Mobile Self Service, Marketing and SMS Tools for Hospitality

When considering Mobile Service, Marketing and SMS tools for your business determining what your needs are is key to choosing the tool(s) you should select. There are basically three tiers of use (basic/standard/premium):


MSGNOW (basic) - Message Now uses tools simply to coordinate groups of people, provide updates, or send emergency notifications. With this option you would not maintain any Customer contact information.


PUBLISHPLUS (standard) - Has the same tools as Message Now but also has Mobile websites, contact capture pages, campaign management, and promotion tools.


SERVICENOW (premium) - This more advanced service has all the features of MSGNOW and PUBLISHPLUS, but also may have full services such as mobile self check-in/out, loyalty programs, campaign marketing, mobile bill payment, guest room access, hospitality system interface capability and hotel alerting (i.e. when a guest checks-in remotely hotel staff are notified that the Guest is on his/her way).

MSGNOW examples:

A restaurant that wants to advertise their specials daily/weekly/monthly/immediately and gives a keyword to the customer to text to. The customer subscribes and receives updates when the restaurant wants to update all customers. Customers can opt out whenever they want. Great loyalty builder and keeps the customer thinking about the brand.

A hotel could setup a keyword (groupname/qname) and issue it to the Meeting Planner/Coordinator who would then issue to all the attendees. The attendees would subscribe while at the meeting and would receive updates from the Meeting Planner. What an easy way to communicate a short message to all attendees rather than send an email or have to call all the attendees. The hotel could charge a fee for this service.

A hotel could use this as an emergency notification service in case of emergency, bad weather, etc. to notify all employees.

One of the best options for the above examples is TextMarks . A simple very cost effective solution. Works for only US carriers at this time though, but there is no cost for the free service but messages are limited to 120 characters
and you will have to put up with a Textmarks ad.

Send a textmsg to 41411 with the keyword "BITSONTECH" for a sample message (US only).


PUBLISHPLUS examples:

A convention exhibitor wants to send updates to attendees while they are on the floor with special offers or party location information (hello Hitec Exhibitors). Exhibitors could include the keyword in their pre-convention email and keep in contact with attendees before during and after the convention. A well done mobile site can keep attendees coming back for more information. Exhibitors now have a more significant database of information as they have the mobile phone contact!

A hotel could use this information as a lite version of Passkey (without the reservations option) where websites can be created for the Group so attendees can be updated with pertinent information. There could be a service fee associated for Groups.

One such PUBLISHPLUS type service is Everywhereigo. While it has a free module, the most effective use is the basic or pro editions.

Send a textmsg to 77950 with the keyword "mac08 schedule" for a sample message (US only).


SERVICENOW examples:

A hotel can offer mobile self check-in/out to alleviate lines in larger hotels and potentially reallocate staff.

A hotel can offer a branded mobile portal for their Guests that can be used before, during and after their stay. By adding portal tools that would consolidate their travel plans, flight status (that notifies them via SMS if anything changes on their flight, why place the big screens in lobbies when you can offer it on a mobile and get the key Guest touchpoint), reservation information, things to do in the hotel, things to do while visiting the city, service partners, etc. to drive incremental revenue.

A hotel can send notifications, promotions and coupons to Guests who are members of Spa's, Health Club, like particular wines, holiday dining notifications, etc.

Several such services are Fonekey and Skigee .


Another SMS based service of note is:

ReadyPing is an easy-to-use, cost-effective, text message notification service utilizing hardware that restaurants and consumers already have: computers with Internet access and mobile phones. The fact that people always have their phones with them is a key reason for businesses to capitalize on the mobile medium for a variety of consumer services. Furthermore, there is no reason for a restaurant or any other business to invest in a pager system when customers already have a paging device in their pocket.

The host simply enters their name, party size and mobile phone number. The system adds names to the Waiting List in the order they are entered and tracks how long they have been waiting. When a customers table is ready, the host clicks a button next to their name and a text message is instantly sent to their mobile phone letting them know the host is waiting to seat them. This allows customers to roam wherever they wish (inside or outside the restaurant) until their table is ready.

Contact The BITS Group to see how we can assist you with your Mobile Services strategy.
Read more ...

Internet Video on the TV is now available to Hospitality

Consumption of Internet (Streaming) Video is growing exponentially.



Click here for more information about VuNow Read more ...