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HOTELS Exclusive: Technology vs. the human touch

It is imperative for hotels to have the right technology to enhance the overall operations flow and guest experience. But it isn’t is being seen as the biggest driver for the business.

As much as technology can delight guests today, the same can have an adverse impact on brands in case anything goes awry. 

Imagine this: You are seeking a suggestion for a room on Twitter. A hotel comes up with an offer, you click on the link that culminates into a call with a call centre executive, and you decide to avail it. Few days later you again use the hotel Twitter handle to make a special request regarding your stay. Hotels mostly oblige and consider what you are looking for. How should a hotel prepare its team to handle in case this wasn’t planned?

Such issues often arise when hotels embrace emerging tech trends. Organisations are trying to be in control, and assiduously looking at right blend of digital automation and staff involvement across various stages – the booking process, check-in, the course of the stay and check-out.

So can we say technology is the biggest driver for the hospitality business?

Not really, said Simon McHendry, executive assistant manager – rooms, Langham Place, Mongkok, Hong Kong.

“Personal touches and interacting with our guests is paramount to our service delivery and technology helps us make that happen but it’s not the most important element,” said McHendry.

Today the IT department works very closely with the operations team to identify tech-related challenges faced by their colleagues and guests. Some of the key initiatives in this arena are: 

Being in control: Productivity alone isn’t enough, rather the speed or the way a guest service is handled counts today.

The team at Langham Place, Mongkok, Hong Kong uses a smartphone app that enables the staff to have instant communication to get the best out of team collaborations in such a highly mobile work environment in a hotel. The staff in the front office and concierge teams can simply push a button and talk, send texts and images through their push-to-talk smartphone with multimedia functions. 

“The use of it helps strengthen communications for daily operations, thereby enhancing work efficiency,” said McHendry. He adds, “It also provides high-quality audibility of voice messaging and prevents external disturbance compared with traditional walkie-talkie, and demonstrates our efforts to provide efficient response times which also enhances our business image.”

Training: The arena of training has evolved considerably, as training managers are no longer only from HR background, said Jakarta, Indonesia-based Divya Prakash Ahuja, managing director, LiveBean Hospitality. He added, “Today executives from operations – be it for director of rooms or F&B director – are capable of donning this role.” 

At Mumbai-based Svenska Design Hotels, there is an annual calendar of training across departments, not just operational departments, but all support functions as well, including IT, Engineering, Security, Finance and Accounts, etc, shared its CEO and CMD, Zia Shiekh. He also mentioned that every month there are 10 inter-departmental training programs, which are not only about passing on functional knowledge to each department. Bur rather one can also learn about various other facets of hospitality business. There is a special focus on new technology implementations, training on specific elements of hardware/ software that are proving to be problematic for the team members, etc.   

Organizations such as LiveBean and Svenska rely on Training Needs Analysis (TNA), a part of performance appraisal process for each employee, covering both current training needs as well as prospective based on the position for which the employee is being groomed for.  

Hotels have also embraced guest support technologist program to equip colleagues to help guests onsite with IT challenges.  These specialists are trained by the hotel’s IT and training department on various technology-related topics and knowledge, including the hotel network,  technical terms, PC/iPad/iPhone usage and other common tech challenges that guests may face. 

Bringing technology alive: Use of tablets or apps for guest services isn’t new anymore. But hotels are improvising constantly, and going beyond mundane approach to delight guests.

Langham Place’s dining outlets have mostly replaced traditional menus with handy iPads. “In particular, a fun and interactive vino app, the Wine Buff, was developed and is used in Ming Cellar, a cellar attached to our restaurant, Ming Court,” shared McHendry.

Besides housing the hotel’ s wine menu, the Wine Buff engages guests in a series of wine-related entertainment.

“While foodies can test out our wine team’s innovative Chinese food and wine pairing top tips, guests can easily pick wines according to variety, vintage and palette,”  said McHendry. 

Personalization: Hotel entities have prepared their own customized platforms that collect data, and to recognize preferences from repeated guests. “This we can proactively prepare personalized services to the guests during their stays and subsequent visits,” said McHendry. “For example, we can know exactly our guest’s preferred pillow, choice of coffee, dietary restrictions, etc and hence helps improve our guest satisfaction level.”      

Clearly hotels need to make their staff comfortable with the technology chosen, and also make apt use of supporting systems to augment their decision-making. Once the staff is in control, then their communication skills and expertise lends a personal touch to whatever they strive to do. But if the staff struggles with technology that has an impact at the property level, then this is going to reflect in the overall guest experience score, too. 

 


Contributed by Ritesh Gupta

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