Kora Living’s journey to 60% online check-ins, increased cross-selling, and automating 83% of guest queries with HiJiffy’s conversational AI
August 2022 – July 2023
45K
conversations
83%
automation
85%
CSAT score
80%
in-stay campaigns open rate
Introduction
HiJiffy’s mission is to develop the most advanced conversational AI for hospitality. Top hospitality brands in over 50 countries around the world reimagine their guest communications with our advanced technology.
This case study explores the success Kora Living had implementing HiJiffy’s Guest Communications Hub across their entire guest journey, from pre-booking to arrival and all the way to departure. They achieved fantastic results by combining their focus on the exceptional guest experience with openness and confidence in embracing automation powered by conversational AI.
This publication provides the context for the challenges Kora Living wanted to address, examples of the solutions they had access to by using HiJiffy’s technology, the overview of the results, and further testimonials from hotel staff.
The Client: Kora Living
Kora Living is a Spanish hospitality brand guided by the principles of flexibility and sustainability. At their properties, they facilitate and nurture a sense of community, friendliness and destination discovery, making it a perfect accommodation for travellers whether they want to stay for a day, a month or a year.
The hospitality brand has two properties: Kora Green City (180 studios & apartments) is an urban aparthotel in Vitoria-Gasteiz, the largest Passivhaus Accommodation in Europe, and Kora Nivaria Beach (122 villas & apartments) is a seaside resort in Tenerife. Kora Living plans to open three new properties in Andorra, Cabanyal (Valencia) and Tenerife between 2024-2025.
The Challenges
Kora Living was looking for a centralised, reliable, all-in-one solution for automating guest communications to address the key challenges:
- Automating procedures
The brand wanted to encourage guests to do check-ins and check-outs online to reduce the volume of work for Front Desk staff and improve the guest experience by removing the necessity to wait at the reception.
- Increasing upselling and cross-selling revenue
Kora Living has a wide range of available facilities and experiences that hotel guests can book to enhance their experience. The goal was to be able to send automated cross-selling campaigns via WhatsApp to reach their guests with the offers.
- Improving guest experience
Having flexibility at their core, Kora Living wanted to optimise their communication channels to provide immediate, 24/7 answers to most incoming queries while having a possibility for their teams to take over when needed.
The Solutions
Having explored available hotel tech solutions on the market, Kora Living decided to choose the Guest Communications Hub as the best solution to address their challenges and achieve their improvement goals. HiJiffy’s conversational AI has been implemented across the entire guest journey at both properties, Kora Nivaria Beach and Kora Green City, since 2022.
Why did you choose HiJiffy?
“We did a small market analysis beforehand, but having such good references from several hotel managers and being convinced by the demo, we felt it was the right tool.” – Iñigo Boulandier, Brand Manager at Kora Living
The hospitality brand was able to seamlessly integrate HiJiffy’s conversational AI with other hotel tech systems they were already using: Mirai (booking engine), SIHOT (PMS), and Civitfun (digital check-in/out service provider), opening up the potential for further automation.
With the support of HiJiffy’s Customer Success team, Kora Living reimagined their guest communications, deploying conversational AI to automate the following tasks:
- Answering FAQs
- HiJiffy’s AI specialised in over 200 hospitality-specific topics replies to incoming queries instantly, 24/7, across various channels managed by the brand, including the web chat, WhatsApp and Google Business.
- Booking assistance
- Guests are guided through the booking process by conversational AI integrated with the booking engine for a seamless experience.
- Sending check-in campaigns
- An automated message to incoming guests with a link to the online check-in form encourages completing the process before arrival and skipping the reception queues.
- Sending welcome messages
- Guests who complete the check-in receive a WhatsApp message on their arrival with the door entry code, WiFi password, and tips on making their stay sustainable in line with the brand’s principles.
- Cross-selling experiences
- During the stay, guests receive personalised messages promoting special events, exclusive deals and various in-house and local experiences available to book at the property.
- Sending check-out campaigns
- An automated reminder about the check-out time and instructions for a fully autonomous procedure if guests are in a hurry.
