Why is an Omnichannel Platform Key to Improving the Guest Experience?

In past years, when social media and the internet were not as developed as today, people used a small number of channels to communicate with businesses. However, as time passed, many other channels became popular across different geographies. And along with that, people started demanding personal instant replies and a smoother digital customer experience. If brand A cannot answer fast, they will go to brand B.

This is also true when discussing guest communication. Nowadays, bookings can be made from a whole variety of platforms, therefore one channel is not enough to have. Hoteliers need to provide their guests with different communication alternatives to reduce customer effort and personalise the guest experience.

According to the latest report by Skift and Oracle about hospitality trends for 2025, convenience and personalisation are not only key drivers of guest satisfaction but also revenue.

But if you go all in with personalisation and being present in many channels, the question remains: how to understand your guest data and make the most out of your communication when you have to keep track of so many things? Spoiler alert: The answer is not hiring more people.

The way to go is to use technology to solve this challenge. And you can do this with a unifying communication solution, such as an omnichannel platform.

Omnichannel means having total control over every channel. With an omnichannel platform, you have all your communications in one place, allowing you to see the bigger picture, exercise more control, make important decisions, and upgrade the guest experience.

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It gives you control over the guest journey

Having total control of your communications involves both inbound and outbound communications. Inbound communications are incoming messages sent by users who are seeking information about your brand.

Outbound communications, on the other hand, are proactive messages designed to build a personal relationship with the guest, to create value in the digital customer journey to specific segments and, at the same time, to optimise the efficiency of the customer journey by increasing the open rates and CTRs.

In the hospitality industry, this can be described as being able to collect and reply in combination with initiating conversations. The more robust the communication strategy you make, where both aspects (inbound and outbound) are considered, the more powerful your communication becomes. This also results in a more personalised guest experience, because your guests receive a proper answer to their inquiries and valuable information without having to ask for it.

In its definition, omnichannel is a communication approach allowing customers an integrated customer experience. Broken down into elements, omnichannel customer experience allows users to consume brands having the same level of experience regardless of the device or communication channel.

The logic behind the omnichannel platform is immersive and puts the customer, not the product or service, at the core.

At the same time, it also means that from one single platform you can have total control over all the other sources of communication with your guests. It does not matter if you have 20 channels, your staff will have a powerful overview of all of them.

This immediately makes you more efficient because you have all data in one place. If one person communicates on Whatsapp, then on Messenger, and lastly on Instagram DM, you can see the whole thread on the same profile. This prevents unclarity of what has been said to the guest and also enables you to gather insights, identify patterns, and more.

You can also gain a more clear idea of your guests’ profiles across all channels. For example, matching the ones that prefer social media against the ones that go through your website, and enabling different customer journeys for each group.  

It allows you to personalise and lead the guest experience

Something to pay attention to is that having an omnichannel platform in your hospitality brand is not about sending messages through all your channels. Bombarding your guests is never the answer.

On the contrary, the real power of having such a platform is the ability to get insights from your guest data to reach every guest on the channel of their preference. It is about enabling personalisation, and at the same time, enhancing the guest experience.

For example, your guests can have accounts in different channels, but actively use only two, and strongly prefer just one. You would be surprised by how much your conversion rates can increase when you reach people through the channels they actually use, and when you can control both inbound and outbound communications.  

If you want to know more about how to build an outstanding guest experience, don’t miss this article.

It enables you to reduce repetitive questions

When you have full control of both inbound and outbound communication, you can have a bigger picture of whatever is being said: What information your guests are missing, what is not clear to them, what they would like to know more about, and more.

By knowing that, you can optimise all your channels to make sure the right information is out there and it reaches them in the best possible way. As a result, the repetitive questions will decrease and you will free up time to create long-lasting valuable memories with your guests in both digital and physical ways.

From the guests’ perspective, this represents an upgrade to their experience, as they will have the answers available to them instantly, before they even have to ask for them.

In summary: What can you do with an omnichannel platform?

• Create the ultimate guest journey by scheduling digital touchpoints through different channels.
• Communicate with your guests through their favourite channels without wasting resources.
• Create higher and easier engagement and interaction with your guests, increasing guest satisfaction.
• Monitor all your channels in one single platform, saving time and effort.
• Reduce repetitive questions by analysing the data coming from all your communication channels.
• Reduce the response time to your guests by handling everything in one place.
• Achieve higher conversion rates as you communicate through their favourite channel and not only through email.

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What to look for in a real omnichannel platform?

Nowadays it is no longer possible to build a personal relationship with each and every guest without using digital tools to help bridge the gap between hotels and their guests. And an omnichannel platform helps you become a front-runner in all mentioned areas.

However, today thousands of hotel tech providers say they are an omnichannel platform. The question is, are they really? This is what you should ask for when searching for this kind of solution:

• Reactive or inbound communication: Ability to receive and answer messages across all channels.
• A general overview: To connect all channels to the same interface and have one overview, to create more operational efficiency.
• Proactive or outbound communication: Ability to schedule and send out messages across all channels.
• Segmentation: To segment audiences and create specific journeys for each segment, with personalised messages.

Over the past decades, there has been a distinctive shift in guest communications. First, from a single-channel approach to a multi-channel approach, and then to an omnichannel approach.

While the multi-channel approach is focused on the product, the omnichannel puts the customer at the centre. This means its biggest benefit is the ability to create a better customer experience, which at the same time leads to higher guest satisfaction and a revenue increase for your hotel.