The hospitality industry is extremely saturated whether it’s a high-end restaurant to a local corner coffee shop. In order to drive success to your hospitality business, it’s important to be constantly evolving and moving in an upwards direction. Technology can be a great help in growing your business and many businesses nowadays use multiple tools and platforms to help expand their reach and clientele.
With that being said, here are four softwares to help bring success to your hospitality business this year.
Knowledge base software
As a hospitality business that is operating partly or fully online, it’s good to have a knowledge base software in place nowadays. Knowledge base software is a self-serve online library of information. Whether that be about a particular product, service, or department, this type of software is great for areas of business like customer support.
With customer self-service, it can allow most queries to be solved through the knowledge base. That allows your agents to spend more time on those more complex issues. There are likely to be common questions asked again and again, so having this knowledge base available can save a lot of time and effort for your customer service agents.
It’s a cheaper and more effective software to use in comparison to add-on knowledge bases and those that have a higher price tag for businesses. Typically, this software would be aimed at SaaS customers, whereby they’ll pay a subscription in order to access said software over the internet. It’s a simple and handy way of getting access to this type of software without having to do any installation, regular maintenance to upkeep the software, or to make an investment up-front.
Knowledge base software can help in other ways, not just for customer service. You’ve got the opportunity for more team collaboration and knowledge-sharing amongst colleagues. It’s something that can be made private, which can be extremely important when handling particularly sensitive data.
When looking for the right knowledge base software, consider pricing options and don’t skip on doing comparisons to see which ones offer what you need and at a better price point. After all, the more money you can save, the more of a profit your hospitality business will be able to make.
Having a front-end and back-end system such as this can be really handy for providing a wealth of information to your customers, whilst being able to adjust and tweak it, behind the scenes. It creates a bank of data and information that can provide solutions and answers to customers without having to lift so much as a finger.
Management software
Hospitality relies heavily on organization and an effective management system in place. A lot of businesses that provide hospitality, whether it’s vacation rentals or a chain restaurant will require management software to function efficiently on a daily basis.
There are loads of these software types on the market and specific niche areas are covered too. For example, vacation rental property management software like Lodgify has been made specifically with vacation rental property in mind. This sort of software can help to increase occupancy within your properties, whilst driving in more income as a result.
The same thing can be done for restaurants, bars, or takeaway services. It can help to secure more bookings and most importantly, helps to save a lot of time in the process. A lot of these management softwares are capable of doing tasks much quicker than the average human can, which is important in an ever-changing, fast-paced industry like the hospitality one.
Management software can also be useful for your employees to remain in constant communication with each other too. Usually, a lack of communication can often be the result of not having the right procedures in place to keep everyone on the same page. With different areas of the hospitality business, it’s key to keep everyone in the loop.
There’s more general-based management software that can be good for keeping employees workloads in check and making sure tasks are being ticked off as and when they’re needed. It can be very easy for some staff members to slack in the hopes that others will pick up the work on their behalf. With a management software in place, you can easily designate roles and monitor those individuals.
Within the hospitality industry, management software is great for utilizing all available spaces whether that’s table bookings or accommodation. Depending on the features you require, will dictate which management platform you go for but they all do a great thing of staying organized and productive as a business on the whole.
Being organized and productive after all, is two things that are needed to create a successful business in any industry.
AI chatbots & webchat options
AI chatbots & webchat options
AI has certainly become a popular form of technology to use nowadays, particularly with businesses that operate a lot of their business online when it comes to booking tables for example. Research done by CGA and Zonal on 5,000 consumers have shown that “45% of consumers now prefer to make their booking online” in comparison to “20% who use the telephone”.
So the need to incorporate some form of customer interaction online is important, especially if customers get stuck or need guidance while booking online. That’s where AI chatbots and webchat options are becoming more frequent on websites nowadays. AI chatbots provide the services that over the phone bookings would usually given. They’re programmed to help carry out a variety of tasks which may include frequently asked questions to making a reservation and processing payment for those bookings made.
Webchats are a little different because they will usually have a real human being on the other end of it. This involves a bit more work, whether it’s implemented with a ticketing system in which they leave a message and an agent gets back to them, or they wait in line to be answered straight away. It’s something that levels up your customer services and both can be a really critical software to install in order to make more profit.
Chatbots are a great way of seemingly operating 24/7, even though you may have opening hours that are nine to five. It gives your customers a way of contacting you whenever they need to, and getting a response of some shape or form. Although chatbots can be limiting in answering some queries, they may still provide that customer with more information that they didn’t have before.
The more solutions you can make through AI chatbots, the better. It helps saves your customer service agents more time and it offers around the clock support, with faster resolution times too. Providing more happiness and customer satisfaction is key!
Presentation software
Presentations are often necessary for hospitality businesses that are perhaps assessing their annual turnover, pitching a new marketing campaign or creating some form of infographic or marketing material for the customers to receive. There are lots of different presentation softwares out there that each have their own unique features and complexities in design and creation.
A presentation software like Piktochart for example, is a web-based visual design software. It means there’s no need for installation on your desktop and therefore it makes it easier to create presentations with just an internet connection needed. From infographics to social media stories, it covers pretty much every element of visual designs that you might need for your hospitality business.
Being able to pick from professionally designed slide templates can make it easier for those who perhaps are limited in their knowledge of design and need a helping hand. It also saves you money by not needing to outsource designers. As long as there’s a basic knowledge of how to use the platform, it can become very useful for design.
For some meetings in business, presentations that show comparisons, graphs and charts are necessary. Piktochart can provide all that and more through it’s drag-and-drop tools. The list is pretty much endless when creating visual designs using this platform.
As with many of these software programs online, you have the ability to design on the platform for free but this limits your creations. With a pro teams account, you’ll be able to get a lot more from it and it’s likely to be worth the investment.
The hospitality industry is one that can still thrive, despite the threat of physical retailers going under. The need for social connection and in-person interactions are still needed and most of the time, we find this through some form of hospitality business. In order to continue growing and succeeding in your business, it’s important to implement any one or all of these softwares.
Technology is at the forefront when it comes to expanding the reach of your business, as well as getting customers through the door or via the checkout on your webpage. Make sure you’re taking full advantage of what technology can offer you and your business this year.
