Recently, many hotels have discovered the innovation of Automated Upselling.  But if we are honest, there was a lot of skepticism regarding any kind of upselling solution.

 

ROOMDEX has created the ultimate solution.  We revisited some of those same hoteliers to see how they feel about Hotel Automation now. Here are some highlights from our article on www.hospitalitynet.org :

 

Hotels are surprised by the amount of revenue made from early check-ins and late check outs.

• “What I didn’t anticipate was the early arrivals and late departures to do very well. Room upgrades are great, but the forgotten piece is the early arrivals and late departures. I think other hotels and management companies will be surprised with the results themselves.” Arnold Linares, Group Revenue Distribution Manager, Zetter Hotels & Co.

 

Housekeeping is surprised by the absence of operational problems.

• “When ROOMDEX was presented, the Executive Housekeeper was completely against turning on early check-ins and late checkouts. We quickly realized there were no issues where we couldn’t accommodate an early check-in and late check-out. Now the housekeeping side of the house is very comfortable with it.” SeaCrest Oceanfront Hotel.

 

Self-service upselling keeps hoteliers from having to say “no.”

•  “When you are a small hotel like us, you have to be flexible for your guests. When a guest asks you, face-to-face, for early check-in or late check-out, 90% of the time, if I have availability, I would certainly say yes, and give it for free. So, for 10 years we made no money on early check-ins and late checkouts because we were just too nice.

  Now, the experience is actually better for the guest. The guest gets an email, finds a great deal on something they really want, and then they can purchase it immediately.”  Georgios Rouvelas, General Manager Hotel Juliani

 

Management companies use Automated Upselling and its ROI as a differentiator.

• “As a management company, we wanted to build a curated [tech stack] based on a per room, per key cost. So, we can say to our current owners and potential new owners, “We can offer you all this technology, a tech stack, at this per key, per month cost – and it will deliver specific ROI…The ROOMDEX concept fit with our new tech goals.” Brandon Standerfer, Corporate Director of Distribution, Springboard Hospitality Management Company.

 

Hoteliers are surprised at how quickly and well automated upselling performs.

• • “Within just a few days of one of the properties going live, we had more than €5000 worth of upsells. And it’s been consistent – we haven’t gone any day without any upsells.”  Jens Engmalm, Distribution Director, Pandox Operations Hotel.

 

Automated upselling is on-brand for luxury hotels.

• • “If you are a consumer standing at reception to check in, if you have bought your upgrade in advance, you don’t feel like you’ve been kind of “attacked” by the front desk. Automated upselling technology takes that away.” Liutauras Vaitkevicius MIH, Managing Director at The Zetter Group

 

Read the full article here.