are doing what we’re asking them to do for a specific guest. So to make sure that it is about the guest to help enhance that consistent experience, our SPG member are being upgraded to their right rooms. So building mobile applications for our associates is opening up new door as well to help us enhance the experience that our guest have when they stay with us.

Jason - You know a lot of the stuff happening is on the back end and Justin you mentioned that that has been one of the fastest adoptions happening on the back-end there, what are some of challenges with user adoption, still when I’m at the hotel, that has an app in the room for instance or I haven’t downloaded an app, I still can naturally go to the phone, pick it up and look for the little icon to hit the button for the thing I want, how do you induce guests to go for this more efficient system, whether it’s using the SPG app or ALICE?

Justin - I think there are a few different areas to it. The first is just the idea of allowing it to be mainstream, like would most things if you had thought of calling a cab by using your phone through Uber like 5 years ago, you would just say why don’t I put my hands up its obviously easier. So getting through that notion of actually using your phone is easier and not harder to make a request for a lot of people it’s going to be what drives it as well as the younger generation starts to travel more and more, these are the groups that are really using their phones for every single thing they do in their lives, so I think that over the next 5 -10 years, it’s hard to imagine a world where you walk into a hotel and you can’t interact with in on your phone. The last part is how hard the hotel actually wants to push it, we have some properties that push it extremely well, they are seeing 35 – 40 % of their guest using it, we have others where its more secondary and they are using it more for efficiencies on the back-end, understanding that they want the optionality of the guest side as it moves forward, and for a group like Starwood they have a great advantage which is you can use one central application for all their properties. You know it’s very hard to convince somebody to download an app for a boutique property that they are staying at for 3 days and they don’t know the next time they are going to be back, so that also plays a lot into why we offer the platform approach where people can jump onto ALICE which can still be customized for the hotel, but they can have one app that they can rotate from each property.

Chris – And that’s exactly right, I think there is, that where SPG does help us and some of the other large hotel companies that have loyalty programs, because you need to have that overall relationship to give people enough reason to actually download an app, there is a friction involved in downloading an app. I don’t want 30 different individual hotel apps on my phone and I don’t think anyone really wants that, but by having that loyal relationship it gives you the platform to encourage members to download the app and that becomes their one stop shop for everything they need regarding Starwood, and there is the challenge for that infrequent guest or one time stayer to get them to adapt this technology and to start using it, that is a tougher challenge.

Justin – And I think the second part of it is really, how to make it more powerful for the user, if you know you can go into the application and not only make a request but also use that to communicate and talk to the concierge and say hey I’m down and it raining what’s the good activates to do, the things that would usually create more effort, look up the number, call, get redirected. It’s easier to just chat or text, so as the capabilities for these solutions coupled with the back-end capability allowing the staff to be mobile, I think as those grow together, it enhances the experience.

Chris -- And for us it adds fun right, when we are enabling room service across our hotels there app, we add secret menu items that are only available if you use the app, and so you can’t get it if you call them and request room service and our chefs love that, you know it’s a challenge they get to experiment, create their favorite dish and have it available through the app so you can get really creative and try and find ways to encourage adoption.

Samantha – Something I’m curious about is how you approach technology depending on the different brand of Starwood, if you have a more luxury brand, are you going to provide a different experience for somebody maybe one of your lifestyle brands?

Chris – You know it’s a great question Sam, you know, to date we focus primarily on the numbers. So our SPG members travel across and hotel brands so we want to provide that consistent experience for our app. As we go forward, I mean there are specific initiatives like SPGQS where we started with our truly tech forward brands like W and Aloft, in particular, to bring that to life and let guests check in and open their door using their Apple Watch or phone. You know I think we will see more diversity going forward and as we focus on perhaps something different at St. Regis but right now it really more about the guest, than it is about the brand.

Samantha -- I was thinking a lot about design and how, with all this using our smartphones, our laptops there is such a, there is no longer a need, there is a need for less technology in the room, you have to provide less. How does it impact the design of the room?

Chris – I think as we move, as people do expect all the connections from their own devices so putting the content up on the TV is to be able to watch all their favorite movies, TV shows, the things that they downloaded, you know it becomes a challenge, so the technology requirement, they may not be right in your face like the hotel room but what’s required to let people connect their devices is actually some pretty complex technology, especially as you look globally, whereas in 100 countries their standards do differ around the world and as you look at Android, iOS other platforms, and it’s not always easy to find that cross-compatible solution to really make that easy for our guest.

Jason – Can you talk a little bit about, Justin first about adoption rate and what you learned from the users, you know what are the demographics like, you are saying you know faster uptake, younger users, or is that like a nonsense myth, hardcore business partners in their 50s are doing?

Justin – Yes it’s really interesting, we of course when we first started thought that actually the group that will be more inclined to use this will be the younger generation. What we have seen is number one it really again it depends on the hotel and what their typical demographic is but more importantly it depends on the use cases. In one of our properties we allow people to order directly to their pool and beach chairs so you can go on your phone sitting in the chair, order and not you have to wait for a waiter. We see people from ages 15 up to 75 using that because of the ease of being able to do that and find somebody and then we have other properties that have a much younger demographic and it just similar in term of percentage, it’s just different use case. I think it really varies, most of our properties they tend to be more towards the leisure travel than the business, so we are seeing a lot of families coming in, so even though the parents aren’t using it the kids are, there is somebody from that group that’s using it, but I think again as people continue to get more and more business idea for business traveling especially, make so much sense because they are coming in and out potentially going to bunch of meetings back to back they get what they need and not have to speak to somebody so we think that that will continue to trend up.

Jason – And Chris, are the differences at Starwood more aligned with properties and the demographics tied to the properties, or are you are seeing commonality kind of across the user base?

