Integrating artificial intelligence (AI) and chatbots in digital activities substantially benefits hoteliers by enabling more efficient customer service, improved guest satisfaction, direct bookings, better ROI, upselling, etc.
Hotel chatbots - often called the "digital concierge - are programmed to answer frequently asked questions and display accommodation offers based on the visitor's travel dates, number of guests, and other criteria. AI-powered chatbots have enhanced features, using NLP (Natural Language Processing), Deep Learning (DL), or ML (Machine Learning) to communicate with website visitors.
There are already many AI chatbots available for the hospitality industry. However, ChatGPT and its latest iteration, GPT-4 (where GPT stands for generative pre-trained transformer), will revolutionize how hotels and other hospitality organizations integrate and use AI-powered chatbots within their websites.
Unlike other AI chatbots, ChatGPT does not require programming to carry on conversations with website visitors. Instead, it uses DL and NLP to understand queries and delivers answers in text or images.
ChatGPT AI solution is helpful for all stages of the hotel guests' journey: from the pre-booking phase, during booking, throughout the stay, and after they leave the hotel. And you will want to integrate ChatGPT instead of using a different AI-powered chatbot: fast adoption will make it indispensable in the future .
Credit: Statista
Top Reasons to Integrate AI Chatbots in a Hotel's Website
Consider the chatbot your digital or virtual concierge: this AI-powered technology will benefit both your organization and your guests.
- Improved customer service: Provide prompt answers to FAQs regardless of when the customer types a query into the chat box. Use AI chatbots to enhance the customer experience by offering travel tips, recommendations, and help during booking. Your chatbot is available 24/7, which makes it an invaluable customer support tool.
- Save time and alleviate stress for your staff: Provide your front desk clerks the tools to handle FAQs around the clock effortlessly without having to process these inquiries manually. Automate routine tasks to allow your team to focus on meaningful tasks - like offering in-person customer support for guests already at your hotel.
- Identify problems: AI-powered chatbots - especially ChatGPT - can quickly assess and identify negative guest feedback, helping hotel managers address problem areas and improve customer service.
- Support throughout the guest journey: assist guests from the booking stage, on arrival, throughout their stay (updates and information related to the amenities, special services, things to do, etc.), and after check-out (encourage guests to share feedback and experiences through surveys and reviews).
- Improve marketing efforts: integrate CRO-driving marketing tools like price comparison, best rate guarantee, direct bookings (by forwarding the booking inquiries directly to the online booking engine), and vouchers to increase sales, upsells, and cross-sells. Collect customer data to create targeted email or social media campaigns.
- Personalization: Use AI chatbots to deliver personalized recommendations based on your website visitors' preferences and behavior. Offer customized services and guest-tailored promotions to boost sales, improve customer satisfaction, and strengthen brand awareness and customer loyalty overall.
- Language translation: ChatGPT has the capability to switch between languages, offering real-time translations and communication in the customers' native tongue or preferred language.
- Real-time updates: send guests instant updates for room availability, upgrades, ancillary services, weather forecasts, and other issues affecting their stay.
Integrating Chatbots into Your Hotel's Digital Activities
The chatbot market continues to grow and will likely reach $1.25 billion in 2025, per Statista's forecast. Although chatbots cannot satisfy every aspect of the customer experience, not integrating them into your hotel's digital activities is a loss of opportunities. Tidio released some statistics that support this claim:
- 62% of consumers would rather talk to a chatbot instead of waiting for a human agent;
- 9 in 10 consumers had at least one conversation with a chatbot in 2022;
- chatbots resolved 90% of customer queries in ten messages or fewer;
- chatbots can save businesses up to 30% of costs on customer support;
- chatbots can increase conversions by 70% or more;
You can integrate chatbots across most communication channels, from the hotel's website to social media platforms and messaging apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.
Guests favor chatbots to receive fast replies to queries and get customer support any time, day or night.
Most guests turn to chatbots for quick answers to FAQs or simple questions and fast replies to any query. However, they prefer chatting with a human agent for negative issues and more complex problems with billing, booking, or other services during their stay.
Credit: Tidio
Since chatbots benefit guests and hoteliers alike, integrating them into the hotel's digital activities makes sense, but only if you maintain compliance with data privacy regulations. Maintain transparency and use chatbots ethically.
It is easy to integrate a chatbot into a hotel's website. For example, RateParity CRO Platform has a powerful AI chatbot that integrates with the booking engine to deliver information like hotel prices, location, facilities, operation season, contact details, rooms, photos, etc. It has a price comparison functionality, displaying the hotel's best rates in contrast with pricing from OTAs like Expedia and booking.com. In addition, it can display the lowest room rates for the next six months. Hoteliers can use the RateParity AI chatbot to include special offers and vouchers within the chat to boost ancillary sales and revenue. The chatbot also features a booking link based on the users' preferred arrival and departure dates, number of guests, including children, and number of rooms.
There are many other chatbots for hotels available, some more difficult to integrate without coding skills, others available with costly subscriptions. When choosing a chatbot, ensure it provides value for guests, flexibility, and all the features you need to improve your hotel's bottom line.