Hotels often prioritize direct bookings because they result in wider profit margins and greater overall control. Therefore, many hotel owners are keen to explore new ways to encourage guests to book directly, and chatbots are emerging as one of the best options. In this article, you will find out how a chatbot can increase your direct bookings.
The Importance of Direct Bookings
Hotels try to encourage as many direct bookings as possible to optimize financial results. After all, when bookings are made directly, the hotel saves on commission payments made to OTAs or other platforms. At the same time, direct bookings also give hotels full control over all subsequent communication with the customer.
Unfortunately, most first-time visitors to a hotel website will not convert into paying customers immediately, and the reasons for this are numerous. However, it can be partly explained by the fact that customer decisions are influenced by so many factors: room rates, online reviews, location, the technology on offer, breakfast options, and even Wi-Fi capabilities. As a result, many customers who land on a hotel website will leave to conduct research.
While larger hotels tend to have the necessary budget to run re-marketing campaigns, independent hotels or smaller chains may not have this luxury. The consequence is that many of these hotels lose out on direct bookings to OTAs like Expedia and Booking.com, and finding solutions to this problem has become a key focus of the hotel industry. Possible options include offering preferable rates and other direct booking incentives on the hotel website.
With that being said, one of the most promising and cutting-edge solutions involves having a chatbot on your hotel website and accompanying your booking system. The chatbot can then actively encourage direct bookings, offer more personalization, and respond rapidly to customer questions or concerns.
4 Tips to Increase Direct Bookings With a Chatbot
A chatbot can help increase direct bookings, but it needs to be used correctly. Below, you will find four tips to help ensure your chatbot generates the benefits you seek.
1. Integrate With Your Booking Engine
Integrating your chatbot with your booking engine can help to increase direct bookings by making the booking process more convenient. Although current room availability can be found directly through a hotel website, some visitors will prefer the convenience of using a chat widget that can provide this information on request.
When a chatbot is fully integrated with a booking engine, users can request information about room availability for their chosen dates within the chat itself. The chat widget can then re-direct them to the booking engine to complete their reservation. The chatbot can also answer questions, meaning users will not need to click off your website to find information. This means you avoid the risk of them being side-tracked.
A good example is the HiJiffy chatbot platform, where users can check availability, select a room, get real-time price quotes, view photos, and then be re-directed to complete their booking.
2. Chatbots as a Marketing Tool
Chatbot communication via platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp can boost your marketing efforts while offering greater personalization for guests. Using chatbots in this way, you can encourage direct bookings and also gather the kind of information that can help deliver customized hotel services or send personalized marketing messages to individual travelers. This approach can also open up cross-selling and up-selling opportunities.
For example, a chatbot could find out information from a customer about the trip they want and then provide a direct link through WhatsApp, to complete a booking. After the guest arrives, the information gathered can be used to send push notifications to their phone, complete with recommendations based on their preferences.
So, for instance, your chatbot may have gained information about a guest, such as their desire to relax and unwind or their hopes of getting out and about. Your push notifications can promote your hotel spa or recommend local attractions. When all of this fits into place, you will not only have generated a direct booking, but you will also have provided a customer with a personalized experience, making repeat visits more likely.
3. Remove the Language Barrier For Guests
Hotels can’t employ enough staff to communicate in all languages, which can make communication extremely difficult with some potential customers. However, a chatbot built on NLP (neuro-linguistic programming) can remove this barrier, attracting direct bookings by communicating in a user’s preferred language.
This technology can then be used in your hotel too. Even if a receptionist cannot understand and effectively communicate with a guest, the chatbot can handle the interaction and potentially translate for both parties, making the entire customer journey much smoother for many of your foreign guests.
4. Rapid Responses to Questions
Finally, an AI-powered chatbot can boost your direct bookings by answering frequently asked questions (FAQs) instantaneously, giving invaluable clarification on any issue a user may think of while pondering whether to book a room in your hotel. This can subsequently make the decision far easier, increasing demand for rooms.
Common questions about check-in and check-out times, the time breakfast is served, or how to book various hotel services do not require human involvement, as they have clear and definitive answers. By automating responses, using a chatbot, questions will be answered quickly, customers will be more satisfied, and your customer service staff will also benefit, as they will have fewer customer queries to work through.
Best of all, whenever necessary, a chatbot can inform the hotel staff that human touch is required, producing a seamless experience for the customer, even if their questions become more complicated. However, you can expect that around 70 percent of each conversation will be automated, dramatically reducing the need for intervention.
Chatbots offer numerous advantages, including increasing customer loyalty, improving guest profiling, providing new revenue sources, and freeing up hotel staff. Yet, one of the biggest benefits is the ability to deliver instant, natural responses at the right moment, resulting in more direct bookings.
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