2020 is not a year that will be remembered fondly by anyone in hospitality. Lets face it, a switch we didn't know existed was turned off as COVID-19 closed borders and greatly diminished our best laid plans for the year.
At Goki, we were fortunate, however, that in a pandemic-stricken world, opportunities existed for our solution to do some good; operations teams across the globe clamoured for ways to optimise in the downturn and contactless quickly became THE buzzword in our industry. The sudden availability of our most precious resource — time — also meant that meetings (sorry, ZOOMs) were easier to schedule and ‘innovation as a strategy’ became more readily embraced by decision makers.
Subsequently, we changed our business model to let properties that needed to go contactless (but had lost a significant portion of their revenue) to get started with ZERO upfront costs.
Via a subscription model, hoteliers could start seeing the benefits of lowering operational overheads and directing guests to their other revenue centres, without justifying onerous capital expenditure.
2020 may have been the year that travel stopped, but it is also the year we adapted to the market & released the products we are most proud of. Here’s a recap of what we got up to…
Germ-Free Hardware
Between March-June, social media was awash with videos of cleaning staff wiping down surfaces to restore some guest confidence in their ‘COVID-safe’ operation (and lock companies desperately fiddling with bits of string in an attempt to market their contactless solution!)
At Goki, we took a more scientific approach with our Smart Locks — injecting an antimicrobial additive to make it impossible for germs to live on the surface of our products.
That’s less resources properties need to allocate to cleaning, greater guest confidence and no string in sight!
Better Guest Management
In tech-development we are very used to Kanban boards as a way of measuring productivity and collaborating on tasks.
Our Dashboard uses the same Kanban philosophy, but from the perspective of hospitality — a way to manage guest requests, assign tasks to other staff members and engage more effectively with your guests.
2020, saw us roll out a number of new features — sentiment tracking, shoutouts, city suggestions, message payments & teams — a way to collaborate with your colleagues. We also added our app marketplace — for integrations with Counter, Mews, Cloudbeds, Guestpoint, Guestcentrix, Hostelworld, Mailchimp, Stripe, Zapier & more.
For more info on how to integrate with Goki — check-out our documentation here.
Put your property on Autopilot!
During COVID, our download rate rocketed to +90% — with guests preferring to check-in before they arrive, use their phone as their key & message reception if they need anything… But what do hoteliers do with all of the requests this creates?
That’s where Autopilot comes in. Our biggest release to date automates guest interaction to maximise engagement. Replying to extend requests, sentiment tracking, messages, reviews and lots more… flick a switch & chill — you’ve earned it!
Spaces App
This is a bit of a cheat as it is not out until next week — but it took most of last year to build! Our new staff application — SPACES — lets staff manage their property from their mobile… Connect devices, add rooms, run lock audits, generate PINs — and recently encode swanky new staff wristbands using the app!
FYI: We will be adding more and more features over the coming months including guest messages on the app & notifications when you have been assigned a task from the dashboard — watch out Slack!
Goki gets a makeover!
62% of our users don’t have English as their first language. The expectation is that they will receive a booking confirmation email, check-in online & download Goki to get their keys with no need for multiple languages or for staff assistance from booking to opening their door.
We’ve achieved this in 2020, by implementing our new design system across our 5 software products. Download Goki to see a simple, intuitive UI that simply works no matter where you’re from or where you are using it.
More sustainability
When we spoke to the fine folk at Design + Industry, who engineered our Hardware for us, top of the list of values was sustainability. Namely, how do we remove plastic from the day to day operation of our customers?
Now, we can proudly state that all our hardware runs on rechargeable lithium — so no need to throwaway AA batteries every month and because we issue every guest with a unique PIN & SmartKey for their stay, we have also removed plastic keycards, (expensive encoders) & paper registration forms.
Not only is this good for the planet — but it has also been proven that guests are more likely to book a property that takes sustainability seriously not to mention the difference to your bottom line… One of our properties saved $20,000 last year just by implementing Goki. Makes you think, huh?