- Collecting guest feedback
- Sharing a link to the internal feedback form upon guests’ departure.
The Results
Let’s look at the key achievements directly related to the challenges indicated in the earlier section. The results are supported by HiJiffy’s data (visible to the client in the dashboards and reports section of the Guest Communications Hub), as well as Kora Living’s own data insights and observations they contributed to this case study.
Over 55% of all check-ins at Kora Living properties are done online
Thanks to seamless integrations between HiJiffy and Kora Living’s hotel management systems (their PMS and a digital check-in service), the brand was able to send automated online check-in campaigns on WhatsApp ahead of the guests’ arrival. With over 80% open rate on this channel, Kora Living achieved an online check-in rate of 60% at Kora Green City and 55% at Kora Nivaria Beach.
Subsequently, the queues were significantly reduced at the front desk on guest arrival, and the reception teams could dedicate their time and attention to what is core to the brand: offering personalised care to the guests. Such developments positively impacted both the guests (improved customer care) and the staff (reduced repetitive tasks).
Increased upselling through WhatsApp campaigns with 80% open rates
Kora Living used HiJiffy’s Guest Communications Hub as a central platform to communicate the range of experiences and services available to book. The brand observed increased reservations made since implementing WhatsApp campaigns, from one-off seasonal campaigns to regular ones scheduled throughout the year.
Automation of 83% of guest queries with an 85% CSAT score
During 12 months (August 2022 – July 2023), HiJiffy’s conversational AI implemented at Kora Living properties engaged in over 45,000 conversations with an automation rate of 83% and a CSAT score of 85%. The average open rate of those various WhatsApp campaigns is 78-80%.
Testimonials
“HiJiffy has enabled us to optimise the reception staff at Kora Green City. We are a hotel where we rely on technology to automate many of our processes, but we are very clear that our customers value most human warmth, which is our statement (Friendly & Flexible Living). With HiJiffy, our reception team controls the conversations and incidents that do not have to be automated, and at the same time, they have an ally that gives them the necessary time so that once our guests arrive at our accommodation, they feel part of a big family. This close and humane treatment is what allows us to position ourselves in all Kora Living branded accommodation as one of the best rated in the destination.”
Ixone Musitu, Front Desk Manager at Kora Green City
“HiJiffy is a tool that has allowed us to automate a large part of the communication system in our two properties, to have a 24-hour sales assistant that is operational and generates revenue, gives us metrics that help us to know our guests better and what they want to experience in a Kora Living accommodation. Being a tool that works via API has allowed us to automate other processes such as automatic sending of WiFi codes, access to electronic lock keys during check-in, etc.”
Iñigo Boulandier, Brand Manager at Kora Living
“Kora Living was my first client in the Iberian market at HiJiffy. We first started with Kora Green City and shortly after with Kora Nivaria Beach. It has been a pleasure seeing how Kora Living use our solution has developed according to their needs and demands, supported by HiJiffy’s Customer Success and Product teams. I am happy to be a part of this project and also to be able to integrate with other hotel tech partners with a sole purpose in mind: enhancing the hotel guests’ experience. The results speak for themselves, and I am certain they can only go up from here on out.”
Ana Correia, Senior Customer Success Executive at HiJiffy
About hotel tech partners
Mirai – hotels’ partner in the common objective of maximising the potential of direct sales. They provide the know-how and the best technology to compete head-to-head with intermediaries, gain independence and reduce overall distribution costs through these solutions and services: Booking engine, Web Project, Metasearch Connectivity, Digital Marketing, Distribution Consulting and Contact Center.
SIHOT – one of the leading, modular hotel management software systems designed for leisure resorts, hotel chains, MICE hotels, camping and hostels. The SIHOT hotel management platform covers all operational processes with full customisation, offering a highly qualitative and complete property management solution. SIHOT is used in around 3,500 top hotels worldwide.
Civitfun – a SaaS company that offers a complete suite to fully automate the guest journey, from check-in to check-out, in hotels, hotel chains, resorts, vacation rentals and hostels. Civitfun specialises in integrations with hotel software and PMS such as SIHOT.
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