Recently, AI experiments like Marriott Rennaissance’s AI-concierge and Clarion’s Google Wallet hotel room keys show hotels are experimenting with AI adoption. Deloitte has shared that 43% of hotels have automated repetitive tasks to help staff. Regardless of how much work we automate, AI alone can neither solve all the hotel industry’s problems (such as labor shortages) nor take over all job functions of the employees. After all, this is a rapid-paced industry that relies on customer service.
In hotels, launching automation must be done thoughtfully to maximize the positive impact potential for guests and employees alike. Hoteliers must consider where human skill sets succeed in making a hotel stay the best for the guest and where automation can expedite employee processes.
Observed through early-on trials and errors along the AI adoption curve, we already have tips for how hospitality businesses can implement AI to improve the customer and employee experience. Hoteliers deciding how to strategically implement AI in their business should consider the following:
Virtual assistants are not the concierge
Chatbots are an obvious example of AI adoption in the hospitality industry as virtual assistants now help guests step-by-step in booking a room, getting the Wi-Fi passcode, checking in or confirming breakfast times. On the staffing side, this takes away some of the stress from the front desk staff who may be spread thin.
The front desk staff’s cognitive load is reduced by giving simpler questions to a chatbot. Traditionally, employees in this role may feel the constant stress of everyone needing them at once and constantly having to choose between three blinking phone lines, several unopened emails or facing a line of impatient guests forming in front of them. With digital help providing solutions, they can focus on the guests who come to them with more advanced inquiries. The front desk is then able to provide a level of service through critical thinking skills and context that automation cannot be trained to answer, eliminating mundane tasks like repeating the wi-fi passcode thirty times a day.
It should never be unclear whether your hotel is being run by humans or your virtual assistants. According to the AI in the Hospitality Industry 2024 report, 70% of guests find chatbots helpful for simple inquiries, but prefer human interaction for the questions that do require more context and deeper understanding. Relying on automation alone to fulfill customer service expectations gives guests an impersonal, inauthentic and potentially frustrating customer experience. People who stay at the hotel may not remember getting the wi-fi code from a chatbot, but your staff’s excellent service, empathy and redirection can positively make their stay.
AI must collaborate in the ecosystem
In the race to adopt AI, companies are moving quickly to implement AI tools into their workflows. Successful companies are pausing to think through whether the individual tools are sustainable. Those who adopted AI capabilities one-by-one, as they became available, are now seeing the pain of not having a centralized AI plan.
For example, perhaps a hotel started by adopting some form of AI key cards and then added an AI concierge to help guests plan their stay. These both exist in technology silos so when it comes time to analyze how the technology improved processes, data and workflows are separated. Even more of a headache for IT, there is not a simple place to enter the ecosystem in case of an issue or to check on hotel staff productivity since these all live in different programs.
Things do get “easier” for the guest with more AI adoption – on their end, they can book a room through third-party providers using AI to estimate the price and even reserve a room with a virtual assistant. However, hotels must watch out for their employees with every change. For example, the data from third party website bookings or the chatbot must seamlessly integrate with the hotel’s own reservation system. Without this small, yet important step, both the guest and employee will have to deal with an upset guest at check in time.
To eliminate more friction for the guest (and subsequently employees, who will hear about the negative impacts the AI has had on the guest experience), hospitality businesses must consider how to ensure that the technology they adopt is integrated at-scale. Unless all AI tools in use share the same information in real-time, there’s a large risk of data inconsistencies.
Straight from the source
A huge benefit of AI adoption is the reduction of an employee’s cognitive load – that is, the burden of the mental work an employee juggles as they make decisions and prioritize tasks.
It is especially important to reduce employee burden and increase employee satisfaction as automation rollouts continue. From our last tip, we learned to integrate AI carefully. But along with this, employees must be included throughout AI implementation. The systems they have used day in, and day out cannot disappear overnight.
For AI to successfully help staff, change must happen at a reasonable pace.
This focus on the end users of AI increases the chance of successful adoption. While hoteliers may be excited to get AI running and see their ROI, a slower technological transition is an opportunity to get feedback. As they are trained, employees should be able to weigh in on what will help them achieve their daily tasks. If they don’t think a proposed tool serves a meaningful purpose, perhaps they know which problem to solve to have a higher impact.
Special data delivery – à la AI!
AI programs tap into new streams of guest data which hotels can use to tailor personalized experiences. AI can be used to recognize patterns in guest preferences, calling out what a loyal guest will want in their room as the hotel staff preps for their stay. While the marketing department has likely been incorporating personalization into advertising campaigns for some time, hotels may be missing out on using this data in day-to-day operations.
Hospitality businesses should consider leading a guest experience with “co-creation.” They can take into account what their guests want and give it to them by looking at what feedback the business is getting online. Review customer sentiment about any updated processes. Is an AI key card a challenge for many people to access? Are the chatbots found to be limited in their responses? Do customers often find they need to go to the front desk anyway? Try something else out.
AI can analyze the feedback and synthesize suggestions on what guests want to see added or streamlined. Implementing these changes can enhance customer loyalty as a frequent stayer sees their feedback was used to create a better experience.
Human-to-Human (H2H)
AI implementation is not sustainable in hotels unless all parties involved understand the true purpose for the deployment. Some questions to ask before adopting any AI include: will this AI tool be easy to adopt and maintain? Will staff members benefit from the technology? Is there a better problem AI can solve? Does this have the highest-possible positive impact on the guest and staff experience?
Without these considerations, hotels risk unnecessarily complicating jobs, shattering morale and accidentally creating friction-filled guest experiences. Hotels must be prepared to implement the feedback given and gathered. With AI, the timing has never been better to make hotels a space of co-creation with loyal members.
As technology is ever-evolving, hotel businesses must re-evaluate every part of the AI process to ensure the AI functions have a purpose, are integrated at-scale and create a better experience for the humans in the hotel who serve as guests and staff.
Focus on improving humans’ lives first, visiting how AI can benefit the employee and guest experience. The staff can then create loyal hotel guests. Use automation as a tool to free up their time, enabling them to focus on excellent service and ensuring the guests get what matters most to them in their experience.
