Customer experience is everything in the hospitality industry. It is not merely about offering a cozy room or a delightful experience; it is about crafting unforgettable experiences for the guests that will encourage them to return. Effective communication is a key factor in ensuring the customers’ return journey for future services. Today, with technological advancement and changing customer preferences, hospitality service providers must partner with travel BPO service companies and others that adopt the approach of multichannel customer communication.
The Changing Preferences of Customer Communication
Guests do not prefer only face-to-face communication or a phone call with a hospitality service provider. Current customers prefer various means of communication, including all the ones mentioned, along with email and social media, as well as live chat and messaging apps. This is not a trend; this is a need. According to an Aberdeen Group study, the companies that have adopted a multichannel communication strategy have attained much higher customer retention rates than those that are yet to focus on the same. On average, these companies retain 89% of customers. The statistics indicate that multichannel communication adaptation is not merely an option anymore but is fast becoming a survival necessity both for airline service providers and travel call center service companies.
Often, customers need to interact with hospitality brands at multiple touchpoints. If they desire to contact at midnight for a room booking or inquire about a menu on the go, hospitality service providers equipped with inbound call centers for travel can easily discern and respond to these preferences and make the guest experience worthwhile.
Advantages of Multichannel Customer Communication
Executing a multi-channel communication strategy benefits hospitality service providers at numerous points. Some of the key benefits are as follows:
- Better Guest Satisfaction: Multiple channels mean a buffet of options for guests to pick the method of communication that best works for them. This improves satisfaction and makes it easier for guests to get the information needed at the right time. This goes a long way toward improving overall satisfaction.
- Higher Customer Retention: Since, as mentioned above, companies using multichannel engagement retain 89% of their clients, guests will be more likely to return if they feel valued and heard through their preferred channels.
- Higher Brand Loyalty: If effective communication is maintained, it automatically leads to trust-building between a brand and its customers. When hospitality providers consistently engage with customers through various channels, brand loyalty increases, followed by positive word-of-mouth.
- Better Insight and Feedback: In multichannel communication, a service provider gets to collect feedback from multiple sources. With this information, they can come up with the right changes to be made so that services meet the expectations of the guests.
- Competitive Advantage: In a crowded marketplace, standing out becomes crucial. Hospitality service providers using travel BPO services
- Â and other multichannel solutions present themselves as modern, attentive, and customer-centric.
Overcoming Common Obstacles in Hospitality Communication
Effective communication plays a key role in creating pleasant guest experiences within the hospitality sector. Many service providers, however, have encountered various communication problems that affect service quality. Adopting a multichannel communication strategy can help resolve these challenges without a fret:
- Varied Guest Preferences: Today, guests expect communications through multiple channels: social media, emails, live chat, and phone calls. Multiple-channel communications can help hospitality providers meet the varied preferences of guests in a manner that allows them to reach them through their preferred method of contact to ascertain greater satisfaction.
- Timely Information Access: Guests require instantaneous answers to questions like room availability or menus and follow-up answers, such as confirming a reservation. These systems allow for fast replies; thus, hospitality service providers can promptly answer guests’ questions while trying to eliminate wait times and improve the guest experience.
- Enhanced Personalisation: Communication ensures that providers understand individual guest needs and preferences. Using multiple channels, hospitality providers can glean information through interactions to personalize effective services and memorable experiences for each guest.
- Streamlined Feedback Collection: Collecting guest feedback and reviews or obtaining survey results for the guest’s satisfaction is imperative for improving a company’s services. Multichannel communications allow hospitality providers to gather feedback from multiple sources, ensuring that they get comprehensive insights into how services can be improved and concerns proactively addressed.
- Cohesive Customer Journeys: Customers may interact with hospitality brands at multiple touchpoints along the journey. The multichannel approach helps ensure an undisturbed journey of the customer so that providers are able to maintain context and continuity in communication, which is critical to relationship building.
- Proactive Customer Support: Anticipating guests’ needs and extending appropriate solutions plays a paramount role in ensuring a brand’s growth. Hospitality providers need to ensure that guests’ needs are catered for with utmost urgency. With the help of multichannel communications, service teams can proactively contact guests through the channels they prefer before an issue arises with needed assistance and information, resulting in increased satisfaction and loyalty.
Therefore, by implementing multiple channels of communication strategy, hospitality providers can easily resolve all of the above communication issues and more, leading to creating successful guest experiences and ultimately creating loyal customers.
The Power of Multichannel Communication with Fusion CX
At Fusion CX, we understand that multichannel communication is the talk of the town when it comes to hospitality service providers. We deliver solutions that enable businesses to change with the tides in customer preferences, among other things, and push the envelope on their communication strategies. Here’s how we can help:
- Custom Solutions: We have customizable solutions that can align with the needs and requirements of each hospitality provider. Whether you are a small boutique hotel or a large resort chain, we can work to develop a strategy for you.
- Multilingual Support: We are well-versed in the languages your customers speak, ensuring that language barriers never hinder good communication. Our experienced, multilingual support staff offers additional value within the hospitality industry, where your guests dial from across the globe, coming from all different walks of life.
- Advanced Technology: Our integrated communication platform leads us to use the latest cutting-edge technology. This enables us to handle customer communications easily without a pause.
- 24 x 7 Availability: Our high availability of support in all channels allows guests to reach you at any time during the day or night, thus satisfying their needs. This round-the-clock availability builds up guest satisfaction and trust.
Maya Angelou, the renowned American novelist, and civil rights activist, is quoted as saying, “People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” In hospitality, making guests feel valued is the key to success. Proper investment in multichannel customer communication could help hospitality service providers create an environment where the guest feels heard, understood, and appreciated.
In essence, the adoption of a multichannel communications strategy is not merely the adoption of the trend but rather understanding and responding to the needs of travelers today. Ready to enhance your communication strategy and deliver unforgettable guest experiences? Trust Fusion CX today for travel call center outsourcing and learn how we can help you stay ahead in the hospitality industry.