Chris – Yes, I mean we see broad usage across all demographics so again according to SPG and you know to our membership 70% of our lead SPG members around the world use our app, you know, on a regular basis so we are seeing that adoption there and they span all ages and all incomes and just are passionate about travel and have come to count on it. I think it more of a myth just because you know, my mother is in her 80s and she is on her iPad 12 hours a day and she actually has two, it drains her battery down so fast and just swaps between them you know and so if she can do it I think anyone can do it and the goal is to make is easy for everyone.

Samantha – What about the ROI on this technology, when you are implementing new technology at Starwood or just when you are talking to your hotel customers at ALICE. Are you finding that this new technology is increasing sales, people are more likely to let’s say, order room service or entertainment or service offered by the hotel, or is the cost of technology kind of counter-balancing the increase in spend?

Justin – Yes so I think that from our perspective, we look at it in two ways: in some hotels who are really going all out and are doing things like room controls for light and TV and shades and air conditioning, because the cost for those are still pretty prohibitive it’s hard to make an ROI on that, at least in the short term, when you talk about you ae simply giving a solution where you can interact with the property then you are not necessarily seeing increase sales but what you are seeing is efficiency in the back-end, so again because we are allowing the hotels to track everything through one system regardless of how may guests are using it they are seeing the ROI and that’s usually where we saw lack in the industry, is a lot of people were spending several thousand dollars to build an application and it was really hard to prove, ok we are getting 10% more sale from F&B so we think it’s not enough just to have one side of it like you really need both, but because of that we were able to show our way.

Chris -- And then it’s a real mix of art and science alright. There is no, some of the initiatives, it’s very difficult to come up with a compelling ROI for but you just know they are the right thing to do and you make a bet, but I think you have to, you know at Starwood at least we focus on is this going to mean give a meaningful benefit to our guest. Is this going to dramatically enhance the experience they have, you know we don’t want to do things that are gimmicks, we don’t want to just for PR, for example we really focus on that core guest experience, and to try and bring that to life and I think the risk is or the fear that comes with it is, because they are huge capital investments you are talking SPG, you have 150 hotels and 30 countries, 30,000 door locks, that’s a capital investment that has to be made, and so, is the technology platform that you are investing in going to stick around for 5 or 7 years or is it going to go away, some great company develops a whole new platform and even when we were looking at QR you would never know, we started 5 years ago, really and started enhancing through RFID-enabled SPG member card and we were waiting till be felt comfortable placing a bet, and I think the risk is you can wait too long and then not move forward and then fall out of line with the expectations of yesterday today.

Samantha – You bring up a point about how quickly technology is changing and what point for hotels do you ever get a chance to catch up, I mean with consumer technology changing so often, there is another iPhone coming out I think in the fall, how as a hotel can you keep up with the changes?

Chris - I think that’s what’s exciting, that there is always there is more mountain to climb and more things that we can do, every new device generation, every new platform enhancement opens a door to great new experiences we can provide, so we get really excited about it, but it does take continued focus, continued investment, you know once you start on a platform, you know if you look at mobile for example, to your point you know, website you build and you can change the color, change the look and feel every 3 years every 4 years, not like browsers are going out of, or the website is going to go out of date really, but on a mobile app when IOS 9 comes out this year, we will have to do a new IOS 9 app and when then latest version of Android comes out this year we will have to have a new Android app, you know you do get locked into that same pace that apple, google and others are setting.

Justin - I think what you just said is actually why there are so many companies sprouting up to solve this and why some of the bigger brands are considering doing partnerships and not necessarily building it all in house because if you think about the need and resources to keep up with everything exactly as you said iOS 9 comes, you redesign. Well what If you just released iOS 8 a year ago, so when are working with companies that are a little bit smaller and a little more nimble actually know everything coming up beforehand make sure that they are adapted to it and move a little quicker, it makes it easier to keep up with that technology change, so that’s kind of how we look at ourselves and partner with the hotels. We say you don’t have to worry about keeping up with the changing times, we will do that for you.

Jason – When we did a series of interviews with hotel CEOs last fall, the common thing was high tech, high touch. We want to deepen the relationship with our guest we also want better technology. You talk a bit about how technology is allowing hotels to deepen their relationship with guests, especially in loyalty but also even for properties who don’t have loyalty program, how does that make the experience richer?

Chris – I think there are numerous ways that it can. So by reducing friction in the experience and then helping us being able to deliver a consistent experience, but I will give you an example and this may seem small but when we first launched our new app in 2012, we really focused on personalizing as much of the information and the experience based on the relationship we had with that specific guest, and mobile devices give us a lot more information as well, so an example will be if you’re travelling to Italy and you need to change your flight, you know today if you go to an airline website, you are scrolling down the list, which phone number, what country am I in, a leap number so what’s the right number to call, and that’s frustrating it can take a while to find the right number to get help. You know, just from the app on the phone we can know where you are, we know, because we have that relationship we know who you are and so we give you the one number when you go to contact us in our up, that’s for you wherever you are in the world, or giving local directions to the hotel, in local language. So if you are in China and you get in a taxi and the taxi driver does not speak English well, you can show him the address of the hotel in Chinese right from our apps to help you get to where you are going. So just even those little things, loyalty is built on a series of small steps, you know little moments, magic moments where you create over time and that’s what technology is letting us do. Reducing that friction creating more of those moments that really make our members lives easier.

Justin – And very similarly from our perspective it’s the things you can do to make their stay that much more enjoyable, so I think there is two elements for us on this, the first is, aside for local information it’s just simply connectivity, again when you are in your everyday life and you are in your home town you have everything you need from your phone being able to transfer that to your hotel when you can match your hotel stay with your home stay, that’s really when you win. The second part is, things like language, so we recently released the ability to have anything in every language you are looking for, so the guest can speak to a staff member, if the guest can speak English and the staff speak in Spanish, you can speak to another staff member in Russian and get it in English, all that’s done in real time, so it’s a product that we spent like about a year developing, and we have seen some really powerful results and now no matter where you are in the world, you always feel at home and that really enhances your stay and that’s something I think guests really look for.

