GDU Ninja Update 48 - Virtual Assistant
What is a Virtual Assistant (VA)?
With our colleagues at WelcomeWorx we have developed a VirtualAssistant. It sits on your website and attempts to answer any questions and queries from your customers, rather like a chatbot.
Is it foolproof?
It probably ISNT as good as a full time receptionist (at the moment), BUT it possibly IS better than the delayed responses given by a wide range of staff that may not be fully trained on all aspects of the hotels operation.
What does it do?
It sits on your website and asks the customers if they can help them. It attempts to answer the customers questions for example; How to get to the hotel? Opening times? Can they cancel or modify a reservation? Etc, etc. It can help them to make a room reservation and even book a restaurant table (see below) and if there are any questions it cant answer it will forward the enquiry to the hotel e mail address and/or mobile phone number.
So who is using this?
Properties who dont want to spend time answering e mails and phone calls. We see an increasing trend from some properties to actually remove their e mail address and phone number from the website and use a VA instead.
Who might NOT want this?
A property is who selling themselves on the basis of their 'friendly customer interaction' (Cead Mille Failte in Ireland!).
Why would a hotel want a Virtual Assistant?
To respond to a customer faster and reduce the amount of time they are spending answering e mails and calls. Ideal for properties without a full time reception.
What challenges are you seeing?
At the start its impossible to guess all the potential questions a customer may ask, so initially it is possible that something like 50% of questions cannot be answered by the VA and will be forwarded to the property (Where do i get a taxi? Do you have a cot available for my child? What time is checkin?). However this system allows you to identify these questions and add in the 'answer' thereby reducing the amount of unanswered questions over time.
What does it cost? (without table booking)
1-5 rooms 29 Per Month
6-10 rooms 39 Per Month
11-20 rooms 49 Per Month
21-35 rooms 59 Per Month
36 + rooms 69 Per Month
How do we get it setup?
We send to you a list of typical list of questions a customer may ask and typical responses. You spend an hour with a glass of wine and approve and/or edit the responses and send them back to us. We do the rest.
TABKE BOOKING
Why have you added a Table Booking module into the VA?
Simply because for many of our properties Restaurant enquiries form the majority of customer communications so it made sense to add this element into the VA.
Is this the ultimate Table Booking software solution?
No it isn't, there are much more sophisticated solutions available on the market. Table booking sounds simple (even to us), but no 'simple solution' survives contact with the customer!!
So what will it do?
It will allow a customer to enter their name, email address and phone number and reserve a table with a quantity of guests for a certain time.
Can we 'manually' add offline reservations into the system?
Yes you can.
Can we control the amount of seats that are available and the time slots?
Yes you can control the amount of seats available at particular times of the day.
Can we display to them the menus available for the time slot they are booking?
Yes
Can we apply an upfront charge to the customer when they book?
Not at present
Will it generate a Table Seating Plan of the Restaurant?
Not at present
Will it connect to our EPOS System?
Not at present
What is the cost?
39 Per month
Or, combined with Virtual Assistant;
1-5 rooms 59 Per Month
6-10 rooms 69 Per Month
11-20 rooms 79 Per Month
21-35 rooms 89 Per Month
36 + rooms 99 Per Month
