How La Butte uses WhatsApp campaigns to prepare for guests' arrival and boost additional sales

GUEST EXPERIENCE

This testimonial highlights the impact HiJiffy’s Guest Communications Hub has had on the entire guest journey of the French hotel group La Butte. The brand’s success is based on its willingness to embrace automation powered by conversational AI and its confidence in the solution, as demonstrated by its remarkable 97% automation rate.

Why it matters: How is La Butte taking advantage of WhatsApp campaigns to not only improve the guest experience, but also drive additional sales?

We’ll examine this here, initially describing the challenges La Butte faced, and then looking at the results achieved. Finally, testimonials from hotel staff offer an in-depth perspective on their experience.

Top 3 Core Objectives: La Butte was looking for a centralised, reliable, all-in-one solution to automate communications with its guests in order to meet three main challenges:

Free up telephone lines: The establishment sometimes experiences periods of intense telephone activity. In order to free up its telephone lines, La Butte was looking for a chatbot that would enable its guests and prospects to find the information they needed quickly online.
Simplify processes: The hotel was already using a tool to communicate with guests, but its system had “become time-consuming,” so the team was looking for a new solution that was both more innovative and easier to use.
Showcase the hotel's services: La Butte boasts a spa and wellness area as well as two award-winning restaurants, one of which is Michelin-starred, offering exceptional views of the sea and countryside. The hotel team wanted to emphasise these remarkable assets and make the most of these services for its guests.

Innovators Mentioned

La Butte

HiJiffy

Emmanuel RIFFAULT

Revenue Manager

La Butte

"The chatbot, combined with campaign mailings via WhatsApp, helps us in our day-to-day work and has enabled us to reduce the volume of emails and/or calls of all kinds and focus on the people on the ground. This process improves the guest experience as they can find the information they are looking for. With support and contacts who know their tools, it's a winning partnership!"

Emmanuel RIFFAULT

Revenue Manager

👍 Revenue Manager Emmanuel RIFFAULT said that HiJiffy's solution significantly reduced email and call volumes, enabling staff to prioritize guests and enhance their experience with easy access to information:

"The chatbot, combined with campaign mailings via WhatsApp, helps us in our day-to-day work and has enabled us to reduce the volume of emails and/or calls of all kinds and focus on the people on the ground. This process improves the guest experience as they can find the information they are looking for. With support and contacts who know their tools, it's a winning partnership!"

⚖️ The selection process: During their research process, Emmanuel RIFFAULT also researched Quinta, and ultimately decided HiJiffy was the best fit for them.

Revenue Manager Emmanuel RIFFAULT said, about their decision: "After an initial inconclusive search with Quicktext, Arnaud’s presentation was seamless, and above all, the tool aligned perfectly with the Management’s expectations. At the same time, we were working with Expérience for the pre-stay process, but their system had become time-consuming. In an era where information is quickly replaced by the next, HiJiffy's solution also integrates this feature via WhatsApp, offering a significant time-saving advantage by using a single, unified system."

📈 The results: After exploring the hotel solutions available on the market, La Butte opted for HiJiffy's Guest Communications Hub as the best solution to meet its challenges and objectives:

Telephone lines have been freed up and human interaction has been prioritised: ►The chatbot now automatically handles answering 9 out of 10 questions from guests, as demonstrated by the excellent 97% automation rate, allowing teams to devote more time to human interaction. ► Also due to the automatic replies provided by conversational AI, the number of calls and emails requesting information has reduced.
Guest communications have improved, as has operational efficiency, thanks to a centralised 2-in-1 solution: ► The introduction of the chatbot combined with the sending of automated campaigns on WhatsApp has significantly improved and personalised communication with guests. ► The versatility of WhatsApp campaigns makes it possible to provide customers with all essential information before they arrive while allowing them to confirm or reconfirm their arrival time. This approach improves the operational efficiency of the reception teams, who can therefore prepare themselves better in advance for the check-in of future guests. ► What's more, centralising the two functionalities (the chatbot and the automated sending of WhatsApp campaigns) on a single platform has simplified internal management and saved teams time by avoiding the need to juggle two separate tools.
Showcasing the hotel's services and stimulating additional sales: ► Not only do WhatsApp campaigns improve the guest experience, but the introduction of buttons providing easy access to information about the services and activities on offer also increased additional sales. ► The WhatsApp campaigns had an impressive open rate of almost 93%, with click-through rates of 18% for the "Our Spa" buttons and 14% for the "Our Restaurants" and "Activities at La Butte" buttons. These figures testify to the guests’ undeniable engagement. By way of comparison, the average open rate for a restaurant email marketing campaign is 40.03%, with an average click rate of 1.57%. The WhatsApp campaign sent via the HiJiffy solution was opened twice as often and generated almost nine times as many clicks as a traditional email campaign. ► These data highlight the significant impact of these campaigns on guests’ interest in the hotel's services, which translates directly into an increase in bookings for these services.