Chris -- And I really love the example you gave earlier too, which was, one of the big pain points in a resort experience today is that you are up by the pool, you want to have another drink, you want to keep the good times going, you have to get up and go find someone to place the order or flag down someone who is running by then wait, but now with mobile, you are able to order that drink, right from your phone when you are sitting with your loved ones, have that go right to the hotel systems and someone come up and who can with beacon technology know exactly where you are sitting and hands you that drink, that creates a magic moment and its takes out a lot of frustration.

Jason – You know with anything tech related, I think we always tend to think about the optimal, when the Wi-Fi is working, when you have a connection. Can you talk a bit about, you know the hurdles that get between the guest and actually using the technology, implementing better Wi-Fi across 100 markets or making sure that you can still get that Wi-Fi connection when you are in the lounge chair by the pool?

Chris – No, I mean it’s a challenge, I mean the hotels even if you look across our system, the hotels that were built in the 1400s that are in there and so we’ve been working to ensure great connectivity no matter where you are but we are also talking about you know again 100 countries around the world, boxes that are, buildings that are massive concrete structures, where it’s hard to make sure that they aren’t any dead zones, and a big area of focus for us actually is the heart of the house, like where the associate areas, because those typically have not have the same level of connectivity that our guest areas have, so if you are building new technology for your associates to help deliver this experience but then they can’t get connectivity, on the devices you are giving them when they on in their break room, that’s a big issue.

Justin – Yeh, I think the reality is that technology get with its surroundings, so as Wi-Fi continues to get more and more powerful, off course that will help but in the meantime you do things to try to optimize the solutions, so on the guest side if somebody puts in the request and they are not online, that requires will go through the minute that they get online, and same thing on the employee side, that request will go through the minute that they get online and in dead zones it’s never too long of a delay, but the reality is, is that, still things aren’t perfect and that will continue to improve over time.

Samantha – What are the hotels staff reactions to the increase in technology? We are talking a lot about who the guest is using it and how’s its improving their experience but, so much of that is the back-end too. Is the staff eager to adopt the technology? Is it making their jobs easier or is it kind of a challenge to introduce this new technology?

Justin - Yes, for us that’s what actually been most exciting. When we go to a property and we show them the solution they are going to be using on the staff side, the responses are always positively overwhelming and the reason for that is from day one our focus has always been the experience can’t just be about the guest, because if the staff doesn’t use the solution it will be back of mind, and if its back of mind it will never get pushed to the guest. So we build the staff side where it’s really easy to use, you can train a staff member in under 5 minutes, we have online training to support any questions you may have and we have made it really simple for you to do your job better, so we’re actually had staff member email and say, you guys made my life easier, I used to hate the noise of radio and now our radio is gone we don’t have to listen to the jabber back and forth, so I think thinking about the staff as an important part of the equation and making sure it works for them in the way that they need, is really important so that’s really what we spent a lot of our focus on as well.

Chris – I completely agree with that, but it does create challenges at time, so I mean training is really important but the main area I think where challenges can arise is really evens the playing field in a way so if you are checking one of our hotels and you ask for a corner room and the hotel says I’m sorry we don’t have a corner room available, now, guest can pull up in our app and they can pull up the availability for that day and say, actually right here, you do have a corner room so give me this room. So we are putting so much information in the hands of our guest which is the right thing to do, that they can access right when they are dealing with the staff, and so that training and making sure there is consistent delivery and great service is even more important than it has been in the past.

Jason – That reminds me of a terrible few hours spent in a phoenix airport last year and the flight was late and poor gate agent for US Airways was telling everybody you have better information on your apps, that I have from my terminal, what’s the challenge of making sure that there is a level playing field between hotel staff and the guest that are using the latest consumer-facing technology that you guys have?

Chris – You know I think to be honest Jason, I think there is a need for more investment, we are focusing so much on making apps we build examples for our guest that are easy to use, very intuitive, you know with clear displays of information and everything they need, there Is room for us to continue to invest in making sure our associate’s tools have that same focus, that they are easy because hotels are complex as you all know and some of the tools we use are complex, and so sometimes it’s just easier for one of our guest using one of our apps to see that than it is in the tool that one of our associates is actually using.

Justin – Yeh and just to put you back on that I think it all comes down to the idea of one connected system and the hotel world has lived for the past 100 years no way whether there is a solution for every single department takes that load off and it makes it really hard to get that information transparently flow across to every department and therefore your property, so the more you can get your staff working on one solution the more that information can pass through and the easier it is for everybody to stay up to speed.

Samantha -- How is the guest experience going to be with technology 10 years from now? 5 years even?

Chris – You know, I am an optimist, so I see a great future ahead, I have those colored glass I think it’s going be a more personalized experience no matter where you are in the world, really tailored to your needs. If you like the room cold, the room will be cold when you arrive, your favorite TV shows will be available, you know everything it will feel truly like home based on the relationship you have with the hotel and the company to be able to provide that, so I think we are just going to see, I think we are approaching a true golden age of travel that’s empowered by all the technology changes that are coming.

Justin -- Yeh, I couldn’t agree with that more I mean I think that by nature I will have to be an optimist in this area, the way that we look at it is that 5 years from now you go onto an application, you book your hotel room. You arrive in that hotel and 3 days from now they send you a message saying can we have a car waiting for you at the airport? You say yes, the car is waiting for you at the airport. You get to the hotel, don’t need to check in, your key is on your phone and you can interact with everything directly with everything from your app, check out, can fill out a survey and check out the next day. When that become a reality, when you can do everything through one solution and you don’t need to kind of take a bunch of things and put in on one thing, I think that is the ultimate travel experience, it makes it more personalized and again it makes you feel like you are at home.

Chris -- We are almost there with Starwood today, and it’s the little things again, the recognition when you walk up to an associate and they say Hi Sam, you know how’s your room? Without you saying anything through a location-sensing technology and I mean that’s going to be a magical experience when you stay with one of our hotels.

Samantha – Does it ever become creepy?

