7 Ways to Turn Your Front Desk Staff Into Front-Line Ambassadors
Investing in an easy-to-use and easy-to-train PMS lets you hire staff based on their ability to serve guests, not just their ability to “get” outdated technology.
– Justin DeRise
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Great Technology Empowers Greater Hoteliers
Great hotel technology exists to facilitate great hospitality and so do great hotel employees. In the past, a front desk associate spent a large portion of their day performing essentially clerical duties: checking guests in and out, answering requests and handling other administrative tasks. This model actually burdened the delivery of great service because it placed so many barriers 一 procedural, technological, and physical 一 between your staff and their guests. Fortunately, technology has evolved to unburden the guest experience. With a mobile guest-centric PMS, hoteliers can break free from the front desk and meet guests where they are.
This freedom creates a necessary shift in focus: From front-desk staff, to front line ambassadors. Now, your front-of-the-house associates are not only the first face your guests see when they enter your hotel, they are also the first representatives of your brand’s vision and its standard of hospitality and service. Armed with the right technology and the right mindset, your front-line ambassadors can create organic and engaging interactions with your guests that will inspire loyalty, win conversions, and create an exceptional guest experience.
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UnBurden Your Welcome Experience
Great hospitality should be spontaneous and unburdened, but the welcome experience created by the traditional front desk is anything but. Designed for outdated, desktop-based PMS systems, the front desk puts a physical barrier between your staff and their guests, creating long lines and bottlenecks in the process. Fortunately, there is a better way. Because a mobile guest-centric PMS runs on a tablet, your staff are free to roam the property and meet
guests where they are with no granite front desk to get in their way. This freedom facilitates more organic and engaging interactions, ultimately leading to a more genuine hospitality. Instead of reiterating a scripted “check-in dialogue,” you can meet your guests in the lobby with coffee or drinks, initiate a conversation about why they are traveling, and inform them of the features and amenities in your hotel. Deliver hospitality without barriers.
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Transform Your Lobby
Great hospitality starts with a welcoming home, not just a utilitarian house. Unfortunately, the traditional front desk turns your lobby into a glorified waiting room, not a guest-centric space to unwind, socialize, or cowork. With a mobile guest-centric PMS, however, you can replace your front desk with a combination of mobile self check-in, guest-facing kiosks strategically placed to promote convenience and social distancing, and friendly
hoteliers moving throughout the lobby. Now your lobby can reflect the vision of your brand and its ideal guest journey. You can add anything from restaurants or lounges, to immersive art installations, to monetized co-working spaces (with our day use/ hourly rate functionality). Whatever you can dream of, we can deliver.
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Know Thy Guests: Capture & Action on Guest Data
Great hospitality is also personalized. Every time you ask a loyal regular “have you stayed with us before,” you reset your relationship back to zero. That’s why it’s so critical to always check 一 and continually update 一 your guests’ profile within your PMS.
The guest profile acts as a central repository for all of your guest’s data, including purchase history, housekeeping/ maintenance information, and custom notes and preferences. StayNTouch Cloud PMS makes it easy to capture and act on guest data, either through their mobile device, a guest-facing smart-kiosk, or an easy-to-navigate
PMS. When conversing with a guest, it’s important to suggest upgrades or amenities that can directly enhance their stay. Instead of generically asking to upgrade their room, suggest an extra cot if a guest is traveling with children, or point out your hotel’s fine dining establishment if your guest is traveling with a partner.
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Engage With Your Guests
Great hospitality is ultimately fueled by guest engagement. Simple actions like maintaining eye-contact, expressing empathy, and implementing creative solutions to problems can go a long way towards promoting the kind of emotional connections that turn one-time guests into life-long customers. With a mobile guest-centric PMS, your staff can physically hand the tablet over to their guests while they’re describing your hotel’s amenities or upgrade options. Not only does this give staff the chance to visually display your hotel’s upgraded rooms,
but it allows guests to see the “secrets behind the register,” in exchange for more trust and rapport. That’s why it is so important to keep an employee’s focus off their screen and onto the guest. One of the biggest advantages of StayNTouch Mobile PMS is a colorful interface that’s supported by robust automation and advanced “drag-and-drop” and “select-and-click” features. Easy-to-use and easy-to-train on, StayNTouch let’s your staff accomplish their tasks quickly and intuitively, leaving more time to interact with the guests.
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Always Be Proactive
A front line ambassador is more than just a clerk sitting at the front desk, they are the first face your guests see when they enter the building, need assistance, or have a question. Great hospitality is ultimately fueled by guest engagement. Simple actions like maintaining eye-contact, expressing empathy, and implementing creative solutions to problems can go a long way towards promoting the kind of emotional connections that turn one-time guests into life-long customers. With a mobile guest-centric PMS, your staff can physically hand the tablet over to their guests while they’re describing your hotel’s amenities or upgrade options. Not only does this give staff the chance to visually display your hotel’s upgraded rooms, but it allows guests to see the “secrets behind the register,” in exchange for more trust and rapport. That’s why it is so important to keep an employee’s focus off their screen and
onto the guest. One of the biggest advantages of StayNTouch Mobile PMS is a colorful interface that’s supported by robust automation and advanced “drag-and-drop” and “select-and-click” features. Easy-to-use and easy-to-train on, StayNTouch let’s your staff accomplish their tasks quickly and intuitively, leaving more time to interact with the guests. StayNTouch Cloud PMS empowers your staff to deliver more proactive service by featuring automatic room status updates and custom instant action requests.
Now, your staff will never have to tell a guest, “I’m sorry, that isn’t my department.” Any staff member will be able to instantly react to room updates, and submit custom requests to housekeeping or maintenance.
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Use Automation to Streamline perations
One of the major benefits of a mobile and guest-centric PMS is the ability to hyper personalize the guest experience, and answer requests virtually on-demand. But this level of customization and convenience requires seamless communication between front line ambassadors and back-of-the-house staff, as well as the efficient operation of housekeeping and maintenance. If you send an offer for monetized early check-in to a guest’s smartphone, but fail to have a room ready when they arrive, you have turned what could have been a positive situation
into an unfortunate negative review. That’s why StayNTouch Cloud PMS lets hotels automatically assign housekeeping tasks by hotel section and employee work time, so staff can clean rooms within their geographic proximity, while broadcasting status updates to all hotel staff as they progress. This type of automation can empower hotels with even limited staff to deliver a more personalized and hygienic guest experience.
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Reimagine How You Manage and Train Your Staff
Proactive, engaging, service-minded ambassadors don’t just magically appear, they have to be discovered, trained, developed and encouraged. Investing in an easy-to-use and easy-to-train PMS lets you hire staff based on their ability to serve guests, not just their ability to “get” outdated technology. When they arrive at work, they can quickly advance
from novice to master by leveraging our remote or in-person implementation training, as well as our self-directed eLearning courses and extensive product knowledge base. While at work, our colorful and intuitive analytics dashboards can keep your entire team zeroed in on your relevant KPIs, including daily upsells.
