Hey all! I’m a founder working on a guest-experience concept for hotels, and before I build anything further I want to sanity-check it with people actually running properties.
I’m trying to understand:
What guest questions or requests consistently pull staff away from higher-value work
Where phones, walk-ups, or repeated questions create bottlenecks
What problems show up every day but don’t really improve the guest experience
If you’re willing, I’d really appreciate comments on:
The biggest operational pain points related to guest interactions
Things your staff spends time on that you wish were easier or handled differently
Where you feel the most pressure during peak hours or understaffed shifts
Separately, I’m planning a very limited pilot for a physical, on-site guest interaction tool (not an app, not replacing staff) designed specifically to reduce repetitive guest requests, front-desk load, and would be something radically different. If that’s something you’d be open to exploring, feel free to DM me, happy to share more and offer early access at no cost if it’s a fit.
Not selling anything here but genuinely looking to learn from operators and avoid building the wrong thing.
I’ll share what I learn back with the community.
Questions don’t cause bottlenecks or issues. What causes delays are physical tasks that apps cant help with. It literally takes me thirty seconds to answer a quick question and I would rather do that myself. Can you design a tool to run up nine flights and install last minute rollaway beds because I’m on the evening shift and Housekeeping have left for the day? Can you create an app to count the cash floats and balance the EFTPOS transactions across our accomodation, restaurants and function spaces for me? Can you offer a pilot program that will fix the air conditioning units when it’s the heat of summer, the maintenance manager has left and we are at 99% occupancy so can’t offer room moves?
As someone with experience in both being a hotel manager and with customer experience/journey mapping, I can tell you that the most impactful thing we can do is directly interact with guests as human beings.
When I look at our reviews, the most positive reviews are regarding human interaction with staff. THAT is what makes the biggest impact. THAT is the higher value work.
The last thing that our guests want is to interact with a tool rather than a person.
It is abundantly clear that you don’t understand the work, the problems or the industry- we don’t need your tool to answer questions, answering questions is literally the easiest and quickest part of our day.
"I can tell you that the most impactful thing we can do is directly interact with guests as human beings." <- this. Hospitality is all about caring for guests. I do wish we had a third hand that could take care of the small immediate maintenence needs as you mentioned :)
The questions I hear over and over we try to eliminate by offering multiple places guests can get the answer. "What's the wifi password", "where is the ice machine", "what time is check out", etc. Those questions take very little time to answer, but, for guests convenience, we have put the answer in several places in the room. It has taken care of 95% of those repeated questions. The other 5% i sometimes think a guest just wants to talk to someone :)
Same! We have the Wifi password on the room card holder and we address most of the common questions in our check in spiel. We have information guides and room service menus on the tvs in the rooms- they can click through there and find everything they need. Easy.
If a guest calls or pops down to the desk, it’s because they want to speak with someone. As you said, sometimes they just want to chat. I call my team professional yappers 🤣
But all of what I love about the role is that human interaction. It’s what allows us to make their stay special. Someone asks for restaurant recommendations and you find out it’s their birthday so you pop chocolates and a card on their pillow. Someone asks for extra towels and you find out they’ve been at their Mum’s funeral so you offer to make them a hot chocolate and ask about what kind of person she was. I actively encourage my team to do this and they’re incentivised to do so, we reward our people for going above and beyond for guests.
I work in Australia and this past week, our area has been hit by severe bushfires. We’ve dealt with people evacuating from fires and at risk of losing their homes, panicked phone calls and families just showing up at the desk with their lives in plastic bags. 100% occupancy, all hands on deck, literally running through the halls in heels to take people the things they need. We’ve laughed with people, cried with people, and used every question as an opportunity to show them that we actually care. Not as employee to guest, as person to person. We see you, we are here for you, we want to help you.
It made me really fall back in love with what we do.
If you try to replace that with a “guest interaction tool” you’re making the guest experience, the role and the jndustry significantly worse. I understand that people want to earn a living and start businesses but this isn’t it.
This subreddit get's one of these vibecoding sales pitches every few weeks, I've found it kind of fun to shoot them down, but props to you sir for this very well laid out response.
Sir is a lady but the lady isn’t offended 🤣
I know, I really wish they’d stop spamming all of the industry threads but I enjoy taking the opportunity to let them know that their idea is terrible and not needed!
Thanks for sharing. You’re right, I don’t understand the industry, which is why I asked in this post and made some assumption. But, I’m genuinely appreciative of the information 🙏 it really helps!
A lot of the times, guests that eat up staff time won’t read anything, and act impressively helpless. I don’t think there’s an app for folks who can’t help themselves.
Requests for answers the operator has said they don’t know the answer to. I’ve heard operators repeatedly say the person on the phone has to speak with someone in accounting or sales but they won’t be in until Monday. They refuse to just say, “let me connect you with their voicemail”. They instead say, “Is the anything else I may assist you with?” The person on the phone just starts over. It’s stupid.