subject: No Vacancy: How to Keep your Hotel on Top with Merchant Services [print this page] No Vacancy: How to Keep your Hotel on Top with Merchant Services
The hospitality industry is extremely competitive. In most cases, even the slightest difference in service or amenities can determine whether you get a booking or lose it to your rival. Many of these factors can be controlled - like utilizing your credit card processing systems to maximize your guests' convenience.
Here are some scenarios which can be prevented if your hotel has a reliable full-service merchant services account.
A guest calls your hotel and wants to book accommodations, and is willing to give his or her credit card number to you in order to reserve a room. But your hotel is only first come, first serve and is not set up for credit card reservations. So the guest hangs up, dials your competitor, and books a room there instead.
Solution: Connect your front desk system with your reservations database. Then guests can reserve their rooms with a credit card number, which is then held on file and is available for payment when they check in.A busy secretary is trying to plan her boss's business trip. She sees your hotel online on a corporate travel website and is impressed. But before she tries to book a room, she realizes that she cannot do so without dropping what she is doing and picking up the phone. But there's another hotel on the site that accepts online reservations, so the secretary clicks the mouse a few times, types in a credit card number, and arranges accommodations in less than a minute.
Solution: Set up your merchant services account so that it can accept credit card reservations online. In today's fast-paced world, even the idea of a minute or two delay might be the difference in filling a room or losing business to a competitor.A man is ready to check out of your hotel. But because he ordered a pay-per-view movie and drank a couple of beers from the minibar, there are extra charges added to his bill. So instead of a smooth checkout, he must wait an extra five minutes while the clerk calculates the additional charges and adds them on to the original bill. As a result, the man is late for his business meeting, so he vows never to stay at your hotel again.
Solution: Allow your guests to pay for their rooms in advance with their credit card. This eliminates the need to stop by the front desk on the way out - and also gives you a way to add amenity charges to your guests' bills at a later time.A group of guys is staying at your hotel for several days. They decide to order a few drinks at your hotel bar before dining in the restaurant on the property. But they don't like the hassle of paying for their drinks at the bar, closing out their tab, and then paying for their meals later at their table. The next night, they choose somewhere else to eat and relax.
Solution: Integrate the credit card processing systems of your restaurant and bar so that all charges at either location can be combined into one final bill. Your customers will appreciate the convenience of only having to pull out their wallets once.There is a caf on your property which serves salads and light fare. But because it only accepts cash or charges the meal to the room, diners are forced to tip in cash. This results in a wide disparity in tip revenue for the servers there, and because they cannot correlate good service with big tips, they start to slack off. Your customers begin to notice the decline in service, and the caf's revenues begin sliding.
Solution: Allow your caf to accept credit card payments. This will allow guests to add in a tip onto their credit card slip without having to dig through their wallets or purses for the correct amount of cash.A woman who is in town on business is relaxing at your hotel's outdoor pool after an important meeting. The waiter comes by, suggests a cool beverage from the bar and she accepts. But when he brings the drink, she is startled to find that the waiter only accepts cash. So she has to either dig into her tote bag to find cash or charge the drink to her room and then remember to pay for it separately when she checks out (because her company won't pay for alcoholic beverages on business trips). The next time she's in town, she chooses another hotel.
Solution: Give your poolside waiters handheld retail swipe terminals. They can process credit card payments at any location and eliminate the need for cash transactions in inconvenient places.A negative guest experience can have substantial ramifications. Not only will you lose that guest's business, but he or she may discourage their friends, family, and colleagues from booking lodging at your hotel. So you must do whatever you can to prevent that from happening. And if all it takes is a little tweak to your merchant services account, there's no reason to put it off.
