Rushi Patel is the General Manager of the Clarion Pointe Greensboro Airport, in Greensboro, North Carolina — a family-owned property that offers a welcoming and comfortable environment to all types of travelers.
“We’re constantly looking for ways to better meet the needs of our guests,” said Patel. “And our team firmly believes that good technology solutions are needed to provide a great modern guest experience. So as the General Manager, I’m constantly on the lookout for new and interesting technologies that I think will help us streamline the guest experience and increase revenue.”
With an eye out for innovative solutions, Patel received an email about Canary’s Digital Upsells solution in early 2022 and was intrigued.
“Canary’s Upsell solution sounded like a great way to generate more revenue per guest, so I set up a call to get a walkthrough of the platform,” he said.
Patel said that he found out about Canary’s Upsells solution from the Choice Hotels corporate team. Since Canary is a Choice Qualified Vendor, the platform’s products are regularly promoted to Choice Hotels properties. But, even though Canary’s Upsells solution was what first piqued his interest, Patel realized during his platform demo that Canary’s comprehensive platform could benefit his hotel in lots of different ways.
“I loved the idea of being able to digitally offer items from our on-property market and other add-ons to guests, but when I received a demo of Canary’s platform, I realized that we actually should be using pretty much everything they offered,” said Patel.
Canary's approach to guest-facing technology impressed the Clarion Pointe Greensboro’s General Manager so much that he decided to implement a number of the platform’s solutions including Contactless Check-In, Contactless Checkout, Guest Messaging, Digital Upsells, Digital Authorizations.
Within a few hours of signing up for Canary, Patel had all of these solutions up and running at the Clarion Pointe Greensboro Airport.
Avoiding lines at the front desk and providing guests with the best possible experience have long been priorities of the Clarion Pointe Greensboro Airport. And immediately upon a demo of the product, Patel saw that Contactless Check-In would support him and his team in both objectives.
“When a guest goes through the full check-in process in Canary, it’s amazing,” he said. “They take care of all of the administrative work online, so when we get to the hotel, we just have to hand them their key and welcome them to the property.”
Patel said that guests love the new mobile-friendly check-in experience that Contactless Check-In provides and it has made conversations at the front desk more personal and engaging.
Just as Contactless Check-In has helped improve the guest experience, Contactless Checkout has helped the Clarion Pointe Greensboro Airport drive more great guest reviews on sites like Google and TripAdvisor.
“We’ve tried so hard to get more guests to provide good reviews on Google and TripAdvisor, but it has historically been pretty difficult. But with Canary’s platform we’ve seen real success in driving positive reviews on these sites,” said Patel. “When it’s time for our guests to checkout, they now receive a text message with a link from Canary that allows them to leave a review. Anybody who leaves a score of 4- or 5-stars is then prompted to share their review on Google or TripAdvisor. It’s been amazing.”
Additionally, the General Manager pointed out what he sees as another big benefit of Canary Checkout’s review feature: it doesn’t just drive positive reviews; it mitigates potential negative reviews.
“On the rare occasion that someone leaves us a review of 3-stars or under in Canary’s checkout flow, our team is notified right away but the guest isn’t prompted to leave a review. This means the guest can vent their views to us instead of sharing them directly on review sites. Also, it gives us one last chance to turn that frown upside down before they leave the property by reaching out to see what we could have done better,” he explained.
Since deploying Guest Messaging at his property, Patel considers the ability to send broadcast messages to guests through Canary’s platform indispensable.
“Guest Messaging is such a useful tool for us. For example, my 3pm-11pm front desk agent bakes cookies,” he said. “The fact that she can now broadcast to our guests that freshly baked cookies are available at the front desk really helps us create a better experience and generate more revenue.”
Patel also points to the fact that guests receive messages through their normal text messaging apps (WhatsApp, SMS, etc.) is a huge benefit because it means guests can interact with the hotel through technology they already have.
As the first Canary solution that caught Patel’s eye, the General Manager has paid especially close attention to its performance since implementation. And Digital Upsells did not disappoint.
“Canary’s total Guest Management System — including Contactless Checkout, Contactless Check-In, Guest Messaging, Digital Upsells and Digital Authorizations — already pays for itself from the ancillary revenue we drive through the Upsells solution alone,” said the General Manager of the Clarion Pointe Greensboro Airport. “And we’re optimizing our offers and sales strategies all the time to increase revenue for the hotel.”
Before encountering Canary’s platform, the Clarion Pointe Greensboro Airport relied on paper forms to process credit card authorizations and payments. Though their front desk team was vigilant to watch out for potential fraud, this was not a PCI compliant approach and still required the constant surveillance of a large binder full of sensitive credit card information by staff members.”
“When we realized Canary offered a PCI compliant, digital solution for credit card authorizations, we knew immediately that we wanted to use it to replace our paper forms,” said Patel. “It was clearly such a better and more efficient option for our staff and guests. Signing up for Digital Authorizations when we had been using paper was a no-brainer."
Since deployment, General Manager Patel found Canary to be one of the most useful technology systems he has deployed. Particularly, he points to Canary’s web-based architecture that does not require any new hardware for the hotel or app downloads by the guests.
“We looked at a few other options for Check-In and guest management solutions that would have required us to install kiosks or use native apps,” said Patel. “But we didn’t want to go down that route because it just felt like a big lift for both us and the guests. Canary’s web-based approach is much better and the interface is more customizable,” he continued.
Canary’s platform is providing the Clarion Pointe Greensboro Airport with a number of valuable guest-facing solutions that improve the experience and increase revenue for the hotel. Each of these provides a unique benefit to the property and its guests, but all of them have the universal advantages that comes with the Canary platform, including the ability to customize workflows, seamless integration with leading platforms, and world-class 24/7 support.
“Canary has made a big impact at our property,” said Patel. “I really appreciate the user-friendly tech tools they’ve provided us with to improve the guest experience, drive more good reviews and increase revenue.”
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