Chris – I think there is a danger of it feeling creepy and so you have to have the right checks and balances and make sure that everything is up then, that everything is fully transparent and up front with what we are doing. But I think the main guard rail against it being creepy is that if we stay focused on really trying to materially benefit our guest and enhance the experience, where it gets creepy is if it I gimmicky, it’s all about pushing offers and promotions, if it’s about recognition and tailoring it to your staff, the people will embrace it.

Jason – Thank you for your time today, Chris and Justin, great, I want to go stay in a hotel right now.

Chris – No, thanks for having us.

Justin – That was great. Thank you guys.

[alice-app]

Introducing the ALICE Academy: Bringing Hotel Technology Training into the 21st Century

Last week we announced the debut of ALICE Academy, our online and mobile training program for hotel employees around the world. The Academy marks the completion of a long-overdue effort to make hotel operations and our staff training much more efficient.

It's no secret the high employee turnover rate throughout the hospitality industry worldwide continues to be a major problem as the average hotelier spends 33 percent of revenues on labor costs, and the average employee turnover is 31 percent in the U.S. alone. In addition, hotels of all sizes spend thousands of dollars on hours of on-site technology training sessions for staff, which simultaneously occur as employees try to actively work and serve guests.

"As a company, ALICE strives to help hotels provide service on-demand, so it was only natural that we empower our hotel partners to train their employees on-demand," said Alex Shashou, co-founder and President of ALICE.

ALICE Academy will offer video lessons on what ALICE is and how to use the many functions of our system. These functions include lessons on handling all aspects of guest requests, posting internal notes and chatting with guests. The training program will be delivered through Grovo's cloud-based platform and enables accessible and convenient learning for busy, on-the-go hospitality employees.

Additional training lessons will follow that focus on how to introduce the mobile technology to guests and encourage its usage, as well as how it can best be used to provide superior service. Other trainings will eventually be added, including one to help reap the benefits of the analytics dashboard.

Contact us for a demo of the ALICE Academy.

[alice-app]

Marriott’s #AppYourService & the Guest Demand for On-Demand Hotel Apps

The buzz surrounding Marriott’s newly released “Mobile Request” app update and #AppYourService campaign reveals the insatiable appetite consumers have for instant gratification while offering a preview of the potential demand for a digital concierge. The user-friendly app underscores the necessity for every hotel to have a mobile request feature and the importance of meeting customer’s growing expectations on mobile.

Last week, Marriott rolled out its latest app upgrade, “Mobile Request,” to members of its Marriott Rewards loyalty program. The new feature lets guests get in touch with their property through the Marriott mobile app up to 72 hours before they check in. Users can either access a drop-down menu of common requests like extra pillows and a late checkout or they can use the “Anything Else?” feature, which allows guests to have a real-time, two-way conversation with hotel staff. This option lets users arrange an airport pickup in advance of their arrival or schedule restaurant reservations while offsite. Mobile Request is currently at 46 locations and will expand to the company’s 500 properties around the world by the end of the summer.

The hotel chain’s splashy #AppYourService social media campaign expertly demonstrated the tremendous benefit of giving guests access to digital requests and real-world fulfillment. Marriott’s team set up a social media command center in Times Square last week and invited New Yorkers to tweet their requests for services, amenities, and gifts to @Marriott with the hashtag #AppYourService. By mid-afternoon Marriott’s twitter account had received over 1,000 requests. Over the course of the day, Marriott’s red-suited bellhops raced across Midtown, delivering flowers, gift cards, yoga mats, sneakers, headphones, an Apple Watch, all manner of food (lobster rolls, macrobiotic snacks, vegan burritos, and pizza, lots of pizza), and helped at least one couple get married.

Although the novelty, scale, and generosity of the #AppYourService campaign all contributed to its social media success (the hashtag was trending by midmorning), its popularity can also be attributed to the exalted place mobile request and immediate fulfillment hold in our instant gratification economy. While the stunt was over in less than 12 hours, preparations for the new app features were a year in the making. Marriott’s marketing team partnered with social media analytics company, Sysmos last August for an in-depth, global social listening campaign. Not surprisingly, the investigation revealed people “want to get what they want, when they want it and they want to be able to order it via their smartphones.”

Indeed, Mobile Request proved its worth during the months of testing prior to release. More importantly, it proved that there exists a growing need that heretofore had not been addressed by the hospitality industry. Clearly, guests are seeking services and amenities both before and during their stays that can be attended to more conveniently and efficiently than having to find and call the hotel’s phone number. During testing, 80 percent of the more than 10,000 mobile requests made by guests chose the “Anything Else?” real-time, two-way chat option. This statistic emphasizes guests’ desire to communicate with their hotel, but as quickly, personally, and efficiently as possible.

Given the degree of mobile penetration among travelers and the rapidly shifting consumer expectations around mobile, customer-centric design for hotels is looking more and more like smartphone-centric design. In announcing Mobile Request, Marriott’s VP Matthew Carroll cited the increasingly connected traveler and the corresponding shift in guest expectations. “Some 75 percent of people travel with one or more mobile devices and the percentage is higher for younger travelers,” he said via press release. “We know today’s travelers want a mobile experience built around their changing needs and desire to communicate on their terms.”

Marriott is one example of a hotel paving the way with mobile. Virgin Hotels is another chain pioneering mobile-first design. In addition to ordering room service from the Virgin Hotel app, guests can also control their in-room thermostat, music, and television, all from their smartphone. According to Skift Business Editor Grant Martin, “Applications like those from Virgin and Marriott will only grow as the traveling public demands better and faster connectivity as part of the unified hotel experience…. Soon smartphones will play an enormous role in any hotel stay starting from check-in and pervading through the entire stay.” He concludes, “Now it’s just a race to see who can roll out the best functionality the fastest.”

