With a cool, coastal style and unbeatable service, the SAND Lifestyle Hotel knows what today’s traveller needs. So after noticing a gap in their digital communication, the seaside hotel chose Customer Alliance to help build and refine their brand.
In this case study, find out how SAND sent more than 4,800 surveys, boosted their online presence and found exciting new ways to delight their guests.
The challenge: closing the digital gap
Located on the Baltic Sea, SAND Lifestyle Hotel has welcomed holidayers for the past 16 years. From its recycled teak furnishings to the bio wine it serves, SAND’s identity is leisure meets sustainability.
If it sounds like the SAND Lifestyle Hotel is for a younger generation, it is. However, two years ago the hotel’s target audience was missing the
digitalisation common to other hotel experiences—contactless check-in, personalised experiences, and resolving problems digitally without having to go to the front desk.
Additionally, to gain online visibility to even be found by this group, the boutique hotel needed to accrue more reviews to increase its online visibility. Moving beyond its target audience, the SAND Lifestyle Hotel also desired to digitalise in an effort to be greener by removing paper communication.
The SAND Lifestyle hotel decided to grow its digital communication to further build its personalized, eco-friendly lifestyle brand. The coastal hotel partnered with Customer Alliance, a European Voice of the Customer platform.
4 communication challenges:
- Lack of pre-stay information to personalise stay
- Unable to perform contactless check-in
- Brand identity wasn’t clear to potential guests
- Too much paper usage, which wasn’t sustainable
Action: communicate with a VoC platform
Utilising Customer Alliance’s platform, the SAND Lifestyle Hotel updated its guest journey to include a pre-stay survey. Once a guest books a room, they are automatically sent a survey created by the hotel asking them for their check-in information as well as personal preferences.
This allows for contactless check-in as well as opportunities for the hotel to upsell their services such as special breakfasts, massage treatments, and bike rentals. The hotel also uses the platform to inform guests of their sustainable and adult-only identity and provide any additional information.
This proved to be the perfect tool during Covid-19 when rules were ever-changing. Guests would be informed of things like Covid-19 testing rules, when to wear masks, and which services might be different during this time. SAND’s owner, Marion Muller, says:
“Our theme here is, ‘Live again’.”
She said despite the pandemic, the hotel remained busy and attributes much of this to their ability to communicate digitally.
The result: enhanced and sustainable communication
Personalised experiences
With the pre-stay survey, Hotel SANDS was able to offer personalised experiences to their guests and a contactless check-in process. The staff could determine which services and rooms to offer the guests and also exchange important pre-arrival information for excellent expectation management.
In the past 18 months, the hotel has sent out 4,895 pre-stay surveys which have allowed the hotel to win in both efficiency and in the guest experience.
Contactless feedback
Once onsite, guests provided staff with feedback via WiFI or a QR code. They didn’t need to go to the front desk or step out of the room to make a request.
Being able to act on guest feedback in real time meant the staff could resolve issues or fulfil guests’ wishes immediately, resulting in greater
transparency and ultimately, a major increase in guest satisfaction. Ms. Muller says:
“You have to listen to the voice of the guests. They want to tell you something and even if they don’t come back, it’s good to know why. You can get so much information from how we are as a hotel and the guest experience.”
Online reputation growth
After guests have departed, SANDS Hotel sends them a review invitation survey, inviting guests to leave their feedback on major review sites like Google or Booking.com. They’ve collected 4,649 reviews to date, greatly expanding their online presence.
Ms. Muller adds that they can answer reviews quickly and easily via the Customer Alliance platform, showing guests the hotel values their feedback and acts on it.
No hassle GDPR
The hotel also plans to implement an automated newsletter sent to guests a week or two after departure offering them a discount to encourage their return. The hotel doesn’t need to worry about General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) details, as they trust Customer Alliance to ensure they are GDPR-compliant when communicating with their clients.
Eco-friendly communication
In line with its environmentally-conscious stance, the SAND Lifestyle Hotel reduced its paper usage to 0 regarding guest communication. Paperless check-in, paperless surveys, and paperless requests not only proved to be more efficient but 100% more green. This was a major win for the hotel.
In summary, by implementing digital communication with Customer Alliance, the SAND Lifestyle Hotel truly listened to the voice of the guests. In doing so, it achieved an advanced and more sustainable manner of interacting with guests, staying fully booked despite the recent pandemic.
Find out what results you could get with Customer Alliance. Pick a time for a 15-minute chat with one of our hospitality experts.
