PRO : “ Chatbots can help potential guests find information to aid in a purchase decision , improve guest satisfaction by providing assistance quickly , and improve efficiency by reducing the need for a live person .”
CON : " Chatbots , like AI , virtual reality and Google Glasses , are yet another shiny object that the vast majority of hoteliers should avoid until they have maximized their fundamental digital marketing .”
TECHNOLOGY
questions . Yet chatbots can also generate new sales leads , particularly with group sales .
PRO : “ Chatbots can help potential guests find information to aid in a purchase decision , improve guest satisfaction by providing assistance quickly , and improve efficiency by reducing the need for a live person .”
CON : " Chatbots , like AI , virtual reality and Google Glasses , are yet another shiny object that the vast majority of hoteliers should avoid until they have maximized their fundamental digital marketing .”
HOW TO DO IT Here ’ s what a potential hotel sales chatbot could look like for group or corporate bookings :
A hotel can create its own chatbot on its website , or utilize one through an app like Messenger or Slack . The chatbots pop up and engage with visitors to the website or the Facebook page . Utilizing NLP and a “ nurturing sequence ” ( marketing-speak for slowly getting to know and win over a potential client ), the chatbot can qualify the lead based on parameters set by the sales team . Once it ’ s clear the lead is legit , the chatbot can hand over the interaction to a person for a live chat .
All the while , the chatbot is collecting information ( names , emails , company size , budgets , etc .) and saving it for integration into a CRM database . Sales teams can monitor the effectiveness of a chatbot , much like they would an email campaign , and tweak the nurturing sequence and the appearance of the chat box depending on the results they seek . And like all AI , the sales chatbots would get smarter the more they are used .
Email marketing and social media targeting is still the norm among hotel sales teams , but the efficiency of chatbots is attractive . Keriann Martin , senior marketing manager at Hotel del Coronado near San Diego and a member of the HSMAI Marketing Roundtable , says chatbots help hotels save on labor , especially at the start of the buying process , since many call centers are swamped by common questions .
“ Chatbots can help potential guests find information to aid in a purchase decision , improve guest satisfaction by providing assistance quickly and improve efficiency by reducing the need for a live person ,” Martin explains .
Sébastien Felix , founder of Influencer Society , a digital marketing agency in Paris , discovered that chatbots also have a better open rate than traditional email marketing . “ Email marketing offers usually have an average email opening between 20 % and 40 %,” he says . “ Where chatbots , for now , offer around 80 % average openings , from what we ’ ve seen so far .”
Still , hotels aren ’ t entirely sold on the idea of using them to find new business . Martin says chatbots must reduce friction and frustration during the planning and buying process .
“ We have tested a chatbot to find potential customers who were in the planning phase , but it was not successful ,” she says . “ People are more likely to trust real humans — recommendations from friends or online reviews from real travelers — when deciding where to book their next trip .”
Dave Spector , partner at Tambourine , an ecommerce company for hotels and resorts , and also a member of HSMAI ’ s Marketing Advisory Board , has a harsher view .
“ Chatbots , like AI , virtual reality and Google Glasses , are yet another shiny object that the vast majority of hoteliers should avoid until they have maximized their fundamental digital marketing ,” Spector cautions . “ Optimizing direct website conversion rates , safeguarding rate parity and launching coordinated promos across all digital channels should still dominate a hotel marketer ’ s time , attention and budget .”
Felix , who is bullish on the use of chatbots to generate sales leads , says the hotel industry needs to integrate chatbots with other tech solutions like the PMS and booking engines . “ If you are an independent hotel and you want a chatbot to provide dynamic price and rooms availability to your guest , then you need a system that is connecting to your availability system , and this is usually where things get tricky .”
But as more than 85 % of smartphone users have a messaging app on their phones , Felix believes this is where the future of hotel marketing lies .
46 hotelsmag . com October 2018