Hotel front desk operations: What are the key functions to focus on?
Hotel front desks aim to ensure a frictionless guest experience throughout the entirety of a stay.
From managing keycards to assisting with requests and managing check-outs, the front desk isn’t only a hub of essential guest-facing processes, it also plays a key role in expressing your brand and engendering customer loyalty.
Its core duties are:
- Managing reservations. This includes managing room numbers, handling changes, and communicating about check-in and check-out times.
- Handling guest requests. Think concierge services such as managing package deliveries, offering recommendations, and actioning unique requests.
- Assisting with room access. Front desks print and hand out keycards, log check-ins, and manage luggage.
How can you improve hotel front desk operations?
With 87% of hotels reporting staffing shortages in the last quarter of 2022, the need to optimize front desk operations has never been clearer. Efficient and scalable processes reduce your dependence on staff and allow you to improve working conditions for a leaner, more effective team.
When your front desk doesn’t have long lines of increasingly frustrated guests to deal with, it can focus on high-value tasks and be more responsive to issues as they arise.
Here are some key ways you can improve front desk operations and provide a better service to your guests.
1. Prioritize the guest while minimizing guest interactions
When we spoke about how to prioritize at the front desk with hotel operations and front office manager, Rut Morales Archs, she highlighted the complexity of the task:
“First would be the guest that’s at the front desk. But you also have to combine that with the guest on the phone, and also oversee the requests by email. But the guest in reception is your priority. It’s not that easy.”
And of course, it’s not—which is why you need a way to minimize the number of guests at the front desk, on the phone, and making requests by email.
You can do this with a guest experience platform. An effective guest experience platform gives your guest all the information they need so they never have to line at the front desk for assistance. You can use it to provide digital support by virtue of a remote team, and to automate essential processes like check-in and ID verification, which we look at more, below.
But the key value proposition of a guest experience platform is to make your guests autonomous, and reduce the need for your front desk to provide face-to-face guest service. That way, when guests do need in-person help, your front desk team can provide the meaningful, attentive service your guests rightly expect.
Further, with a digital solution to guest care in place, you won’t need to operate a 24/7 front desk. You can optimize your staff, and give your teams the breathing space they need to become less reactive and more productive in their roles.
