The right business tools in hospitality industry can completely change your business model. That’s why it’s so important to keep up to date with the technology, tools, methods and strategies that are evolving in today’s industry. You want to be sure that you have the best hospitality management software to give you the competitive edge in your market. Our blog will talk about various issues relating to business tools in hospitality industry. Business tools are now indispensable for all kinds of business. So, hospitality industry is not an exception. The need to have a good business plan has always been huge and when using the right business tools, the results will be better. Production software can help you manage your customer requests and bookings. Software like Booking Engine will eliminate your headaches as a travel agency or hotel by streamlining and automating your booking process. How? With its automated online booking, email confirmations and reminders, ability to track bookings, standard reports and customer support it provides.
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ERP Software
Today’s restaurant managers are faced with many demands. They must meet the needs, wants, and requirements of their customers. They must also meet the needs of their workforce and business owners. At the same time, restaurant managers need to manage sales, inventory, purchasing, and human resources. An enterprise resource planning system (ERP) refers to a suite of software applications that organizations use to manage day-to-day business activities, including accounting, project management, workforce management, and supply chain. ERP can help restaurant managers efficiently handle each of these vital functions that ensure the restaurant performs at its full capacity. Some ERP solutions are even able to leverage real-time information. This allows restaurant managers to consistently review critical business information and reports. For example, managing inventory is a critical activity for restaurant managers. It helps them plan their menu, track food usage, determine the cost of goods, and reduce waste. When they use an ERP system to record inventory, restaurant managers can simultaneously compare their information with financial data, purchase orders, billing schedules and other analytics. ERP systems house this information in one central platform. Restaurant managers constantly have updated and accurate data at their fingertips. This allows them to make data-driven decisions, and confidently report on this information to the relevant stakeholders.
AI Chatbots
Given that customer retention and loyalty is at the core of any service-based business, it’s paramount for restaurants to fulfill and exceed expectations when it comes to guest service. In the hospitality industry, whether guests are ordering food, making reservations, or getting recommendations, it can be difficult for staff to meet everyone’s standards consistently. Unfortunately, this can result in a negative brand image for the business. By using chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI), restaurant staff can keep up with the many demands of their customers. With chatbots, customers no longer need to call to reserve a table, wait for staff to attend to them, or wait in line for tables to free up. Chatbots can be programmed to carry out a myriad of tasks including answering FAQs, making a reservation, ordering food, or processing payments. The use cases for chatbots in restaurants rely on the kind of experience a restaurant wants to offer its visitors. Chatbots offer helpful, friendly, and timely service. This keeps customers happy and excited to return to the restaurant. The integration of artificial intelligence into chatbots has made them a force to be reckoned with. What used to be a fringe technology is now a critical aspect in modern software development. The creation of effective, engaging chatbots means business can work more efficiently and customers can expect more seamless service. Many hotels have already implemented chatbots into their operations. Those that use chatbots have noticed immense benefits, including increases in direct bookings, streamlined check-in/check-out services, and 24-hour reception.
AI Chatbots are the future of business.
Chatbots are one of the most exciting new developments in the world of technology, and they’re also one of the most useful. With AI chatbots, you can talk to your customers 24/7—and that means a lot more convenience and a lot less human error.
For example, if you’re a small business owner who runs a restaurant and wants to offer catering services for weddings and other events, your customers will probably have questions about how much food costs, what time the caterer will arrive at their event location, etc. A traditional customer support person would have to handle these inquiries via email or phone call—which means that you’d have to hire someone specifically for this purpose (and pay them). But with an AI chatbot? You can automate all those responses, letting your customers get answers from your bot instead of from an actual human being.
That way, when someone asks about pricing information or delivery times for their event’s location, they’ll just type their question into the chat window on your website instead of calling or emailing—and then they’ll get an immediate response from your bot without having to wait around for something like “I’ll get back to
Social Listening Tools
The number of social media conversations happening at any given moment is massive and increasing every day. It’s estimated there are over 3 billion social media users today. Many of these users are offering up their thoughts and opinions to their online followers. Social listening is a crucial tactic for brands in today’s digital society, especially for those in the hospitality industry. Social listening is the process of monitoring digital conversations to understand what customers are saying about a brand and industry. It enables brands to assess customer sentiment, gather feedback, and understand what their customers are interested in. Brandwatch reports the restaurant, food, and beverage industry accounts for about 32 percent of brand mentions. That’s why it’s important for organizations in the hospitality industry to partake in social listening. Luckily, there are a number of social listening tools today’s hospitality businesses can turn to in order to watch their brand mentions on social media. Word of mouth online is one of the most valuable and effective types of messaging in the hospitality industry. The messages come from real people, rather than directly from the restaurant. Through social listening, brands can make more informed business decisions based on the insights and feedback of their customers.
