Artificial Intelligence is perhaps the most popular technological trend in the world. Several sectors have already integrated AI into their operations.
The hospitality sector is among the recent sectors to integrate Artificial Intelligence into their operations.
Several hotels and restaurants have transformed their operations by adopting AI technology. A significant area in hospitality that has been integrated with AI is customer service.
The use of AI and chatbots has helped improve hotel and restaurant customer support. Companies like Mapal’s facilities management solution provide hotels with AI and chatbot solutions for customer support.
What Is An AI Chatbot?
An AI-driven chatbot is an intelligent assistant that provides responses to clients instead of real human agents.
In the hospitality sector, AI chatbots can be used to answer quest inquiries, handle reservations, and improve the overall customer experience.
These chatbots operate round the clock. They have access to a wide range of data about the company they are linked to. This way, they can provide fast and accurate information.
Keep reading the next chapters to discover how AI and chatbots have improved the customer service in the hospitality sector.
Improved Customer Experience Thanks To AI And Chatbots
Hotels and restaurants are increasingly integrating AI to help create a personalized customer experience.
Customers can use AI to get information about hotel or restaurant services, food and dining recommendations, amenities, and more. Restaurants can also use AI chatbots to provide customer support for guests.
A lot of prominent hotels also use AI to enhance the in-room experiences of their clients. For example, some hotels use AI-powered assistants to help their guests.
These in-room assistants allow guests to do things like control their room temperature and lighting settings, or even work their entertainment systems.
All this can be done through voice commands through AI technology. So, instead of calling room service for assistance, guests can use voice commands to get quick and reliable assistance.
This also allows every guest to enjoy tailored experiences based on their preferences. All these features help promote a better customer experience for hotel and restaurant clients.
Faster And More Consistent Service Via AI Chatbots
AI chatbots are very instrumental for automating customer support. They automate repetitive enquiries from clients like food recommendations, local attractions, and hotel/restaurant services.
By doing so, AI chatbots allow human agents to pay attention to more complex issues or VIP customers. As a result, hotels and restaurants can offer improved, faster, and more consistent customer service.
Increased Hotel And Restaurant Bookings With AI And Chatbots
AI chatbots allow restaurants and hotels to handle round-the-clock bookings in a faster way.
When guests visit a hotel or restaurant’s website, instead of waiting for a human agent, chatbots can immediately keep them engaged, answer questions, and help them through the booking process.
This helps reduce the likelihood of a client abandoning their booking before it is complete. As a result hotels and restaurants enjoy increased reservations.
Also, AI chatbots can handle multiple guests at once. Therefore, no client is left waiting in line, which may result in them leaving the website without completing their scheduling.
Improved Response Times, Consistency, And Accuracy
AI chatbots provide 24/7 relentless customer support. Unlike human agents, they do not need to take breaks or nap. This is very beneficial for hotels and restaurants with guests from different time zones.
This feature also helps increase response times and accuracy. Chatbots can access a vast range of data in seconds.
This allows the bots to respond to queries accurately and quickly. This helps improve the customer satisfaction rates in the sector.
Qualities Of AI And Chatbots That Help Improve Restaurant And Hotel Customer Service
The reason that AI and chatbots have been able to improve the hospitality sector is because of the following qualities:
Cross-platform Support Automation
Chatbots allow the hospitality sector to automate support services across multiple channels. Nowadays, companies in the hospitality sector and beyond offer cross-platform support.
This is where clients get support via multiple channels including websites, email, phone, live chat, social media messaging, and SMS.
AI chatbots can be used to automate support across multiple platforms, allowing guests to get responses anytime and from any channel.
24/7 Consistent Support
AI chatbots can provide consistent support services 24/7. As opposed to human customer service, the chatbots are not limited by fatigue, burnout, or even mood swings that could affect the quality of the customer support at different times of the day.
Quick Resolutions and Responses
AI and chatbots can be designed to handle requests like room bookings, payment issues, cancellations, and promotions swiftly.
Handover To Human Agents
If there is an issue that the chatbot or AI cannot handle, then it will reroute the conversation to a human agent. The transfer is quick and seamless.
Conclusion
AI and chatbots have transformed the way hotels and restaurants take care of their guests.
They have introduced concepts like in-room voice assistance, AI-powered customer service recommendations, mobile check-ins, virtual bookings, and personalized/automated support.
All these concepts have helped improve the customer service in the hospitality sector and enhance customer satisfaction and experience.