On-demand technology is great news for the industry. It opens up a whole new realm of customization, convenience, and competition that will yield more fulfilling guest experiences. While eventually this mobile technology will be mandatory for any hotel’s service, an investment in it now demonstrates the lengths a hotel is willing to go in order to deliver on guest expectations. The challenge for those hotels without the massive Marriott-sized budgets and technology teams is how they can possibly compete without the resources to design, develop, and produce their own on-demand offering.

This growing need validates our own mission to give hotels the tools necessary to compete in on-demand. At ALICE, we often talk about the gap between customers’ expectations around mobile and the anachronistic state of hotel technology. While several big-name hotel chains are trying to bridge that divide, the new breed of on-demand consumers who turn to mobile whenever they need something, is left with few options.

Hotels that want this same app functionality no longer have to have a Marriott-sized budget. Six or seven years ago, when hotel apps first emerged with the arrival of the app store, app production was prohibitively expensive for all but the largest chains. Even in 2012, when apps were declared the “must-have hotel amenity,” a single app for a single property could take up to six months to develop and cost anywhere from $50,000 to $150,000. Fortunately in 2012, hotel apps like hotel WiFi, weren’t seen as an inevitability. But fast-forward to 2015, WiFi is an absolute necessity for hotels, and full-featured apps—as Marriott’s move underscores—are quickly becoming table stakes. Thanks to technological advances and a few smart mobile hotel tech startups, apps as powerful as Marriott’s—or even more so—are available to both large hotel chains and the boutique brands alike. In fact, just about any hotel can be up and running with on-demand apps almost instantaneously, for just a fraction of the price. Says Skift’s Martin: “Soon the question won’t be whether your hotel has a connected app, it’ll be how good your hotel’s app is.”

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ALICE is Turning HiTec into a Hotel: Come Stay with Us at Booth 443

ALICE is headed to HiTec.

From June 15th to June 18th we’ll be exhibiting our technology at the world’s largest hospitality conference, held this year in Austin, Texas.

It’s not too late to schedule a demo, but spots are going quickly.

Click here to reserve your spot.

For four days we’ll be turning our booth at the Austin Convention Center into a hotel - demonstrating the value of our digital concierge with our #AskALICE mobile request campaign and providing our guests at Booth 443 with on-demand refreshments (New York-brand coffee and cupcakes), mini-golf and massages. Download our app and hit the “Ask ALICE” for button for immediate answers to any and all HiTec queries, including, but not limited to, HiTec survival tips, the best neighborhood eating spots, and insights to the (surprisingly happening) HiTec nightlife scene.

Our hotel partners have joined us this year by offering great prizes to HiTec attendees that we will be giving away in our very own ALICE contest. To win these awesome free giveaways, download our app and enter our HITEC Hotel for a chance to win a stay in New York City, getaways at our partner hotels, Knicks tickets, a round of golf at the prestigious Sebonack Golf Club, a Casper mattress, and six months free ALICE deployment at your hotel, among other great prizes. We’ll release fun questions in-app throughout the conference. All you have to do is answer the questions to be entered in each session’s giveaway draw.

Click here for more instructions on our ALICE contest.

ALICE is looking forward to debuting transformative new features of the ALICE mobile platform at HiTec:

A game-changer in hospitality, our new Languages feature will facilitate foreign language communication between travelers and hotel staff. Visit us at Booth 443 to experience the real-time chat translation we’ve built into every interaction between hotel guests and staff. Read more about our industry-first real-time translation feature. 

With the integration of Web Surfaces into our platform, ALICE is now able to provide as complete a guest experience as ever before. Any website pertinent to the guest’s experience can now be embedded as part of the native mobile experience. Train times, airport times, local reviews and even our hotel’s own blogs can now live seamlessly within the ALICE Guest Platform.  

“At ALICE, we are obsessed with the simplification of service and breaking down barriers that exist in hotels. Barriers between guest and staff, between silo’d departments and between properties within a hotel group. With the latest releases of our languages solution, we are proud to be able to breakdown further barriers to service; those between international guests and a diverse staff team who will be able to communicate seamlessly in their native language.” --- Alex Shashou, President of ALICE.

ALICE invites you to experience the future of hospitality technology at HiTec’s Booth 443. We hope to see you there.

Read more about ALICE’s recent coverage in the New York Post, on TravelPulse and on Hotel-Online.

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Mobile Service On-Demand Delivery for Cities: A Hotel Is Like A Little City (Part II)

Yesterday, ALICE’s CTO Dmitry Koltunov joined an accomplished field of presenters pursuing cutting-edge projects related to the use of Smart City and Internet of Things (IoT) applications, at this year’s Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) Expo in Washington, D.C. Organized by US Ignite and the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), GCTC is a one-day international showcase of Smart City and IoT technologies.

It has been an honor to join the Smart Cities program and we have really enjoyed learning about some of the parallel difficulties cities face in providing service on-demand to their residents. There is a lot to be learned from understanding their complexities and applying it to our hospitality product.

Global Cities believes the work ALICE is doing with our partner hotels is a model for how municipalities can embrace mobile technology to connect with their citizens in today’s Smart Cities. At ALICE we see mobile service on-demand technology as a trend that applies to any hospitality-like situation where guests and staff need to interact in real time. Perhaps the way ALICE is transforming hotel operations can be an inspiration to cities in how they provide their citizens service on-demand.

Last week we presented Part I - our prelude to ALICE’s presentation. Today, we conclude with Part II.

As we discussed in Part I, mobile advancements and the corresponding rise of the Uber-for-X model have not only lead to innovation in the consumer sector. Indeed, as mobile penetration has increased considerably over the past several years (Mary Meeker reports the current global penetration for mobile devices at 73% of the population in her latest Internet Trends), many cities have implemented mobile apps to accompany the 311 dial-in services they were already providing.

Allowing citizens to register requests and complaints via app is much more cost effective and time efficient than using call centers. Digitized messaging means cities can process huge quantities of reports very quickly. And importantly, the quality of citizen reports is very high because users can upload photos of the problem and pinpoint their location with GPS.

