Though simple on the surface, in reality, the hotel reservation process is at times very complex—room seekers can scour as many as 16 different sites within a three-week period before finalizing their booking.
At some point during their search, potential guests will turn to Velma, Quicktext’s virtual assistant, for guidance, either on the hotel’s website or through an instant messaging service (WhatsApp, Google, Messenger etc.).
By doing so, these guests will unwittingly set something in motion—they will activate a well-oiled machine that will do everything in its power to secure a direct booking.
Capturing customer data
Just by asking Velma a few simple questions, our future guests will help us generate data. Sometimes, it can be a real struggle to find information as simple as the check-in time, cost of parking, or availability of gluten-free options on the hotel website. These are questions that Velma, Quicktext’s AI virtual assistant, can answer instantly, and in 30 languages.
What’s more, throughout the conversation, Velma will also capture the customer’s personal data, all while adhering to the GDPR recommendations in place.
Ultimately, Velma will collect extremely valuable information: name, email, phone number, arrival and departure dates, number of guests, and more importantly, qualitative data: guests’ preferences when it comes to parking, check-out, use of the spa etc.
Using customer data
Integration with thinkIN‘s call center allows Velma’s data to be leveraged for proactive sales follow-up with customers who have not finalized their reservation in the booking engine.
And this is where the real power of combining AI and call centers comes to the fore—Velma is able to resolve 85% of requests. This makes it an invaluable filter to stop phone lines becoming saturated and so allow teams to focus on calls where their presence is really needed: complicated bookings, guests with special needs, etc.
According to Juan Francisco Torres, director of sales at thinkIN, call centers are faced with high volumes of unnecessary calls on a daily basis because a lot of basic information cannot be found easily online.
Boosting direct bookings
As I’ve mentioned in previous articles (Increase Hotel direct bookings in 2022), Velma, Quicktext’s AI, can convert between 4% and 9% of the booking requests it processes into actual bookings. All unconverted requests are transmitted as highly qualified leads to the call center and can reach a much higher level of conversion between 10 and 30%.
With an AI Hotel chatbot like Velma, backed up by a well-trained human resource like thinkIN’s call center, we can deliver an enhanced customer experience and, best of all, boost cumulative conversion rates to an incredible 35% over a given timeframe,” explains Daniel Doppler, CEO at Quicktext.
For more information on the integration between Quicktext and thinkIN, please contact hello@quicktext.im.
To find out more about thinkIN’s services, please visit their website or contact their sales department: jtorres@thinkin.es.
