How Technology Can Help Your Hotel Grow and Thrive

In order for your hotel to run as smoothly as possible, you need an ePOS and PMS that integrate with each other. These two systems work hand in hand, sharing each other’s data to give guests a seamless experience throughout their hotel stay. But, the good news doesn’t stop there. By upgrading your tech stack, your business can save money, retain staff and attract new talent. In this article, we’ll be covering:

• How a higher degree of digitalisation can improve a company’s bottom line
• How upgrading your hotel’s technology can improve guest satisfaction
• How technology integrations can enhance the efficiency of hotel marketing strategies
• How to automate roles and retain staff to offer a greater overall experience

How a higher degree of digitalisation can improve a company’s bottom line

By upgrading your hotel technology, your company is able to make data-driven decisions, which, in turn, can improve your company’s bottom line. In our recent webinar on hotel technology, Florian Montag, VP of Business Development at Apaleo said: “Look at your data to become agile and improve. Through this you can really go to the next level.”

By learning what’s working and what’s not, you can adapt fast, and save your business money by not wasting time on costly mistakes.

For Lightspeed customer Staycity, upgrading their technology has given them the peace of mind they need when in high growth mode.

“I’m looking after all of these properties in different countries and they’re all using Lightspeed. I’ve got one login and I can flick between them quite easily. I set all of the food and beverage outlets up in exactly the same way. Lightspeed deals with all the fiscal requirements that we have in all the different countries, and all the boring stuff that no one really wants to spend a lot of time doing.” said Simon Lee, Head of Food and Beverages.

Lightspeed’s platform is tailored for hotels and multi-location businesses, enabling smooth and easy transaction management. With Lightspeed Payments, managing guests’ orders from various touchpoints and revenue centres within your hotel is effortless, enhancing employee efficiency and delivering exceptional customer experiences.

For another Lightspeed customer, Boundary, switching to a cloud-based platform helps them gain full control over their entire property’s operations.

“All of our restaurants are connected to MEWS via Lightspeed. So whether a guest dines on our roof terrace, or in our restaurant, we can charge their orders directly to their room,” said Aaron Resch, COO. What was once a manual, time-consuming procedure – where staff would take receipts from the restaurant or bar and run it through to reception – soon became an automated, seamless process.

Lightspeed’s smooth and hassle-free integration with PMS systems in turn enhances your employees’ productivity and streamlines operations to drive your hotel’s bottom line.

How upgrading your hotel’s technology can improve guest satisfaction

One of the biggest benefits that comes with upgrading your hotel technology is how it can improve your guest’s experience and overall satisfaction. Read on for the variety of ways you can use technology to improve guest experience:

1. QR code ordering

QR code ordering is one of the simplest ways to improve guest experience in your hotel restaurant as it makes the ordering process smoother and more efficient for your customers.

Staycity’s largest location is a 5-minute drive from Disneyland® Paris, and this property is thriving with click and collect ordering.

“At our Disneyland Paris location, click and collect is a big focus. We’re putting QR codes on the shuttle bus so you can order your food on the way back from the park and it’ll be ready when you arrive back at your Staycity hotel.” shared Simon Lee.

From a staff perspective, click and collect ordering gives them the opportunity to focus on what matters most: “QR code ordering means we can actually concentrate on guests rather than keying in the orders into registers.” said Simon Lee.

QR code ordering is simple via your Lightspeed ePOS, using Order Anywhere. As the name suggests, the product allows your guests to order from anywhere, whether that’s when dining in your hotel restaurant, ordering room service or ordering take away. Using QR technology that is directly integrated into your ePOS allows you and your staff to focus on the face-to-face element of service, as well as reduce wait-times and in turn, boost table turnover.

Order Anywhere allows staff to focus on the human element of service, whilst providing guests with exactly the service they want. So if a guest wants to order at the bar and chat, your staff are there to provide the best service, and as Simon Lee shares, “you’ll always get guests that want to come to the bar and want to chat and that’s absolutely fine. We’re there for that.”

But on the other hand, if your guests want an efficient, flexible service that automatically caters to their needs, then Order Anywhere can offer this seamlessly. Simon adds, “if you just want something quick and easy, then it’s important we have QR code ordering. Now in any of our apartments, you can scan the QR code on the table and order food for click and collect and it’ll be ready within 5 to 10 minutes.”

QR code ordering means we can actually concentrate on guests rather than keying in the orders into registers.

