Hotel customer service

Customer service software can help hotels better understand their customers by creating a 360-degree customer view–the concept of consolidating data from various customer touchpoints and systems in one place. Centralizing customer information helps hotels better predict their guests' wants, needs, and questions, ultimately creating better-personalized guest experiences.

For example, with Zendesk, hotels can display a customer’s complete travel record in agents’ interface by integrating data from reservation software, loyalty programs, baggage systems, and more. This eliminates the need for context and app switching, ensuring agents can quickly access customers’ travel history, reservation information, loyalty program details, and travel preferences to personalize services and offers.

Because hotels rely heavily on loyal customers and strong word-of-mouth marketing, training representatives on customer service and accommodation offerings is an integral part of any successful hotel’s customer-centric service strategy. The staff training process can be difficult to perfect, but doing so will encourage hotel guests to return again and again.

To help your team nail customer service, provide a well-rounded onboarding and training experience to educate them on the hotel’s brand values as well as the most effective ways to resolve customer complaints and questions. Hotel customer service training is an ongoing process and often includes methods such as:

• Attending hospitality industry retreats
• Reviewing hotel documents and guidelines
• Participating in one-on-one coaching sessions
• Cross-training in different departments or positions
• Completing online learning modules with quizzes

Customer feedback is a data goldmine that businesses can extract key insights from to enhance the customer experience. Feedback can come from several different channels—such as surveys, customer support data, interviews, focus groups, online reviews, and community forums—and provide baseline information and insights.

The customer service software tool you use should make it easy to collect and analyze customer feedback. For example, with Zendesk, you can send surveys and track advanced analytics to measure every interaction and see what’s working well and which issues customers complain about the most.

To gain further insight, staff can also engage with customers until their hotel stay concludes to provide a warm, friendly experience while collecting information and context.

Your hotel customer experience software should integrate with every channel that guests can contact you through to increase customer satisfaction and retention.

Chat and messaging channels like Messenger, Instagram, and Apple Messages for Business provide a convenient way for guests to ask questions and get help before, during, and after their stay. For example, the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts uses Zendesk to enable guests to message hotel staff in their local language. All past and present interaction data automatically syncs to Zendesk. So, when guests arrive, the Four Seasons hotel staff has everything they need to personalize experiences during their stay.

Marco Trecroce, the CIO of the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, believes that conversational messaging is one of the best ways to impress guests, reduce support time, and maintain a world-class standard of care.

Your hotel customer experience software should integrate with every channel that guests can contact you through to increase customer satisfaction and retention.

Chat and messaging channels like Messenger, Instagram, and Apple Messages for Business provide a convenient way for guests to ask questions and get help before, during, and after their stay. For example, the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts uses Zendesk to enable guests to message hotel staff in their local language. All past and present interaction data automatically syncs to Zendesk. So, when guests arrive, the Four Seasons hotel staff has everything they need to personalize experiences during their stay.

Marco Trecroce, the CIO of the Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, believes that conversational messaging is one of the best ways to impress guests, reduce support time, and maintain a world-class standard of care.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to surprise a guest with something thoughtful. Memorable service comes from listening closely to what your guests say and trying to make their stay more enjoyable. By going the extra mile, you’ll be able to build relationships with your guests and foster customer loyalty.

Some ways to do this include:

• Budgeting: Set aside some money each month to cover nice surprises and add-ons for guests.
  
• Personalization: Pay attention to your guest’s data and your conversations to identify personalization opportunities.
  
• Proactive support: Assess frequent guest requests or feedback from a past stay to anticipate their needs.

You can't always trace a customer’s frustration back to a specific hospitality misstep. That said, here are some ways to deal with angry customers:

• Before an issue arises: Be very transparent about hotel policies to ensure customers are booking with realistic expectations. You should also disclose ways to request help and report problems so guests feel assured that there will be accountability for any issues they encounter.
  
• After an issue arises: Stay calm and positive, listen actively, and empathize with the guest. Once you clearly understand the problem, work quickly and efficiently to resolve it. If possible, send them a discount or gift to ensure they leave with a positive view of the experience.

Good customer service is next to impossible without the right software. Here are the top tools and capabilities you should look for when choosing the best customer service software for your hotel:

• Omnichannel customer service, which enables agents to provide rich, seamless, and personalized experiences across channels
• AI-powered response recommendations to help agents resolve tickets faster
• Chatbots, which are capable of answering FAQs 24/7
• Intelligent routing, which directs customers to agents based on factors such as skill, capacity, and customer sentiment
• Knowledge base tools and FAQ software that enable customers and employees to find answers independently
• Prewritten responses that speed up replies to common questions or complaints