12 Reasons Why Your Hotel Needs an AI Reservation Chatbot

In the competitive landscape of the hospitality industry, hotels are constantly seeking innovative solutions to streamline operations, enhance guest experiences, and boost revenue. One of the fastest growing solutions is the AI reservation agents integrated with hotel websites and multiple service channels. These intelligent virtual assistants offer multiple benefits, revolutionizing the way hotels handle bookings and customer interactions. 

Let’s delve into 12 compelling reasons why adopting an AI reservation chatbot is a must:

#1 Offer 24/7/365 Customer Service

According to 80M travelers assisted by Asksuite, 50% of customer service demand occurs outside business hours. That’s why an AI reservation agent is crucial to avoid losing potential guests who search after hours, or are even in different time zones and need fast assistance to book their reservation. 

#2 Improve the human touch

It may sound weird to adopt AI to improve human service, but it’s exactly what can happen. This type of solution allows your staff to create a lot of distribution rules based on travelers’ language, agents’ role as well as notifications for quotes or human assistance. That way, human agents can take control and intervene when necessary.

#3 Increase Direct Bookings

According to Asksuite, on average 40% of travelers ask for price quotes while interacting with an AI reservation agent. So this type of agent will always incentivize potential guests to book directly. In addition, it can provide personalized recommendations, exclusive offers, compare pricing with OTA’s in real time, check availability integrated with the booking engine, creating a seamless conversational reservation experience. 

#4 Enhance Revenue Opportunities and Leads

AI reservation chatbots are adept at offering and qualifying opportunities for upselling, cross-selling, and promoting special packages or services to guests during the booking process. Moreover, they can capture valuable leads for group bookings, events, spa, restaurant, thereby maximizing revenue potential for the hotel.

#5 Reduce unnecessary emails and phone calls

AI reservation agents can reduce up to 70% of the operational FAQs, especially the ones who already have a reservation and are only asking about the check-in time, distance from the airport, etc. It allows human agents to focus on more complex and personalized guest requests, such as on sales, proposals and follow-ups.

#6 Offer Multilingual Service

In today’s globalized world, catering to diverse linguistic preferences is essential for attracting international guests and offering a personalized service. Some nationalities prefer to be supported in their native language. AI reservation agents equipped with natural language processing capabilities can communicate fluently in multiple languages, ensuring easy interactions with potential guests from around the world.

#7 Increase Response Speed Rate

Who has ever waited more than 24 to receive a response via email? In hospitality, it means losing revenue. Nowadays, customers don’t mind interacting with a machine at the bank, supermarket, or even McDonalds. What really matters is customers’ time. It’s about how fast they can get their answers and meet their needs. AI reservation agents excel in delivering swift responses and execute tasks with remarkable speed and efficiency.

#8 Omnichannel Presence

We live in an era where guests expect seamless experiences across various touchpoints. Hotels typically invest a relevant budget in social media, but when someone asks a question or requests pricing via inbox, nothing happens. AI hotel chatbots offer omnichannel support across websites, mobile apps, social media platforms, and messaging applications. This cohesive presence ensures consistent service delivery and allows hotels to centralize the human management of all these channels on one platform with the appropriate dashboards.

#9 Boost Human Reservation Agents’ Productivity

By handling routine booking tasks and inquiries, AI reservation agents free up human agents to focus on more value-added activities such as personalized proposals and follow-ups, relationship building, and resolving complex issues. This boosts agents’ overall sales productivity and enables staff to deliver exceptional service.

#10 Enhance Website Experience and Conversion Rate

Today we don’t want to browse or read different pages to get the information we need. People just want fast answers, as we get on Google.com. AI hotel chatbots create a conversational website experience by providing instant assistance, personalized recommendations, and real-time availability updates. This seamless integration fosters engagement and significantly improves the website’s conversion rate.

#11 Reduce overhead costs & scale up service operation

One AI reservation agent costs a fraction of a human agent, and will work 24/7/365, without breaks. During high seasons, some hotels won’t need to hire additional staff. Even if your hotel or group decides to boost the marketing ad budget, with AI you can guarantee response capacity without unnecessary new hires.

#12 Choose specialized hospitality solutions

AI has already achieved incredible quality in hospitality. Asksuite has already reached 80M travelers assisted via AI, with dozens of capabilities specifically designed for this segment, such as integrations and algorithms for quote questions which represent more than 35%. 

Wrapping up

In conclusion, the implementation of an AI reservation agent presents a myriad of benefits for hotels seeking to elevate their booking processes, enhance guest experiences, and drive revenue growth. By embracing innovation and harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, hotels can stay ahead of the curve and deliver unparalleled service in today’s dynamic hospitality landscape.