Delivering incredible guest experiences is vital to stay competitive. The right hotel solution can help you improve the guest journey with less stress — for higher loyalty and more positive reviews.
Discover how Clock improves the booking process as part of the hotel guest journey experience from booking until checkout and beyond to help you improve operational efficiency and create more delightful stays.
Clock also facilitates direct bookings through its user-friendly booking engine, ensuring a seamless experience that builds trust with guests.
Understanding the guest journey
The guest journey is a multifaceted process encompassing every hotel interaction, from the initial research phase to post-stay feedback. Understanding the guest journey is crucial for hotels to deliver exceptional service and create a memorable experience for their guests.
What is a guest journey?
A guest journey refers to the entire lifecycle of a guest’s interaction with a hotel or accommodation. It includes every touchpoint, from when a potential guest explores booking options to the memories they carry away after checking out. The guest journey is a dynamic and circular process involving multiple stages, each with unique challenges and opportunities.
The guest journey: A circular process
The guest journey is often depicted as a linear process, but in reality, it is circular. Guests may revisit previous stages, and their experiences at each stage can influence their perceptions of the hotel. For instance, a guest with a positive experience during their stay may be more likely to leave a positive review and recommend the hotel to others, which can attract new guests and start the cycle again.
Stages of the guest experience journey
The guest experience journey can be divided into several stages, each with unique challenges and opportunities. Understanding these stages is crucial for hotels to deliver exceptional service and create a memorable experience for their guests.
Before check-in delight
The guest journey starts at booking. A guest journey map helps understand and enhance the guest experience by detailing the stages and key elements involved. And your before-arrival service excellence starts in the Guest Portal. From paying their booking guarantees to providing their details for faster check-in, Clock’s features are made to delight.
1. Pre-arrival engagement and booking management
The first step in the hotel guest experience journey is when a potential guest hears about the hotel.
After booking through the hotel website, the guest gets their link or can log in to their personalised guest portal with their booking details. They can secure their booking guarantees there, make special requests or modifications, and even interact with the hotel for personalised promotions.
Regardless of the booking channel, the Guest Portal ensures a convenient and secure way to ensure the bookings are ready and paid.
2. Room and service customisation options
No guests are alike. That’s why the Guest Portal comes ready with features that let potential guests tailor their stay to their liking.
Here, they can select rooms, opt for an automatic upgrade, and take advantage of your special offers.
This powerful customisation helps you create highly personalised stay experiences that help improve guest satisfaction and get better reviews.
3. Streamlined check-in process
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The check-in process is the first point of in-person contact for the guest at the hotel.
Upon arrival day, simplify the check-in process to enhance the guest's stay. In a few clicks, the guest can complete their registration cards in advance, including ID document submission, in the portal.
You can photograph their identification document and store it securely in Clock if necessary.
The check-in functionalities help your hotel deliver a faster and more efficient check-in experience that guests demand.
4. Flexible booking adjustments
The Guest Portal allow guests to make requests or cancel before arrival. These include changing the booking period, room type, number of guests, special requests, and arrival or departure times. Clock instantly notifies front-desk staff of easy ways to perfect the guests' stay.
This flexibility prepares your hotel to meet guests' needs and demands for a tailored stay.
During-stay guest experience excellence
The Guest Portal also gives guests a great way to improve their stay in the hospitality industry from check-in until check-out. With in-platform payments and to-dos, you can ensure your staff stays ahead of every special request and task to deliver outstanding experiences.
1. Enhanced guest services and convenience
Guests can request and pay for supplementary services directly through the portal anytime with a few clicks, leading to satisfied guests. These services are automatically added to the booking folio with staff notifications through Clock’s to-dos.
This simple access to extra service and integration with Clock’s billing helps you earn more revenue and improve the guest experience.
2. Efficient billing and payments
Forget third-party integrations. Clock handles billing and payments for rooms, food, and all extra services – even for companies and business travellers. The system reflects all bills in real-time with integrated payment services for fast and secure payments.
The in-portal payments make payments a breeze for you and your guests, leading to better operations and more smiles.
3. Streamlined housekeeping and maintenance requests
Rooms get dirty. In the case of a wine spill or quick touch-ups, guests can request housekeeping and maintenance directly in the portal. Each request auto-generates a housekeeping task for your team to act upon.
This feature is a great example of using technology to improve operational efficiency and guest satisfaction.
4. Smooth checkout process
Smooth departures are as important as arrivals. With self-checkout, you can empower guests to settle any outstanding balances and receive their final folio by email for a simple departure. With the integrated payment service, everything is paid and settled in the PMS.
The self-checkout is excellent proof of the PMS's role in enhancing the guest experience until the last moment of their stay.
5. Guest feedback and continuous improvement
The guest feedback tool is priceless to make the guest experience even better. Engage guests in the quality assurance process by letting them rate their stay and provide comments for valuable insights. Monitor all feedback through clear reports for easy follow-ups.
Using a guest feedback tool demonstrates your hotel's commitment to continuous improvement and service excellence.
Boosting service excellence more
The excellence journey doesn’t stop in the hotel industry. That’s why Clock features even more capabilities that ensure you can personalise and boost service at every touchpoint.
1. Dining and room service enhancements
Take your guests on a culinary adventure. With the room service and table bookings feature, guests can easily order food and beverages from their phone to their room – and book tables in your restaurant.
Convenience is key, and with the help of technology, you can enhance the dining experience for more revenue and higher customer satisfaction.
2. Informational resources and local insights
When you need to share useful information, use useful information links. The Guest Portal is flexible, allowing you to direct guests to pages with useful information on your website, partner website, or other external sources.
Show guests your entertainment, activities in the area, or other useful insights to ensure guests have a memorable stay.
3. Social media and online engagement
Let guests engage with your social media. Add plugins for your social media like Facebook, Twitter, and more, allowing guests to like and follow your posts directly in the Guest Portal.
This close integration encourages engagement and gives you an easy way to elevate your brand online whenever a guest checks in.
4. Personalised user experience
Make the guest portal yours. Customise the portal to your hotel's brand with the flexibility to meet and delight a diverse guest demographic. Translate the portal into different languages for automatic personalisation during booking.
The ability to customise the Guest Portal lets you reflect your unique identity and brand while meeting guests' specific needs.
5. Easy portal access
Your guests can simply access the portal in two ways. Either with a unique link in their booking confirmation email or other communication. Or by public access. Simply add a link to your hotel's website and the guest logs in with their booking or room number.
Perfecting your stay should be easy. With simple access to the Guest Portal, you empower your guests with all the tools for a delightful experience – before, during, and after.
Summary
You’re responsible for ensuring top guest service and smooth daily operations. At the same time, you’re busy managing accurate billing and invoicing while overseeing your team and training new team members.
Clock gives you a stress-free way to increase guest satisfaction while improving efficiency in routine front-desk tasks, enhancing the hotel customer journey.
These powerful Guest Portal capabilities help reduce stress by empowering your staff and guests to improve the stay experience at every touchpoint.
They also provide simple and accurate in-platform billing and guest handling, helping eliminate errors and reducing stress while reducing the effects on staff fluctuations. The automations also lets you dedicate time on guest delight.
See why over 1500+ leading hotels and hotel groups use Clock.
