Why Does Hinfo Exist?
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6min read
Hinfo is the name of our 21st century digital hotel compendium, developed in Melbourne Australia since 2017 and is the upgrade your property needs.
Hinfo benefits all properties of all types and sizes, including but not limited to:
- Hotels
- Motels
- Apartments
- Resorts
- Holiday Homes
- Backpackers
- Cottages
- Lodges
- Bed and Breakfasts
- Caravan and Tourist Parks
We all live in a mobile and connected world. A world, where people expect to be able to access any information they want and communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime, within arm's reach.
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How Hinfo Compares to Other Solutions
When we set out to create Hinfo, our goal was to develop the 'perfect delivery vehicle' for your property's compendium details.
Our aim to achieve this has only become stronger, since the Coronavirus pandemic with the need for contactless solutions.
Here are some of the limitations of printed hotel compendiums:
- They do not leave the room with your guests,
- They cannot be used by more than one person at a time,
- There is no way to do keyword search,
- Information cannot be updated easily for all rooms/apartments at once,
- Information for this reason gets out-dated more easily and is not cost effective to update immediately, and
- Requires a high level of contact during typical use.
Here are some of the limitations of TV-based compendiums:
- They are restricted to only a single room within the guest rooms they are in,
- Do not cater for multiple guests looking up different details at the same time (particularly immediately after check-in),
- Requires a high level of contact on the remote when navigating the on-screen menus, and
- Young Billy cannot watch the cricket on TV while Dad is looking up the details on the TV.
And finally, there are also limitations of providing hotel tablets in every guest room, including:
- They do not leave the bounds of your guest rooms,
- They require a high level of maintenance when it comes to maintaining the condition of the tablets (including the battery charge level),
- Requiring a high level of contact which results in more cleaning between each guest changeover, and
- Are the least cost-effective solution on the market.
Main Benefits of Hinfo
Our service offers several benefits, not possible via any other compendium format, with some being unique to our solution.
Fully Contactless
In this post pandemic world, the need for fully contactless solutions in all industries will become more of a greater need than ever before.
We have seen it already with food delivery services, mobile payments and retailers delivering home appliances, are offering contactless options which are growing in demand.
Our Hinfo Guest Digital Compendium is fully contactless and entirely eliminates the need for cleaning any other alternative solution, between each changeover of guests.
Portability
Our service works on a bring your own devices (BYOD) basis.
Your guests are already bringing their own smartphones, tablets and laptop computers to your property, for several reasons whether it is recreational, for general communication and/or for business purposes.
With over 5 billion smartphones and tablets used regularly, we asked ourselves "why not use the guests own devices?". This figure does not include laptop computers and with many guests bringing multiple of these type of devices to your property, they have several ways to access your property's services and compendium details.
Multiple Languages
It is very likely your property only supports English. We want to change that!
Compared to paper hotel compendiums, our solution does not require any additional resources to deliver your compendium details in multiple languages.
Some properties that provide details in Chinese (Traditional or Simplified) for example, only provide the absolute minimal necessary.
If you were to provide your compendium details in 3 languages total, that means your property would require 3 times the paper, leather folders and labour, in addition to the lengthy and expensive process of getting your compendium details translated.
This is where our next unique benefit comes in.
Auto Translate
Imagine being able to provide your compendium details, in the preferred languages of your guests.
When you decide to go ahead with this, getting your compendium details translated by a human translator is a very lengthy process, that takes multiple weeks in most cases and are not very cost effective for the large volume of details you need to translate.
Our Auto Translate service is an optional extra that does the polar opposite of this. It only takes a few minutes to translate all your details for each language and is significantly cheaper than a human translator, while being just as accurate in the translations.
Guest Messaging
We call our guest messaging service "Ask Reception".
This opt-in service allows your guests to communicate with your property's reception staff, without needing to call reception or go down to reception to speak in person.
Both alternatives to our solution, in most cases, involves waiting your turn to ask a simple question. Our guest messaging solution allows you to send a message to reception and receive a response as soon as possible. This is also a great option for guests with the majority of people preferring to send a message over talking on the phone.
Auto Translate for Guest Messaging
Imagine putting both of the last two features together, to create a major breakthrough in guest communication!
The Auto Translate add-on feature, also works for Ask Reception guest messages that people send to you.
If one of your guests speaks Japanese for example, they can send you a message in Japanese, which you can view and respond in English, then that same guest will receive your reply in Japanese.
Sustainability
Our solution is also more environmentally sustainable than other guest solutions.
By allowing your guests to use their own devices (which they are already charging during their stay), the environmental impact is the very minimal.
This is possible by not needing to provide dedicated resources in each room (including additional hardware) and reduced electricity consumption compared to TVs and charging separate hotel tablets.
Privacy
Our 21st century digital solution, inherits the key privacy benefits of 20th century printed compendiums.
We do not monetize any data from your guest's usage of our service and each property can see the same analytical data as we do.
Hinfo does not collect any personal details from your guests, including:
- Phone Numbers
- Social Media Account Details
- Email Addresses
- GPS Coordinates (including when selecting a property)
- Photos and Camera Access
- Calendar
- Contacts
Videos
80% of all internet traffic is video!
The chances a very high, that your current compendiums do not cater for videos.
Hinfo allows you to include direct links to any online videos, including YouTube and Vimeo or those on your property's website. This can be used to further promote your property's services and those available in the local area, representing a new level of marketing potential not offered elsewhere.
Anonymous Feedback
Our solution allows your guests to provide anonymous feedback on their stay, directly sent to an email address you nominate, and we do not see any details of the feedback provided.
This feature is available on an opt-in basis and allows you to ask guests a series of questions about their stay with either a comment or rating response type assigned to each. All fields are optional.
Cost Effective
All of the benefits listed above in this blog post, would not be viable for the overwhelming majority of properties, if it was not cost effective.
Our Hinfo Guest Digital Solution is lets you go digital for your hotel compendiums without breaking the bank.
Our pricing caters for properties of all types and sizes and we encourage you to use our pricing calculator to see how little Hinfo is for your property.
As illustrated in this blog post, our service offers the most value for money out of any guest digital solution on the market and creates new opportunities not possible via any other method, including unlimited information updates.
To get started with our 21st century Hinfo Guest Digital Compendium, please send us an enquiry via the form below.
