Most hotels on legacy systems – be they messaging apps, walkie-talkies, or note-taking via pen-and-paper – understand that they need to upgrade to AI-powered products. They are reluctant to do so for fear of switchover costs: Changing from their current system to a much better one will entail at least short-term challenges.
However, businesses must get accustomed to the new solution. Some workflows may even be transformed entirely by AI: For example, instead of reading through a meeting transcript verbatim, employees can simply read the summary auto-generated by the AI software.
Technological and cultural changes like these are no easy feat. To simplify this process, we have outlined what hotels should do to maximize their use of AI-powered products, leveraging our perspective in helping enterprises succeed with Aiello Voice Assistant (AVA), TMS Pro and Vocol.ai.
Following these steps will ensure a smooth transition to any AI solution, and most importantly, a rapid time to value.
Provide market education
Just because a hotel leadership decided to buy into an AI solution like AVA, TMS Pro, or Vocol.ai does not automatically mean employees will also automatically fall in line. As with any new solution, hotel leaders and managers must provide market education on the benefits of adopting the solution to employees.
Given that 10 percent of HR leaders estimate that half of all attrition is due to employee burnout, hotel leaders should focus on the productivity benefits of the respective solution. For example, TMS Pro centralizes task management to a single platform, sparing employees of the manual work that they would have to normally perform with legacy systems.
Hotel leaders must convey these productivity benefits in a variety of mediums, including everything from training workshops to emails. These communications would emphasize that employees no longer need to send ad hoc updates about a task. This function is obviated by the fact that the relevant team members can see what stage a task is in, making this kind of tedious communication redundant.
Providing this kind of market education ensures that a greater percentage of staff will buy-in to your AI solution, increasing its effectiveness.
Retrain employees to maximize the functions of the product
Because employees may have worked with a legacy system for so long, they may tend to work in the same manner even when using new AI solutions. For example, a hotel worker accustomed to pen-and-paper for task management may write an entire paragraph to describe the location of a water spill. They could have saved time by simply taking a photo of the spill in question, a function available in TMS Pro that some may be unaware of.
The hotel must showcase all the tools that employees have available to them within an AI solution, so that they can optimize their productivity. For example, one manager may still verbally remind an employee that he will be assigning him for conference preparation the following Saturday. Instead of these verbal instructions, which can be easily forgotten and leave no paper trail, the manager could schedule the task for a future date, another feature in TMS Pro that is useful for task management.
Hotel leaders must provide instruction to the nuances of an AI solution, so that they can not only use the product, but maximize its use.
Conduct a public data analysis
When switching to a new AI solution, hotel leaders and managers will have an abundance of new data related to the performance of departments and employees. Many organizations may make the mistake of punishing employees with this data without ever informing them on how they are being measured. For example, a manager may dismiss an employee for under-performance in relation to a metric they were never introduced to.
Instead of taking this approach, which may affect morale among the entire workforce, hotel leaders must educate employees on how they are being measured. This goal can be accomplished through a company-wide data analysis done at a town hall, or a more intimate evaluation on a team-wide or one-on-one basis. The configuration is ultimately immaterial: What matters is that employees understand how they are being evaluated.
For example, there are many possible metrics on Vocol.ai. Hotel leaders can track overall data usage to see who the heaviest users of the software are, and conversely, who has yet to fully buy into its use. Leadership can even do a more granular analysis by examining who gives the most and least comments on internal meeting notes, which may be useful for feedback-driven hotel functions like marketing and customer service.
With this knowledge, most employees will work harder, knowing that there is now unprecedented transparency into their work performance.
Provide knowledge base
Switching over to AI solutions does not only involve employees. Hotels must also optimize how these solutions provide value to guests, or they will be stuck with the same inconveniences, undermining the entire transition.
In the case of a guest-facing device like Aiello Voice Assistant, hotels must also focus on its integration, as the device can serve as an information clearinghouse and service hub for guests. More specifically, they may need to provide a customized knowledge base so that guest queries can yield timely and relevant answers.
This way, when a guest verbally poses a query unique to a hotel (i.e. when does the gym open?) or its community (i.e. what is the best Chinese restaurant within walking distance?), Aiello Voice Assistant will provide an intelligent, context-sensitive answer. Because guests can in turn self-service most basic queries, employees are now spared of queues for these questions, freeing them to focus on higher-value tasks.
Say goodbye to switchover costs
While switchover costs should indeed be a genuine concern, they mostly stem from a lack of knowledge of how to smoothly transition from one solution to another. This article outlines the step-by-step process on how to change from any legacy system to AI solutions like TMS Pro, AVA, and Vocol.ai, which mitigate the possibility of switchover costs.
Following this guide ensures that employees will buy into their new AI solution, maximize its use, and understand how they are being measured, which will inspire greater productivity. Guests will have access to solutions optimized for them, so that they can get their basic queries and concerns addressed, alleviating employees of this function. In turn, hotels can smoothly transition to AI solutions, which will power them to a more productive, efficient, and data-driven future.