In 2012, only one year after creating the app, the city of Riverside, California, received more than 33,000 311 reports each month from its 310,000 citizens. Riverside’s CIO said at the time 10 to 15 percent of Riverside’s 311 reports were generated by the mobile app, a number that was then growing by about 30% a month. The CIO said locals who might not have bothered to call or visit the city’s website to report issues or seek information were more likely to do so with the mobile app. “The app has helped the city be on top of these issues, and it’s empowered our citizens to help clean up the city and make it a better place to live,” he said.

City apps are helping citizens easily accomplish all manner of tasks that would have been inconvenient or costly in the past. In New York City, where city living can be particularly contentious, the city’s 311 app lets New Yorkers instantly address any number of issues, including registering noise complaints, heat or hot water issues, lost property in taxis, illegal parking and blocked driveways, homeless assistance and, everyone’s favorite, rat conditions. Similarly at hotels, guests are able to access a suite of services from maintenance to housekeeping to the concierge and so on.

Citizen-facing communication and on-demand mobile applications can also promote transparency and accountability - both essential elements of good municipal governance. In the wake of the city of Detroit’s bankruptcy, the mayor of Detroit, Mike Duggan, launched the city’s own 311 app. In addition to using the app to increase citizen access to city services, Detroit is also leveraging the app against the city’s effort to curb blight (the city is currently tasked with demolishing more than 20,000 abandoned homes), and rejuvenate public trust in so doing. The app feeds data to the city’s new open data portal, and city departments have set goals to ensure responsiveness. “There is a lot of skepticism [after the bankruptcy], and it does us a lot of good to make sure our citizens can see what happens in city hall. That transparency is a big, big deal for us,” said Detroit’s Director of Digital Media and Community Engagement of his government’s app.  

Convenience, accessibility, transparency and accountability are all important byproducts of mobile service on-demand. For a 311-type app to be truly service-on-demand, however, it is not only about the ability for citizens to enter a mobile request-form on the front-end, as has been built thus far in most instances, but it is also about having that public-facing system be able to dispatch to and coordinate the appropriate response via the appropriate city department on the backend. Indeed, just as we discovered at ALICE when we first started to iterate on a guest-facing hotel app that the convenience of mobile request would never be truly realized without an integration of all the disparate systems on the back-end, cities are finding the integrated approach to development a necessity for their success.

Citizen requests, like guest requests at a hotel, are as diverse in nature as the city agencies or groups tasked with addressing them. Sometimes there’s a pothole to report, sometimes it’s those rats, and sometimes it’s even the safe removal of homes, like in Detroit. Each of those issues falls under distinct jurisdictions within municipal operations. A 311 app that successfully brings all these domains together within one mobile application necessitates mobile infrastructure that provides digital integration of all those city agencies and groups.  

As more and more of the things in the so-called Internet of Things come online, and as today’s mobile supercomputers (our smartphone and tablets that combine sensors, location, cameras, payments, and social platforms) become ever more sophisticated, the opportunities for cities to execute on service on-demand will become even greater. The challenge will remain, however, to integrate all these touchpoints and their data to one integrated service on-demand system.

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Mobile Service On-Demand Delivery for Cities: A Hotel Is Like A Little City (Part I)

ALICE’s CTO Dmitry Koltunov has been invited to present ALICE at the Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) Expo in Washington, D.C. next week. Organized by US Ignite and the National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST), GCTC is an international showcase of Smart City and Internet of Things technologies.

So why is a hotel technology startup speaking at a Smart Cities expo?

In front of a diverse audience of mayors, CIOs, CTOs, government representatives, educational institutions, non-profits and the media, ALICE will make the case that a hotel is much like a little city. A general manager is like the mayor, each facility is like a municipality, and each guest a citizen. The inner workings of a hotel have a lot of logistical complexity and ALICE provides a very elegant solution.

Global Cities believes that the work that ALICE is doing with our partner hotels is a model for how governments can embrace mobile technology to connect with their citizens in today’s Smart Cities. We also believe that mobile service on-demand technology is a general theme that applies to any hospitality-like situation where guests and staff need to interact in real time. Perhaps a unified mobile platform can transform not only hotel operations, but the workings of a city’s municipalities as they service their citizens.

Today, we present Part I of our a prelude to the presentation.

Hospitality is a significant part of the economy of our cities. Improving the efficiency, responsiveness and profitability of a city’s many hotels, residences, workplaces, hospitals and f&b services can positively impact a city’s economic standing.

But improving hotel operations is no small task. In fact, hotels exhibit similar operational complexities to a city. There are many departments, often siloed from one another, spread out over distances and all communicating through many different and disparate communication platforms. This presents significant challenges of both transparency and accountability. Additionally, guests, like citizens, have their own expectations as to how they want to communicate, now that the on-demand economy and mobile devices have reshaped expectations toward communication and immediate service delivery. Indeed, hotel operations, like city government, is more often that not beset with legacy structures, processes and tools that are at odds with mobile service delivery and the improvements it brings.

The rise of mobile brings new opportunities for hotels, just like it does for cities. Numbers vary by region, but for many cities, smartphone penetration is well above 70%. Likewise, an estimated 75% of travelers travel with one or more devices, and that percentage is considerably higher for younger generations. And our time spent on these devices only continues to rise. Last November, Americans passed a milestone, spending more time glued to a mobile screen than a television.

With changes in behavior regarding mobile devices come changes in expectations. Earlier this month, the Wall Street Journal confirmed that, yes, there is now an “Uber for Everything” - tech-speak for the business model that supplies users any service X with just the push of a (smartphone) button - a mobile-fed phenomenon that could not have existed even a few years ago. Today’s smartphone or tablet, which combines sensors, location, cameras, payments, social platforms and frictionless access is today’s dominant operational platform, and hospitality, which trades in the business of getting people what they want when they want it, is working hard across all verticals to leverage mobile and service on-demand technology to deliver on the new expectations and operational paradigms of the day.  

