How To Select The Right Hotel Chatbot?

A hotel chatbot is a software solution designed to engage in dialogues with website visitors, mimicking conversations between a hotel and a potential guest. Its purpose is to aid visitors in accessing necessary information and facilitating booking decisions by interacting with frequently asked questions. With more reservations and fewer cancelled bookings, the hotel will be able to automate prompt and personalized communication with prospective clients. Social media pages and applications, like Facebook, Instagram, and Google My Business, can also be utilized by a number of hotel chatbots. Depending on the hospitality chatbot you choose, it will have several capabilities.

Chatbots encourage direct bookings

Similar to a booking agent, a chatbot that is visible to the public can assist guests in making reservations. Once more, though, customers don’t have to wait for staff to respond; they can finish the reservation at their own pace.

Chatbots answer FAQs chat with guests live

The reservation staff and front desk personnel most likely spend a great deal of time responding to the same inquiries. Similar to a human employee, a digital concierge can answer these queries and do so instantly, saving your staff time. If your guest receives a prompt response instead of having to wait for a call or email, it will make their stay much easier. Your team takes over when a question is deemed too complicated by the bot.

Chatbots communicate on all channels

Your guests are likely to use a chatbot more if it can connect to more channels. Try to find an omnichannel solution that lets visitors contact you on the social media sites they prefer, such as WeChat, WhatsApp, Instagram, Line, or Facebook.

Chatbots personalize the stay experience

An automated chatbot designed specifically for the hospitality industry engages your customers in conversation. Throughout their stay, it keeps in touch with them and tailors recommendations and service offers based on their prior inquiries and booking behavior. Let’s talk about taking advantage of cross-and upsells!

How do chatbots work?

It is imperative for an AI chatbot to understand the broader context of inquiries raised by the users. Furthermore, it is ought to be capable of carrying out tasks involving those inquiries and responses. AI-powered chatbots deal with tasks that are intelligent and sophisticated, while rule-based bots are developed for simpler tasks. These tools use Natural Language Processing (NLP) technology to comprehend questions and provide the appropriate response. 

Finding solutions for travelers is the primary objective of the hospitality chatbot. It remains same no matter where they are located or what device they have been use. Your hotel staff can establish direct communication with them while it gives them the information they need to make a confident reservation directly with your property.

With their high workload and the numerous questions they have to answer every day, hotel chatbots have proven to be an invaluable tool for staff members. With a labor shortage, these conversational bots also offer a scalable means of one-on-one communication with customers. The VP of Partnerships at Cloudbeds, Sebastien Leitner, explains in this excerpt from The Turndown podcast how chatbots can expedite guest service by providing quickly answers to frequently asked inquiry.

Why chatbots for the hotel industry? 

• Fast service
• Direct booking boost
• Better guest experience
• Constant accessibility
• Additional communication channels
• Data collection
• Increased upselling
• Cost reduction
• Hotel marketing efficiency

Things to know for choosing the right chatbot for your hotel

There are many chatbots available in the market, but you need the one that comply with your business verticals. It is not an easy job to choose the best AI chatbot for a hotel, be it a 3-star hotel or 5-star. The first thing to ensure is to make sure that the bot you choose has these features. Let’s find the key features here. 

Integration with the booking engine

By being integrated with booking engines, a chatbot for hotels can enhance the quantity of direct reservations. With a variety of room options, prices, and images in multiple languages, it can quickly generate a booking quote. Because Whistle for Cloudbeds is integrated with Cloudbeds’ booking engine, you can be sure that your pricing and availability are correct and that no revenue is lost.

Multiple languages

People who feel comfortable doing business are more likely to do so, according to studies. In order to draw in customers and get a reservation, it is therefore much more likely when you speak in a language they are comfortable with. Actually, 76% of consumers wish to buy in their mother tongue. Many languages can now be spoken in conversation thanks to chatbot technology.

Customized design & replies

It is crucial to make sure the chatbot you choose for your property complements your brand. Customizing the logo and color scheme ought to be possible. Additionally, it’s essential to preserve your brand identity in the language, tone, and voice of the bot. To improve the visitor experience, give careful thought to the communication strategy you will use.

Artificial Intelligence

Machine learning is a useful tool that intelligent virtual agents can use to anticipate possible customer requests. In order to guarantee guest satisfaction in the hospitality industry, advanced AI models must be able to comprehend complex questions and provide context-specific responses.

Unified inbox

A significant challenge that hoteliers now face is managing the growing number of customer service channels. Simultaneous management of multiple channels becomes more challenging as they become more numerous. By consolidating all channels of communication onto a single screen, an omnichannel customer service management system can simplify matters. Furthermore, by utilizing one system instead of several, the possibility of mistakes, misunderstandings, and inefficiencies is decreased.

Automation

The sending of pre-arrival messages, check-in reminders, and post-stay surveys are just a few of the tasks that excellent hotel chatbots can automate. In addition to scheduling messages for preferred channels, hotels can use AI-powered internal alerts to generate tickets automatically in response to guest requests through guest messaging automation systems like Whistle for Cloudbeds.

Live Chat

There are still a set of limitations to what AI chatbots can do. So offering the best customer service means sharing your concern with a human agent with ease when necessary. When the chatbot encounters complicated situations, a handoff mechanism ensures that guests can easily connect with a staff member.

Conclusion

While choosing a Chatbot for hotels, you need to consider a lot of things, such as language support, user experience, customization options, integration capabilities, and functionality. It is critical to assess its capacity to deliver effective customer service and respond to booking queries. The bot is also capable enough to make tailored recommendations. Long-term viability can also be ensured by evaluating its scalability, security features, and analytics capabilities. The ideal hotel chatbot should ultimately match the unique requirements and goals of the establishment, improving visitor happiness, streamlining processes, and increasing income. Hoteliers can make an informed decision that optimizes the advantages of deploying a chatbot solution by giving priority to these factors.