Unlocking the power of automation for your hospitality business

Robots sending up room service? It’s a novel idea. Many hotels have already started dabbling with AI, voice-activated bots, digital keys and such, and have found certain degrees of success. I think it’s great that we are open to ideas and new tech, but there is far greater opportunity to impact the bottom line: automating reconciliation, for example.

Hoteliers I have met are very focused on finding ways to automate in an effort to reduce manpower costs. Moving away from standalone payment terminals to a fully integrated solutions drastically reduces the workload your finance team has to grapple with.

Eliminating the need for a night audit, closing terminals, and having bank settlements always tally with your sales revenue are some of the perks that come with an integrated solution. There is no need for card entry on the terminal, giving front desk managers more time to do what they do best: engaging with the guest. Adyen’s Integrated solution has proven to improve NPS (net promoter score) at the front desk. Some of our hotel partners have indicated saving 8 to 10 hours of manual reconciliation, thanks to automation.

Automation takes place in your restaurants as well. There is flexibility to offer pay-at-the-table or pay-at-the-counter with a customer’s payment of choice. Efficiencies are realized through faster checkout with order ahead, dining loyalty and the likes.

The guest of today is connected and digitally savvy. They want convenience (on their terms), with a fast and frictionless payment process. Their guest experience should be personalized and controlled on their terms with their preferred payment method.

Customer experience is key. So, then, give your guests what they want. Provide flexible check-ins from kiosk, mobile app, to in-room. From the moment a guest pays for the booking, payment details may be automatically available in the hotel’s PMS*. Use tokenized card details for returning guests to make their experience even smoother. Tokenization also allows guests to briskly leave the hotel while skipping the checkout queue.

An added bonus to an integrated solution is that it comes with additional insights. Admittedly, hotel brands are pretty good at tracking spend of its loyal customers. But how well do you know your guests who aren’t staying with you? Any person that comes to your property for a meal, meeting, or catch-up is an opportunity.

Adyen’s data caters to hotels that want to leverage better insights to increase ancillary revenue. Imagine knowing the breakdown of your weekend brunch by country in real-time, crafting bespoke promotions for spa packages by linking card data with loyalty to gain shopper insights, or ordering ahead at your F&B establishments. This is all available at your fingertips.

The payment landscape is ever-changing – though it brings many opportunities, it can present numerous challenges in the future for hoteliers. Hotels will need to focus more and more on direct channel to offset rising OTA commissions. But without a proper unified commerce solution, hotels will be exposed to gaps in PCI-compliance. The need to maintain your customers’ data securely will only increase, along with the need to remove yourself from PCI-scope.

Rising customer expectations will mean using the support of chatbots and mobile apps to satisfy their impulsive purchase habits. Payments will have to be prominently featured. Network tokens will support hotels to make frictionless third-party purchases for the guests (e.g., ride hailing, show tickets, food delivery), revitalizing the concierge post into a new revenue generator. This future isn’t too far away, so it’s important to find a partner that can prepare you for it.

At Adyen, we recognize that payments can be a driving force to innovate. We don’t believe that payments are solely a finance discussion. It has a significant impact on your operations’ customer journeys and arming your revenue managers with better customer insights. The ability to do this starts with an integrated solution.

Automation has driven and will continue to drive greater business efficiencies through less operational costs including less IT maintenance overhead. Enhanced guest relationship management has also enabled greater stays, cross-selling, loyalty and retention – all of which drive greater revenue for hotels.

Want to learn more about Adyen’s solution for hospitality businesses? Get in touch for a chat today.

*Depends on property management system and integration.