10 graphs that show why your hotel website should have a chat widget
A website is the most important lead generator, reservation channel, marketing platform and revenue manager available to hoteliers. But having a reservation form and a handful of property descriptions and photographs is no longer enough! Your guests crave immediate information and interactivity, they want to talk, ask questions and have a solution to their problems — everything in a jiffy.
Wondering: How can I keep up with this fast pace and high demands? A chat widget on your website is the answer! It can turn a plain webpage into something quite impressive for users!
Let me explain to you why with data:
1. 80% prefer to talk to you through a chat on your website
When having a query or just wanting to find more about a certain issue, the majority of guests prefer to ask directly on your website. Make sure have a chat there!
2. Having a social presence on your website helps consumers trust your brand
Being contactable, accessible, responsive and eager to solve consumers’ problems on your website is key. In fact, it is the most important factor for guests to trust your brand.
3. The importance of multi-channel customer care is growing
Today, hotels interact with guests across multiple platforms from social media to offline channels. Notwithstanding, guests expect communication to remain consistent between them as they get very frustrated to repeat the same query over and over again to multiple agents. The challenge for hotels is to ensure consistent omnichannel customer support.
4. Having self-service tools on your website will differentiate you from the competition!
When looking for information, the majority of people (83%) will look for it on your website. Yet, during this process, some doubts may arise and 51% of users prefer to have the option to fix these issues by themselves. Consequently, companies ought to ensure that customers are able to find the answer to their questions using an array of self-service options such as a widget or a chatbot.
5. When communicating with your hotel, guests value the ease of experience and speed
The majority of consumers say that besides reaching their desired outcome, the ease of the experience (48%) and speed (44%) is really valuable for their overall customer care experience.
6. Customers are willing to pay more for a better customer care experience
Do you know that by providing a good customer experience, your guests are willing to pay more? In fact, 86% state that! While 73% say that customer care is one of the key factors they consider when making a purchase decision. No wonder why, by 2020, customer care will overtake price and product offerings as the main brand differentiator!
7. People feel that it should be easier to ask questions and make requests
Around 80% of the guests think that hotels need to enhance their communication channels in order to be more accessible to ask queries and make requests.
8. The average response time is 12 hours while guests are willing to wait only 1 hour…
Due to social media, guests are willing to less wait time for a response from your customer care team. If you are not able to provide an answer within 1 hour, they will probably go to a competitor that can provide a better customer care service.
9. The majority of Hotel managers feel that customer care should be improved
Excellent customer care is one of the keys to success in any business but is exceptionally important in the hotel industry. Most hoteliers feel that this area should be improved (41%). From chatbots to website widgets, it is easier than ever to enhance customer care!
10. 78% of hotel direct bookings are abandoned
Hotels invest thousands of dollars, each month driving traffic to their websites to make sure that guests book directly with them. Yet, it seems that all this money is being spent for nothing. Several reasons can explain why the abandonment rates are so high being one of them the lack of a chat widget on their website to immediately clarify the guests' doubts and incentivize the reservation.
NB: This is a viewpoint by Mariana Marques from HiJiffy. HiJiffy brings chat to the hospitality industry, enabling guests to effectively connect with Hotels through instant messaging apps.
