Customer Care Superheroes in the hospitality industry
Interview Series with Sofia Freire
On this week’s post, we talked to Sofia Freire, a Sales and Marketing Director at Zmar — a Portuguese hotel at Zambujeira do Mar. This interview is part of the Customer Care Superheroes series brought to you by HiJiffy.
Our previous interview:
Customer Care superheroes in the hospitality industry — A interview series with Marcio Bastos
About Sofia
Sofia took a Visual Design course at IADE and in 2007, entered the hotel sector. She enjoys reading, practising sports and going to the beach. During her free time, she likes to draw and paint, although there is little time to do it since Sofia privileges all the free time she has to be with her family. When it comes to movies, she likes slushy ones but can’t elect a favourite. Though, French cinema keeps a special place in her heart!
About Zmar Eco Experience
Located within the Southwest Alentejo and Vicentine Coast Natural Park, this sustainable eco-resort offers wooden accommodation with solar energy in an area of outstanding natural beauty. The buildings and their furniture were constructed with recycled and renewable materials. Zmar is 13 km from the beaches of Zambujeira do Mar and 80 minutes’ drive from Portimão, Algarve.
We asked Sofia about customer care in the hospitality industry, modern-day guests’ expectations and Artificial Intelligence. Here are her answers for this week’s customer care superheroes interview series:
1. Can you explain some of the daily tasks of a Sales & Marketing Director?
My daily work consists of the coordination of the teams I work with: marketing, sales and the sales department. I manage the daily sales and sales forecast, supervise the execution of the marketing plan and give support to several departments.
2. Can you describe some of your daily frustrations and challenges?
The challenges are the big financial objective that the company has, customers’ satisfaction and communication, meaning that we need to be always innovating in order to surprise our target audience. Zmar is a complex and avant-garde project so, it’s not always easy to communicate and explain. It is necessary to go there and live the experience in order to understand it.
The challenges are the big financial objective that the company has, customers’ satisfaction and communication, meaning that we need to be always innovating in order to surprise our audience
3. Why did Zmar choose HiJiffy? What problem were you trying to solve?
At the time, the need arose because we only had 1 person in a 40-hour schedule doing all the customer management, which is humanly impossible since the requests are 24/7 and we did not want to leave customers unanswered! HiJiffy was the platform that presented us with the solution to our problem.
4. Customer care in the hospitality industry is a chaos. Do you agree? Why/Why not?
At Zmar, we try not to be! Our customer care is quite well organized and we are congratulated for the work done. Regarding my own personal experience as a guest of other hotel units, the idea that I have is that customer care is the order of the day. I don’t think there is chaos if you try to solve the problem.
5. What is the biggest advantage of having a customer care chatbot?
The advantages of having a chatbot are many! But if I have to choose one, I must say the ability bots have to don’t leave unanswered queries. With a virtual assistant, we are able to give a real-time response to our guests.
6. Nowadays, one of the words that describe guests is impatience! Is AI an answer and a solution to this?
Yes, definitely! Guests want answers, as long as they know that is an automated assistant to respond, they are satisfied! In case they feel the need to talk to an operator, they also know it’s possible and that we will answer to them as soon as possible.
Guests want answers, as long as they know that is an automated assistant to respond, they are satisfied!
7. In hospitality, intangible products such as (customer care and experiences) are more important than tangible products (the room). In your opinion, how do hotels have made the guests’ experience more personalised?
Yes, undoubtedly! The only common denominator in the hospitality industry is the sale of more or less sophisticated rooms. Consequently, it’s the experience and concept of the hotel what will distinguish the product and make the guest repeat the stay. The experience begins before the stay, in the first contact that the guest has with the hotel’s digital properties and, here again, is innovation that will stand out!
Is the experience and concept of the hotel what will distinguish the product and make the guest repeat the stay. The experience begins before the stay, in the first contact that the guest has with the hotel’s digital properties and, here again, is innovation that will stand out!
8. Hotels still tend to devalue social media as a customer support channel. What problems does this bring?
Zmar has bet on social media since day 1, even at a time when the public was not yet so dependent on them. Nowadays, it is unthinkable to not exist on social media! Millennials are a generation that is deeply impacted by social media and it has become their preferred way of communicating with a hotel.
Nowadays, it is unthinkable to not exist on social media! Millennials are a generation that is deeply impacted by social media and it has become their preferred way of communicating with a hotel.
9. Will the future of customer care be omnichannel or multi-channel? Why?
The future is, clearly, omnichannel! The synergy between channels is vital, in order to, guarantee and standardize the same experience to every guest in whichever channel or platform they choose.
The synergy between channels is vital, in order to, guarantee and standardize the same experience to every guest in whichever channel or platform they choose.
NB: HiJiffy brings chat to the hospitality and travel industry, enabling customers to effectively connect with you through instant messaging apps.
