Consider how much work at your hotel centers around room keys alone. Keyless room access technology not only greatly reduces inconvenience for your guests, but it also lessens work at your front desk. And that could mean savings on staffing dollars. Here’s why:
New guests can bypass the front desk entirely
When you offer guests mobile key technology, like OpenKey, they’re able to arrive at your hotel with room keys in hand – on their mobile phones. Combine that with web check-in, and they don’t have to stop by the front desk at all. It’s convenience for them and less workload for your staff. Check-in kiosks can take the place of mobile check-in and provide the same benefit. But even without any kind of prior checking-in, eliminating the handling of room keys saves work for your front desk staff and moves guests through the check-in line faster.
No need to issue or collect physical keys
By the time a guest receives a physical key, work has already been done to program and prepare the card for the guest. Mobile keys eliminate that along with any effort for collecting and restocking discarded keycards from guests, rooms, and elsewhere on your property.
Save time dealing with keycard failure
When magstripe keycards or RFID cards stop working, they obviously create a problem for the front desk. As many as 15% to 20% of magstripe keycards demagnetize or have other issues – that means your front desk team could have to reprogram one in five of the cards they issue. With keyless access, you remove that nuisance from your guests and your staff.
No lost time from lost keys
Guests often lose or accidentally demagnetize their key cards, issues that don’t exist when the room key is securely on their smartphone. With their mobile keys always at hand, your guests– as well as your front desk staff – don’t have to worry about or hassle with replacing lost keys.
Spend less time on check-out
The increasing frequency of advance payments by guests is already reducing their need to stop by the front desk. With keyless access, there’s even less reason for guests to stop by the front desk to check-out as they have no physical key to turn in. This keeps guests out of the front desk queue and gives staff time to focus on more customer service oriented tasks.
Increase margins by lowering payroll
The reduction in front-desk traffic afforded by mobile keys can also mean lowered overhead in staffing. You could potentially reduce your staff count at the front desk or flexibly redeploy those employees to areas of greater need when it arises elsewhere in your hotel.
Fewer guest complaints
It’s understandable when guests get frustrated or angry when they get all the way to their rooms, try multiple times to gain access, then have to go back to the front desk because of a faulty keycard. It’s also time-consuming and very unpleasant for your staff to have to defuse the situation for these unhappy guests which leads to a great deal of dissatisfaction from front desk agents about their job.
It’s doubtful that any technological advancement has brought as much convenience to our lives as smartphones have. Now that companies such as OpenKey have moved hotel room keys securely to mobile devices, they not only make life easier for guests but hotel operators, too, who get the added benefit of significant operational savings and staff convenience.