Social Listening Tools are a great way to gauge how the public feels about a certain topic or brand. By monitoring social media channels and news sources, you can get an idea of what people are saying about your company and its products.
A lot of these tools have alerts that tell you when something is being said about your company or brand, which allows you to respond quickly if necessary. Some of them even let you search for specific keywords, so if there’s something going on in the world that might affect your business (like a natural disaster), you can keep track of it without having to spend all day scouring the internet.
Automation
Automation is growing in popularity across many industries. The hospitality industry is no exception. Hospitality Technology’s research reveals robots are a growing area of interest for hotels and restaurants. According to the 2018 Lodging and Restaurant Technology Studies, 25 percent of hotels named robotics a top emerging technology and 33 percent of restaurants believe robots will make an impact on foodservice. For example, California-based CaliBurger partnered with Miso Robotics to debut Flippy, the world’s first autonomous robotic kitchen assistant. Flippy serves 300 burgers a day, improving consistency and speed-to-service at the restaurant.
Credit: Miso Robotics Although your business doesn’t need to jump directly into the use of robots, there are many automation solutions available that are seamless to integrate and simplify a restaurant or hotel manager’s daily work. The use of automation helps organizations cut down on repetitive tasks that otherwise can be overly time-consuming. Overall, this allows them to become more productive in their processes. One way in which hospitality businesses can use this technology is through email automation. Restaurants and hotels regularly send emails to boost customer loyalty, offer coupons or promotions, or even gather customer feedback. Finding a tool that can automate email marketing campaigns makes it much easier for marketing teams to efficiently send those emails. With the help of email automation, they can use their time for high-level tasks, like brainstorming new ways to connect with their customers. Over the years, technology has become the key ingredient for success in the modern hospitality industry. Customers continue to expect and prefer streamlined services that cater to their many preferences. For this reason, it will become more important for hospitality businesses to adopt technologies that not only create ideal customer experiences but also keep their businesses running smoothly.
7Shifts
Organizing your team’s roster can often be challenging, particularly when your staff don’t work regular hours. The clever thing with 7Shifts is that their cloud platform allows you to auto-schedule your staff based on their availability and create custom templates to suit your business, making it easy to coordinate your team. To take it one step further, you can also use their platform to manage sales and labor costs.
Sidekicker
Finding qualified seasonal staff is a common problem in the hospitality industry, where you may just need temporary staff for a one-off event, or a short contracted period. Sidekicker is an on-demand staffing platform that helps resolve this issue. Their database has over 11,000 experienced staff in hospitality, promotions, events, business administration, and retail. Staff profiles are detailed, rated and reviewed so that employers can easily find the right people for the job.
Typsy
Learning and upskilling should always be a priority for every hospitality professional, particularly as the industry faces a skills shortage. Typsy’s online learning platform offers hospitality businesses, staff, and schools the ability to assign professional hospitality courses and lessons with their 350+ video library. Users can learn essential industry skills in areas of culinary, beverage, service, marketing, and business. Courses are led by world leading hospitality professionals, including champion baristas, restaurant consultants, restaurateurs, and chefs
ScreenCloud (Digital menu app)
Digital menu signs are beneficial for restaurants with certain concepts. Of course, you probably wouldn’t consider using them in a fine dining establishment, but they work really well in a fast-casual setting. Digital signage is not only aesthetically pleasing, it makes it easy to update information on menu items, discounts, and more.
With ScreenCloud’s menu feature, users can easily create, edit and customize digital menus in real time and manage it remotely for in-store display. Their software is also compatible with plenty of devices, meaning it can be displayed nicely across most screens within venues.
ScreenCloud is a digital menu app that works on your phone and tablet to provide you with a quick and easy way to view the menu of your favorite restaurant. It’s also great for restaurants who want to offer customers a digital menu without having to print paper copies.
ScreenCloud has been designed with both customers and restaurants in mind, so it’s simple to use and convenient for everyone. The app displays all the information you need about the food you’re ordering in an easy-to-read format, meaning you won’t have to squint at your phone or try and read those tiny font sizes on most other apps.
Using ScreenCloud also means that restaurants can save money on printing costs because they don’t need physical menus anymore!
Conclusion
World is changing rapidly. And as a result, hotels need to adapt as well. In order to keep up with all those changes, hotels have stated implementing new business tools that have been made possible by new technologies, among those being Cloud computing and the Internet of Things. These hotel business tools provide a range of services for a hotel including accounting, inventory tracking, so on and so forth. To be able to use these business tools efficiently, a person needs to have a clear understanding of them first. For successful implementation of business tools in hospitality industry , one needs to understand what they are.