We’ve talked about the challenge of mobile service on-demand for hotels, but how does this apply to a city? Much like a hotel, a city is operationally complicated (take NYC: there’s the mayor, the borough administrations, the city council, the community boards, the departments, the agencies, and the constant oversight and governance of the state), spatially disparate, and requires communication both between government representatives/departments, as well as between government and its citizens

Both government and citizens want insight into how their concerns or requests are being handled, and the interaction model is wrought with lots of overhead and friction. A citizen’s or neighborhood’s issue or request might be the domain of one specific agency, but ultimately it’s the city that is accountable for ensuring the smooth operation of all of its agencies (at a hotel, a guest request might pertain only to the housekeeping department, but if that request is mishandled, it’s the responsibility of the hotel to fix it).

All of the companies presenting at the GCTC Expo have helped improve city operations and the relationship between government and its citizens. Verizon and Cisco, for example, provide the infrastructure that makes mobile operations a reality. IBM has a whole division dedicated to Smarter Cities. And Qualcomm powers the innovation that has put veritable supercomputers in our pockets (a new iPhone CPU has 625 times more transistors than a 1995 Pentium).

ALICE leverages this innovation to create mobile service on-demand. Our technology is sophisticated enough to facilitate seamless and trackable communications when the simple point-to-point dispatch model exemplified by Uber isn’t sufficient to transform the multi-touch complexity of hotel guest-staff - or indeed, government-citizen - request management.

Many cities have made great strides in recent years to try to meet their constituents expectations around mobile, developing citizen-facing apps and opening public data to developers to encourage homegrown technological solutions to challenges of local government. In Part II we’ll look at city efforts here more in depth and how ALICE’s mobile service on demand technology could make a difference.

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Mobile Service On-Demand Technology for Hospitality: How Hotels can Leverage the On-Demand Economy

“The on-demand economy will usher in a paradigm shift similar to what was seen with the advent of the internet in the late 1990’s.”

Mike Jaconi, Button CEO

While mobile devices and cloud computing have transformed our everyday lives, little has changed in the analog world of hotel guest management. Recent guest-facing technological innovations such as in-room WiFi, keyless entry, and experiments with Google Glass, beacon technology, and Apple Watch apps, all belie the anachronistic reality of hotel operations, a Gordian Knot of disparate internal systems, siloed departments and fragmented communication. The result is often inefficient staff operations, missed revenue opportunities, and inconsistent and impersonal guest experiences.  

The advent of service on demand technology, the so-called Uber for X model, and the hyper growth of the on-demand economy are the product of growing consumer appetite for convenience, simplicity, and speed. The major players in service on demand have leveraged this growing appetite and the cost effectiveness and efficiencies of this new technology to successfully disrupt consumer-facing industries. Look how Uber has changed the consumer landscape for taxis, how Netflix has challenged cable, and how Airbnb has shifted the market for low-end hotels.  

Mobile service on-demand hospitality technology changes this. With an integrated service on-demand platform, hotel management can for the first time provide guests reliable and seamless mobile services through a consolidated back-end request management and analytics platform. Cloud supported, real-time mobile communication and task management can afford unprecedented insight into hotel operations and guest behaviors and preferences. The result is the improvement of daily operations across all departments of a single hotel or across the departments of many.

Service on-demand has yet to be seen as an enabler to traditional industry. In particular, service on demand has yet to be seen as an enabler to business-facing industry, such as hotel operations, where the simple point-to-point dispatch model exemplified by Uber isn’t sufficient to transform the multi-touch complexity of hotel guest-staff request management.

At a time when the sharing economy and the near ubiquity of the Uber for X model in everyday life (think Handy, Instacart, and Uber itself) have shifted travel norms and consumer expectations, it is imperative hotels leverage this same disruptive innovation to meet this change in expectations from a position of strength. Mobile service on-demand hospitality infrastructure gives hotels the opportunity to enhance their own internal operations as well as deliver the kind of superior guest experiences expected by the on-demand economy.

The Problem: The Current State of Hotel Guest Management

"The ecosystems in the hotel world are not interconnected. The things that run F&B and housekeeping or maintenance are not necessarily connected to our central reservation system...it's just complicated, channels and central reservation and property management don't talk. Marketing and CRM platforms don't talk to POS. Complex, but you have to create the connected narrative." 

Bill Keen, Global Head of Mobile and Digital Guest Experience for IHG

Guest management is currently the province of disparate legacy systems (hotel PMS, POS, housekeeping, maintenance, concierge, reservations, and guest CRM), and discrete communication channels (radio, phone calls, emails, and a troubling reliance on pen and paper).

For hotels, poorly-integrated, single-purpose systems and fragmented communications are inefficient and expensive, provide little means of staff accountability or transparency to internal operations, and are fundamentally at odds with hospitality tenets of personalized and anticipatory customer service.

For guests, internal operational inefficiencies result in poor accessibility to hotel services and real-time information, little personalization of customer service, inconvenient and unreliable channels of communications, and a potentially frustrating overall guest experience.

The Solution: A Mobile Service on-Demand Platform for Hotels

“You can certainly make a business case [for staying up to date.] Staying with older systems means that you tend to lose sight of better ways of doing things, because it seems so natural to do them the old way. But obsolescence is risk. Hotels and vendors adopting the latest technology have an immediate advantage in speed of development and flexible integration with other systems and other data sources. Older systems have trouble coping with the highly fluid dynamic relationships that characterize current trends in customer support and marketing.”  

John Inge, Hotel Technology Consultant

The mobile service on-demand platform for hotels integrates every facility within a hotel, or across multiple hotels. It can connect to any third-party system or operate independently. Think of this infrastructure as the new Hotel Operating System: the one brain that can run all hotel facilities, staff, and other systems.

One connected system allows hotel managers and staff to receive, dispatch, track and analyze every guest and internal issue, irrespective of medium (phone call, text message, or in-person request). One system makes for easy audit trails on requests, and provides a holistic view to all internal operations. Hotel management can analyze and forecast the performance of a single property or compare and project the performance of many.  

