Technology helps you keep in touch with guests before, during, and after their stay. When most hotels think of hotel guest communication tips, your first thought is front desk staff training. But there’s more to it than that. Guest communication starts long before the front desk. Your internet presence and specialized software are key to getting it right.  

Good guest communication improves customer loyalty, reputation, and revenue performance.  Here are 6 tips to help improve your guest communication.  

1: Take stock of all the ways guests can communicate you  

Broadly speaking, guest communication refers to all the possible ways for a guest to get in touch with your hotel. There are an ever-increasing number of ways that a guest might think to get in touch with you and missing even one can damage your reputation. Here are some of the ways you might miss a guest reaching out to you: 

• Leaving a question via comment on a social media account you aren’t monitoring 

• Sending a text message to your phone number (even if it’s not set up to receive SMS) 

• Filling out a form on your website that’s not properly linked to an email inbox 

• Responding to an unmonitored, transactional email (e.g., a confirmation email) 

If you’re on the journey to improving your guest communication, the first step is to look at your website and third-party web presence to see all the ways guests could reach out to you. This leads us to tip #2: 

2: Make hotel-to-guest communication paths obvious 

Set yourself and your guests up for success by making it clear the best ways to reach out to you. With so many possible communication methods, you want to make it as obvious as possible how you would prefer guests to get in touch, everywhere they look online.  

Put a contact email or phone number in your website footer. Double-check your Google My Business listing to ensure that the contact information is correct. If you have dedicated social media pages for your hotel, make sure they have contact information listed clearly at the top.  

For example, there’s no ambiguity on how to get in touch with Bay View on the Boardwalk. They have a reservation phone number listed clearly on their site, along with a chat widget on every page. Make it clear how guests can get in touch so they can communicate directly with your team. For example, if you don’t receive replies to confirmation emails, make sure that’s included in the email itself.  

By making your preferred communication channels clear, you can avoid guests accidentally ending up in an unmonitored channel.  

3: Be proactive 

Only communicating with guests in response to requests or problems is not a great way to create loyal, repeat guests. The easiest way to be proactive is to use a guest messaging solution that can automate the process.  

Here are 10 hotel email examples that cover every step of the guest journey to create a proactive communication strategy for your hotel. Being proactive means going above and beyond standard transactional emails and adding a personalized touch.  

For example, consider asking them about their stay preferences ahead of time and using automation to direct them to relevant amenities or local attractions. A robust guest messaging solution can personalize email communication based on the specific links guests click on each email.  

4: Provide more than one hotel guest communication channel 

Not every guest is the same. And guests have preferred ways of getting in touch with you. Monitoring every channel and multiple inboxes takes time away from other important responsibilities.  

In addition to making it obvious how guests can get in touch with you (see tip #2), we also recommend having multiple ways for them to reach you – in the example above, they have a chat widget alongside their phone number.  

For this hotel guest communication tip, remember that the preferred method of communication can depend on demographic. For example, younger generations are unlikely to pick up the phone and call during their stay. An SMS hotel marketing campaign allows guests on-property to make requests via text message rather than calling down to the front desk. 

5: Prioritize quality over quantity  

It’s more important to reach guests at the right time with the right message than it is to inundate them with reminders and prompts. When reaching out to guests, provide proactive tips and information about their stay. Generic emails without much to say other than “remember your upcoming stay!” are more likely to annoy a guest than engage them.  

Prioritizing quality messages means creating engaging ways to drive more revenue at your property. Don’t just remind them that you have on-site amenities or room upgrades, use communications to show them the value of spending a little more.  

Send pre-stay emails using engaging layouts and templates. A picture of the amenity or room view does a lot more than just saying the cost of an upgrade or booking! An easy drag-and-drop email editor (shown above) lets you put in pictures that showcase upgrades and attractions in a single email.  

6: Automate, automate, automate 

 To be proactive while providing clear communication across multiple channels, you need to automate some of the process. You want to be reachable by guests without distracting your already busy staff. 

Automation lets you send out a regular, proactive series of messages to future and past guests. Done right, it gives guests the sense that you’re ready for their arrival, without being overly pushy. Fuel GMS is a messaging platform that makes it easy for hotels to launch and maintain a strategy that puts these guest communication tips into practice. 

Create triggered hotel messages via email and SMS based on guest behavior, send engaging marketing campaigns, and so much more. To see a demo of Fuel GMS, contact us today.