Touch Stay, Wishbox and DACK — Using technology to improve communication between you and your customers
Touch Stay, Wishbox and DACK — Using technology to improve communication between you and your customers
By Brynne Adamson and Nathan Gawlik
More and more apps are becoming available on the app store, although we'd like to focus on three apps that could benefit your hospitality business.
"Investment in guest technology is here to stay because it not only delivers efficiencies," Optii Solutions founder Soenke Weiss said, "but it also enables customers to spend less time waiting and more time indulging and enjoying the services."
The three apps we'd like to focus on are DACK, Touch Stay and Wishbox. Each of these apps helps hoteliers and other hospitality business owners to maximize their guests' experience via communication. We're going to summarize what these apps have to offer.
DACK
With DACK, your guests can download a free app that provides check-in information, easy chatting capabilities with you or your employees and control over their room settings or door key.
So if a guest is wondering what's in the area for them to do or want to review how your employees cleaned one of their rooms, they can download the DACK app, find your hospitality business and get the help they need.
"Our program helps guests with post-booking," DACK Head of Product Thomas Schaper said. "We are reactionary, and we listen to our customers." He said with white labelling, the quality of each product diminishes. "We're optimizing and improving our one app, which can have the customer's branding and logos in it if needed," he said.
DACK Product Manager Daniel Marriott said guests don't want to download a different app every time they're going to a place to stay.
Properties like vacation rentals, hotels, resorts, corporate apartments, Airbnb hosts, hostels and dorms are the target market for DACK, although other properties might be able to use the app, too.
DACK started selling its services in 2020.
Features:
Contactless check-in
Digital key
Control smart technology
Guide and upselling
Request cleaning
Chat services
Pricing:
As of Feb. 10, 2021, DACK charges hospitality business owners and other interested parties $20 per door per month. Enterprise pricing is also available. Though, you can schedule a demo with DACK to get more accurate information. For guests, the DACK app is free.
Touch Stay
Touch Stay helps hospitality businesses to digitize their guest welcome book. If guests constantly call about the same thing or need help with something, you can direct them to your digital welcome book to find the information they need. Guests won't have to sign up for anything; you just send them the information they're looking for through a link.
"Touch Stay has developed technology to allow us to easily partner with local tourism groups such as accommodation associations and destination marketing organizations," Touch Stay CEO Andy McNulty said. "We combine our tech with their local expertise." McNulty said Touch Stay helps businesses deliver rich content directly to tourists.
McNulty also said, "Whilst we are doing this via technology, ultimately this is about maintaining the personal touch. We are people, our partners are people and guests are people. We want that to reflect in everything we do."
Touch Stay was created in 2013.
Features:
Practical information
Add attractions from Google
Works offline
Send scheduled email/short message service
Multiple language translation
White labeled with your branding
Pricing:
As of Feb. 10, 2021, owners and hosts pay $99 per year for their first property, with the price decreasing the more properties you have.
Property managers pay $2 to $6 per property per month; the price depends on the size of your portfolio.
Hotels and bed and breakfast owners pay at least $99 per year.
For more accurate pricing, contact Touch Stay for more information.
Wishbox
If guests are looking for a clean interface to find information about your property and the nearby area, then Wishbox would be a good choice. Wishbox provides guests with the information they're looking for, along with ways to ask further questions if needed, through a web-based app (it doesn't need to be downloaded in the app store).
Your guests can open up your business' app and find places to eat, check-in via an electronic signature, pay for their stay on mobile and get auto-translated reminders about a deal that will expire soon.
"There are two ways we focus on the market: the guest check-in and upsells with the internal marketplace," Wishbox Head of Global Sales Alix Hecht said. Guests are prompted with upsells like taxis or spas, which provides a stream of revenue for hospitality business owners, according to Hecht.
She said Wishbox also does quality control on guest reviews. "If a guest gives a four or less for their review, we give them a separate page for them to vent," Hecht said. "That way, these guests don't go to online travel agencies with their negative comments." She said hosts can then see if they can help the guest with a problem and uphold the business' reputation.
Wishbox is meant for hotels, vacation rentals and hostels, although other hospitality businesses might be able to use this product.
Wishbox was founded in 2015.
Features:
Online check-in and check-out
Automated text messages and emails
Web-based guest app
White labeled with your branding
Upselling
Pricing:
For 10 rooms at your hotel, you'd pay $6.25 per room per month (as of Feb. 10, 2021). If you pay annually, the price drops to $5.5 per room per month.
If you have 10 vacation rentals, the price is the same as the 10 rooms at a hotel, although there isn't an option for paying annually.
The price for 10 beds at a hostel is $2.5 per active bed per month. Annually, the cost is $2.2 per bed per month.
If you're unsure if Wishbox is the right fit for you, they offer a free 10-day trial. Contact Wishbox for more specific pricing.
In Conclusion
Guests want to be able to communicate with their hosts and find information easily. In fact, according to a 2021 study by Google and Forrester Consulting, "68% of respondents are more likely to buy from a business that offers convenient communications."
DACK, Touch Stay and Wishbox can help you more easily connect with your guests and provide information about your property and area, although each company does it differently.
DACK uses a free app from the user's app store. The guest would have to download the DACK app to get the information they need. Besides providing guests with area and property information, DACK also allows guests to control their room's technology and room keys through the app. Guests can chat with you or your employees, too.
Touch Stay uses a shareable link that works offline. You send guests the link with information from your guest book, which is white labelled, and they open it on their phone or computer to read through what you've listed out.
Wishbox uses a web-based app that doesn't need to be downloaded to be used. Similar to DACK, Wishbox allows guests to check-in online, although Wishbox mentions e-signatures, mobile pay and passport scan capabilities on its website. Both DACK and Wishbox let you upsell and chat to customers, but Wishbox's app is auto-translated and white labelled.
The product you choose to use is up to you; each has their advantages and disadvantages. However, they all focus on having good communication and easy access to necessary information. Even if you don't use one of these apps, you should strive for convenient communication between you and your guests, so they feel more comfortable booking with you.