Front-end, guest-facing infrastructure provides guests with the seamless mobile interaction with hotels they expect. For the first time, guests can engage in bi-directional, real-time communication with hotel staff through their mobile device, on- and off-premise.

This infrastructure establishes a flexible foundation for future technology innovations like beacon technology and keyless entry, without the need to introduce yet another system.  

The Result:

For hotels, an integrated request management system increases communication and accountability of staff and leads to enhanced hotel-guest engagement. More meaningful engagement afforded by real-time messaging and detailed customer profiles can lead to higher revenues, guest satisfaction and brand loyalty. A single service on-demand platform also reduces costs and creates new revenue opportunities. With a comprehensive view to operations, hotels can for the first time determine, optimize and leverage the drivers of guest value.

For guests, this integrated platform delivers on their expectation of seamless multi-channel interactions and requests. Guest-facing infrastructure provides better accessibility to hotel information and staff, and improved discoverability of all hotel services and amenities. Guests remain in full control of their stay and enjoy all the hotel has to offer.

Conclusion:

The rise of mobile service on-demand gives hotels the opportunity to reconceptualize what hospitality and customer service mean in the 21st century. Hotels that embrace changes in technology and the possibilities of integrated operations can themselves help shape guest expectations and redefine customer service. Rather than view the encroach of mobile technology and cloud computing as a threat to bespoke traditions of hospitality, hotels can make a strategic investment in their future by using technology to their advantage. A mobile service on-demand platform lets hotels capitalize on the on-demand economy and exceed the expectations it’s engendered.

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Does Technology Actually Lead to Lower Guest Service Evaluations?

It would seem from a recent Cornell Hospitality report by Michael Giebelhausen (Ph.D.) that in some instances, technology might becreating barriers between customers and employees for the worse. It is actually often a question we are asked of our partners and indeed one we ask ourselves. In light of this report, we wanted to share some of our thoughts and experiences on the matter.

Cyborg Service? The Unexpected Effect of Technology in the Employee-Guest Exchange

Professor Giebelhausen takes a deep look at whether the use of technology at check-in prevents guests from building an initial rapport with hotel employees that in turn leads to a lower evaluation of guest experience. It is a really great piece of work into guest psychology and how using technology, despite the efficiencies it may offer, can impede the perception of service.

The result is framed as unexpected… when a “friendly” employee is paired with technology, the evaluation of service lowers.

 How Employees Pair with Technology

We asked a few of our hotel partners what they thought of the results and whether it worried them. They found this not to be the case. Taking a deeper look at the results (pictured above), you find that the risk of not having technology at check-in is far greater than the risk of having technology at check-in, for the outcome is heavily influenced by the behavior of your employees.

 In cases where an employee has positive rapport building skills, technology did indeed lower guest service evaluations by 11%.  However, in cases where an employee demonstrated negative rapport building skills, the result was an 83% increase in guest service evaluations when technology was present. We think it’s a good safety net to have technology because when staff are positive, there is only a small decrease in service perception but when staff are negative there is a huge offset.

 So the big question really is…  how good are my front desk staff at rapport building when it comes to a check-in kiosk? One hopes their employees are exceptional since hotels put a great amount of effort in training their staff. However, in our experience working with hotel staff, we’ve found there is a great need for improvement.

 Technology is a compliment to guest service, one that empowers guests and hotels to increase their engagement

Guest technology is far more than placing a kiosk at check-in. We look at technology as the empowerment of people to do things they were not able to do previously. Check-in through a terminal at a hotel is only useful when your hotel has a line at check-in. But where does true empowerment come from? We feel it comes when technology can be used to compliment your workforce and offer service and availability where it might not otherwise be possible.

 Let’s Look at Some Familiar Scenarios

 Pre arrival - This is the ability to check-in before arriving at your property. The ability to make requests of your hotel before arriving. To discover what can be done and begin planning your trip straight after booking.

Situation: Guest excitement is peaked when booking but the ability to discover all the possibilities at the hotel relies on a website that is often not as detailed as the nature of requests. Guest wants to plan their trip and share their check-in information; so that when they arrive everything is booked and ready.

Technology Solution: Reach out to your guests with automated personalized communication the minute they book through a mobile engagement platform or guest app. Allow the guest to discover and request everything that is available to them and begin building the relationship/rapport with your guest through their preferred mobile phones from booking through to arrival.

Off Property – The ability to communicate with your guests when they are not on property. The ability to stay connected, to allow guests to discover what is possible without having to memorize the menu and facility from an in-room compendium.

Situation: Your guest has been out all day and is hungry. When returning to the hotel she does not want to wait to arrive before ordering and then wait some more for her food. In this instance a guest will often look to pickup food elsewhere on the way home, removing the opportunity for your F&B to shine.

 Technology Solution: Rather than being limited to ordering once back, she can now see the menu and placing an order through a mobile engagement platform or app so that the food and drink is waiting for her upon arrival.

On Property – when a staff member is not in front of you. When you are not in your room. Or when you are waiting on hold. That is where guest technology can compliment to allow you to place your request without waiting.

Situation: A guest is sitting at a pool waiting to get the attention of a waiter who, once found, will still need to return with a menu before your order can be placed.

 Technology Solution: open up the hotel’s app is on your smart phone; you then can place requests straight from the menu at your convenience. Go for a swim and return to your food and drinks waiting for you at your location.

Bottom Line 

The bottom line is that yes, guest technology may, when used in a limited fashion or in certain instances, be a potential risk. But the reality is that it should be seen as a compliment, not a replacement to employee interaction. If you are standing in front of a hotel agent, then of course you will have a preference to speak to them directly because that is our nature. But what happens when you are not in front of a hotel agent or telephone? Then technology compliments that gap to allow the hotel to consistently engage and build a relationship with their guests at any moment the guest wishes to do so.