Every hotelier aspires to achieve the ultimate goal of having their guests return and recommend their hotel. This signifies a delightful guest experience, stemming from a dedicated and efficient workforce, streamlined operations, and a high-quality product that aligns perfectly with guest expectations.

Although hotels employ different measures to assess guest satisfaction, the intention to revisit or recommend stands as the benchmark of excellence in the hospitality industry. It serves as the litmus test that separates the best from the rest. There are several factors that can impact your property’s intent-to-recommend scores, and guest messaging can be the tool you need to improve those elements at your hotel. Here are five ways guest messaging can help IHG properties boost guest recommendation scores.

1: Staff and Service

The biggest factor to have an impact on your intent-to-recommend score is your staff and service. Having welcoming staff that provide excellent service is a sure way to get more recommendations from guests. Even seemingly small things, like sending a welcome text once they are settled in their room, or reaching out with a mid-stay check-in message are great ways to make your guests feel valued. With texting, your staff is able to attend multiple guests at once and have quicker response times than traditional phone calls. IHG properties can also automate their welcome messages, enabling front desk staff to focus on the guests in front of them, while still opening the avenue of communication for all checked-in guests. Guest messaging allows you to personalize your conversations with your guests as well as respond to multiple guests in a timely manner. 

2: Service Recovery

Mistakes are inevitable, and service failures happen. But that is where the service recovery paradox comes into play. When there is a blunder, people are actually more satisfied after a service failure recovery than if nothing were to have happened at all. While we want to avoid issues, resolving them promptly with quality service can give a great boost to your intent-to-recommend scores. The mid-stay check-in messages are the perfect opportunity for guests to share any issues they are having, giving you the opportunity to resolve those issues. Take it a step further and follow up afterwards with a text to make sure the guest is satisfied with their service experience. 

3: Cleanliness

Cleanliness is another big factor when guests consider recommending a hotel. It’s critical that housekeeping staff is efficient and responsive to cleaning rooms, ensuring they are ready to go.

A good hotel operations system will enable front desk and housekeeping staff to be on the same page. Having hotel logs, group chat, and an easy-to-navigate phone app can not only drive efficiency among your hotel staff, but also ensures every guest opens the door to a clean, welcoming room.

4: Amenity Awareness

Sometimes guests don’t know all the amenities you have to offer! If you want to highlight an amenity that is unique to your property, make sure you send the guests a text message about things like your on-site restaurant, or let them know about the pool hours. Send a message that points out an amenity that you hear many guests rave about. If guests optimize those amenities, they are more likely to give a higher intent-to-recommend score. Give them the best experience possible by ensuring they are aware of all you have to offer.

5: Loyalty Recognition

Making an effort to learn guest names or addressing that they’ve been there before is a wonderful way to show that front desk teams care. Build some rapport with guests and call them by name when they come back from dinner or a day trip—maybe they’ll remember some front desk names, too! If they are a part of your loyalty program, you can build your brand loyalty and reward your guests for choosing your hotel. A great way to start this is recognizing a guest's IHG One Rewards Loyalty membership in your welcome text (here are examples for each tier!). You can even automate these welcome messages with the corresponding loyalty tiers, ensuring a personalized experience for guests without significant front desk staff intervention. Guests who receive this type of recognition are more likely to book directly and leave glowing reviews. 

Whether you focus on one of these elements, or try to improve on all of these factors at your property, guest messaging can play a key role in enhancing your guest experience, leading to an increase in your overall survey scores. Schedule a conversation with us today to learn more about Kipsu’s messaging solutions!

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