How smart messaging achieve significant staff savings and created more profitable customer relationships
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Background
A luxury destination straddling the unique history of Tel Aviv and the city’s modern culture, the InterContinental David Tel Aviv hotel caters for a diverse clientele. International leisure travellers enjoy its proximity to Old Jaffa, the coast and Tel Aviv’s shopping precinct. Business travellers attending events nearby or in the hotel’s conference rooms immerse themselves in the hotel’s wellness facilities (including gym, spa and outdoor pool) and the exclusive Club InterContinental. Part of the global IHG Hotels & Resorts group, InterContinental David Tel Aviv prides itself on delivering exceptional customer service to match its picture-perfect views.
The Challenge
As a luxury hotel, the InterContinental David Tel Aviv hotel is committed to delivering exceptional service to its international guests. Challenged by a vastly diverse guest profile, the hotel sought a solution to improve its customer service delivery, drive operational efficiency and be more effective in providing contactless digital guest communications. For repeat corporate guests and flight crews, the hotel wanted to provide a greater sense of home and build a spirit of belonging and familiarity amongst this guest segment. As such, it needed a way for staff to automatically and directly engage with guests to provide a higher level of personalised service and attention.
The Solution
By introducing EasyWay’s smart messaging feature, benefitting from the Opera PMS & Impala integration to extract guest booking details, the InterContinental David Tel Aviv designed and scaled automated digital guest journeys.
The system is fully customised to reflect the language and style of the hotel’s brand and thanks to EasyWay's AI assistant and translation capabilities, staff can set up automated responses to commonly asked questions. Through two-way text dialogue, the hotel reception and reservation teams are able to respond and communicate with guests in real-time, providing a highly personalised service.
The InterContinental David Tel Aviv can also use EasyWay to implement goal-based marketing strategies and deliver personalised services and interactions.
EasyWay drove significant savings in operations and helped the hotel fulfil its eco-commitments, replacing printed guest notices with mobile messaging for the 555-room property. Substantial team time savings were achieved with 47% of communication automated through EasyWay enabling the hotel to engage with multiple guests simultaneously without staffing resources.
The hotel increased guest engagement, opening up ancillary revenue opportunities through 75% of message exchanges for hotel services and ancillary products, such as Food and Beverage. The hotel team also elevated the customer service and guest experience by engaging with guests in their native tongue.
“EasyWay’s user-friendly all-in-one contactless solution is an essential tool for communicating with millennials. Guests are now looking for quick and efficient service oriented hotel services. By reducing phone calls, desk-visits and printing we have more time to spend servicing our guests, while reducing costly overheads.” - Ilya Borgakov, Director of Operations at InterContinental David
Benefits
Personalised guest services. Oracle’s Opera PMS & Impala connection to extract essential guest data to easily engage with guests on a more personal level with smart messaging. WhatsApp is the top communication channel for 96.3% of guests.
Improved guest services and experience. Instant communication improves response time in any language in real-time - increasing guest loyalty and engagement. 75% of guests use their native language with twice as much engagement through smart messaging vs email.
Increased revenue streams. Guest enquiries and hotel promotions enables staff to present ancillary products and services at the right time.
Staff efficiency. Reduce phone calls and paperwork so staff can focus on immediate guest matters.
Guest query type:
33% breakfast
17% room service
19% upgrades
6% spa
2% parking
23% other
Digital check-in. Increased use of online check-in to further improve efficiencies and offer flexibility to guests with over half of guests opting for remote online check-in.
Fast Facts
Hotel name: David InterContinental Tel Aviv // Property Management System: Opera by Oracle & Impala // Products used: EasyWay Messaging, EasyWay Online Check in, EasyWay Branded WhatsApp // Location: Israel // Number of rooms: 555
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