4 ways Chatbots can help Hotels

As the technological innovations get better, businesses have to keep evolving to hold their spot in the race for user attention. 2017 witnessed an explosion of chatbots dominating multiple industries at the same time. Chatbots are a perfect addition for businesses that are heavy on conversation with consumers like hotels.

The core of every hotel’s success depends on the quality of service provided. With the surge of internet and smartphones, users want to know all there is to know about a hotel from the comfort of their homes. So, hotels have to constantly innovate themselves to attract more bookings.

Here are some of the ways a chatbot can prove to be an useful asset for Hotels –

Responding to enquiries and FAQs

This is the first step involved when it comes to a hotel booking. Users want information about the hotel, right from its location and amenities to the additional recreational facilities provided. They want to know details about the types of rooms available, tariff, etc. Bots can help address these queries instantly.

Assist in bookings

This is one of the key tasks for a hotel. A lot of resources are employed to ensure that there is a smooth transition for customers from enquiry to booking. Phone reservations have become a thing of the past, customers now want to book rooms through online communication. This is where bots can be highly useful. Customers can instantly confirm their reservations with the hotel. This simplifies the effort taken by both parties i.e the hotel and the customer.

Receive guest feedback

There is always scope for improvement when it comes to providing quality service to guests. Hotels must pay a lot of attention to the feedback and comments from guests. Afterall, they’re the ones keeping the business afloat. Bots can be an efficient medium through which guests can give feedback about their stay. Their responses can be connected to relevant teams to ensure that suitable action is taken

Alerts about offers & discounts

Bots can also communicate about the available offers/discounts/promotions when a user initiates a new chat or even alert users who’ve already interacted with the bot. This helps the bot stay in touch with the customer database of the hotel and create awareness about offers that would result in more bookings for the hotel

Could Chat bots be the next Human Resource Assistant?

Over the past year, Chat Bots have been taking over the conversation for innovative ways brands can connect with their customers on Instant Messaging Applications. So far we have seen bots do it all, from restaurant reservations, flight bookings and also playing the part of a medical assistant. Each interaction with the bot enables quicker and faster response times. With the general attention span of the world reducing, chat bots can be a great alternative for customers that are unable to wait for information.

In the recent times, companies have been trying to explore chat bots as a tool for Human Resources. It is  of importance how human resource departments can communicate effectively with their employees providing them necessary information ranging from holidays, CPF or pension. Usually, employees are required to set up long meetings with their HR to receive this information and a lot can be lost in communication.But we are entering the chat bot revolution where chat bots can prove to be highly effective in these situations and can provide the necessary information to the employee instantaneously. A quick message to the bot asking for your pending holidays could provide you an instant reply minimizing the turn-around time for the HR to respond. Companies like Axa have already taken the step in deploying chat bots in their human resource strategy.

It can be quite ironic to have machine learning assist a field that thrives on human learning and feedback however, it is interesting to see how successful bots can perform and automate certain daily tasks in an organization.

Recently, it was revealed that McCann Japan hired a Creative Director who is also a robot by automating this role in the organization. It is however, not in interest of an organization to automate the Human Resources that largely depends on human interaction and experiences.

Experts believe that as the technology of Bots improves every day due to constant research, eventually a bot could help sift through multiple resumes using machine learning to find prospective employees for the organization.