PARSIPPANY, NJ – September 28, 2016 Lodging Interactive, the leading digital marketing and social media engagement agency exclusively serving the hospitality industry, puts out its top 5 tips for hotel Live Chat Best Practices.

While the traveler begins to explore the endless possibilities for that perfect hotel stay, they will search sites that have the most appealing visuals and the easiest, quickest responses to their questions. This initial emotional connection becomes the hotel’s opportunity to tap into the traveler’s journey and ‘wow’ that prospective guest into choosing your hotel. With the right approach and tools, hotels could start building relationships that turn into satisfied guests who will give repeat business – Here enters website live chat.

The live chat agent could be one of the first contacts a prospective guest will have with your hotel. So a hotel would want to ensure that they have a warm, friendly approach and provide informative, clear and accurate information. To the prospective guest, the experience should feel like they are asking advice or information from a trusted friend. Live chat ‘friends’ would be there to guide them and gently push them along toward clicking on that book now button.

So you have the right tool with live chat on your website. Now you need to make it all about the guest experience. The key is to treat visitors as people – show your human side. To provide the best customer experience, live chat agents should:

  1. Own the conversation: Be truly helpful. Ask precise but simple questions that leave nothing to interpretation. Build trust and credibility with the customer using warm language that is tone of voice in chat, avoiding sarcasm and opinions. Ensure people they are in capable and friendly hands.
  2. Be pleasant & empathetic: Put yourself in the requestor’s shoes. Your tone will carry through the written conversation so be respectful. Never leave a question unanswered. Leave your attitude at the door. The whole point is to make the person contacting you feel they can trust you. Be polite and show you value the guest.
  3. Communicate professionally: The very nature of live chat is written communication. So be clear. Dot your “i”s and cross your “t”s. Avoid typos. Use proper grammar, punctuation and spelling. Write complete sentences. No colloquial jargon or acronyms as not everyone would be familiar with them.
  4. Answer quickly and concisely: Being there the moment someone reaches out is the natural promise of live chat. It’s the immediacy of help or direction that catches the requestor’s attention. So keep their attention by promptly responding to every message. No stalling or fumbling for words as you not only risk having the person leave the chat but your hotel would lose the opportunity for guest satisfaction.
  5. Show you are an expert: Agents needs to be well trained and have a good knowledge base. You need to be sure what you are saying when sharing information and providing website guidance to visitors. It’ the best way to win over the visitor’s confidence and have them come back again and again.

Once these basics are set, your hotel is on its way to providing guests with the wow factor. Chats that leave the prospective guest feeling happy create a positive experience they will not forget and will want to share with others – they become your ideal hotel ambassadors. Have you added live chat to your customer service strategy?

Our agency provides CoMMingle Live, a fully managed live chat service, exclusively for hotels and resorts. Our live chat agents are full trained to effectively represent your property and all are employed directly by us and are US based; no outsourcing to third-world countries.

For more information, please visit www.LiveChatForHotels.com