HotelTonight has become quite popular in enabling travelers to book last minute hotel accommodations, but it’s starting to look beyond just handling reservations. It has turned its attention towards improving the overall customer experience and its Aces feature will play a big part in that. The company announced today that it is making HotelTonight Aces publicly available, giving you access to a concierge right from within its mobile app.
Aces was unveiled in beta last July as an in-app chat feature connecting bookers with HotelTonight’s team so they can access “authentic local tips and recommendations, plus time-saving help with room and hotel requests.” Just like dealing with a virtual assistant, customers interact with a real-life human being that can offer advice on places to visit, get help finding a toothbrush, and more.
Since its launch, HotelTonight says “hundreds of thousands of Aces messages have been exchanged, with an average response time of 23 seconds.” Aces is now available for all English-language bookings with a cost over $200 for Solid, Hip, Luxe, Charming, and HighRoller hotels in any of 32 select cities: Arlington, Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Brooklyn, Cambridge, Charleston, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, London, Los Angeles, Miami, New Orleans, New York City, Orlando, Palm Springs, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Raleigh, San Diego, San Francisco, San Juan, Santa Barbara, Savannah, Seattle, Scottsdale, Tampa, Tempe, Toronto, and Vancouver.
Some of the requests made through Ace include specific rooms or bed types, early check-in and late check-outs, local restaurant recommendations, and even where someone could find a tiki bar with a great place to people-watch.
With the addition of a concierge service, HotelTonight appears to want to add more personalized service to customers to make their stays more enjoyable.. It’s one thing to just let someone book, but how does that experience scale? It’s by showing you matter and the company has been making inroads in this area including letting you book a two night stay at a hotel for a discount. HotelTonight is all about the unplanned, but as you’re being sort of spontaneous, it doesn’t want you to worry about things you may need or have to figure out — this is where Aces comes in.
Sam Shank, HotelTonight’s chief executive, expressed the company’s vision this way: “We are always looking for new ways to be of more value to our customers and given our mobile-only position, we recognized a unique opportunity here to service our top customers with a premium chat concierge that’ll improve their hotel experience.”
And it seems to be working as the company has found that people that use Aces are 34 percent more likely to be a repeat customer in 90 days as well as 47 percent more likely to reuse the HotelTonight app.