2. Online booking and check-in

While online booking might be a given when it comes to your hotel, it’s incredibly valuable when it comes to guest experience. Convenience is the main reason, however it also lets you collect data on your guests, which you then use to personalise future communication, be it with offers for their next stay, or targeted marketing based on their travel patterns.

3. The need to only pay once

By integrating your hotel PMS with your ePOS, your guests only need to pay once, even if they’ve visited the bar and restaurant multiple times. This improves efficiency for your guests and also makes their entire stay more seamless.

With the link between Lightspeed and Apaleo, you can add charges that might be incurred at the bar or restaurant to the guest’s room bill. When checking out, the guest pays for everything at once. With this integration, the wallet only needs to be pulled once during the stay, and your staff handle fewer transactions.

4. Smart technology

Smart technology is, as the name suggests, intelligent. From keyless entry systems that allow guests to access their rooms with their smartphones to personalised in-room controls for lighting, temperature, and entertainment, smart technology empowers guests with convenience and customisation.

Automated check-in processes speed up the otherwise tedious process, while smart assistants provide instant access to information and services.

Additionally, smart technology enables hotels to gather guest preferences and tailor services accordingly, leading to more personalised experiences. By embracing smart technology, hotels can elevate guest satisfaction, streamline operations, and create a truly immersive and memorable stay for their guests.

How technology integration can enhance the efficiency of hotel marketing strategies

In the age of data, it is important to know how you can use it to better understand customer behaviour and upgrade your hotel’s target marketing. From gathering metrics through online bookings, to introducing triggered email marketing campaigns, upgrading your tech gives you invaluable information and techniques to better your customer reach and market your business.

Piggy, an intuitive integration available via your Lightspeed ePOS, is the perfect addition to your tech stack. The integration provides over 100 features to help your business not only establish a strong loyalty programme with guests, but help you get the most out of your customer data.

Piggy gives you access to a complete marketing suite tailored to your customer database whereby you can assign attributes or characteristics to guests to provide them with an incredibly intuitive and personalised service.

Loyalty and marketing integrations that work seamlessly with your ePOS are an incredibly valuable resource and tool. Piggy creates engaging customer touchpoints you can offer your guests such as web apps, digital wallets and loyalty cards, as well as enables you to make the most out of email campaigns and social media targeted marketing.

With modernising your technology comes more efficient use of your customer data, and integrating a marketing platform into your ePOS is an upgrade worth your while.

How to automate roles and retain staff to offer a greater overall experience

In a recent webinar that explored the power of upgrading your hotel tech stack, Thibault Catala, Founder of Catala Consulting shared this nugget of wisdom: “Technology is not here to replace anyone in your team, it is more to extend the capacities of your team.”

Let’s be clear. If you’re upgrading your technology in order to remove the need for human interaction and human involvement, you’re not going to be improving your guest experience. Technology lets your employees do more of what they love, spending less time on the manual tasks and more time on what matters, be that personalising check in for guests, curating a list of recommendations for the local area, or generating ideas for a new bar menu.

As Michael Enslin, Lightspeed’s Regional Manager for UK and RoMEA said, “Your staff ultimately defines the customer satisfaction. If they’re giving an incredible experience and the technology is enabling that, you end up with a wonderful guest.”

Dimitrios Neofiditis, CEO of Siggis Capital expanded on this point: “Legacy systems treated staff as an extension of the system, while the new generation systems treat staff as a user and they invest in the user experience. At the end of the day it comes back to something really, really simple that people seem to forget: happy staff make happy guests.”

Another way to retain staff by automating roles is by improving staff morale. The automation of certain tasks reduces the risk of manual error, be that charging items to the wrong room, or incorrectly counting stock. By reducing these errors, your employees will feel more confident in what they are doing.

Technology is not here to replace anyone in your team, it is more to extend the capacities of your team.

For Lightspeed customer Staycity, automating processes improves the staff experience.

“The fact that Lightspeed is so easy for the front of house team to use is vital. When you train someone, they can start using Lightspeed within minutes. We’ve never had anyone complain about difficulties using Lightspeed, which is a great testament to the platform.” shared Simon.

Plus, less time spent teaching staff on technology means more time spent focusing on guest satisfaction.

“We can spend our time training the team to be great with the guests rather than how Lightspeed works.” Simon added.

Ready to upgrade your hotel technology?

By integrating your ePOS with your PMS solution, you can streamline your hotel management and improve guest experience. Interested in learning more? Take a look at Lightspeed Restaurant right here.