Turning Hotel Staff Into Superhumans with Alliants’ Tristan Gadsby

Glenn: Hey, everybody. It’s your hospitality. Friend Glenn here in Denver. And I got my new friend with me, Bear and Tristan Gadsby, founder and CEO of Alliance. Great to see you here in Denver.

 

Tristan: Great to see you too, as always.

 

Glenn: Yeah. So we’re here at the Hospitality Show. What’s your big thoughts of your big takeaway from while we’re here?

 

Tristan: You know what? The content has been pretty good, actually.

 

Glenn: Yeah, that’s good to hear.

 

Tristan: And it’s really nice to see content that is from outside the industry. Yeah. So I thought it was really good to hear about space tourism and Blue Origin and that story. I thought that was very good, a bit of futurist action, which was which was very good as well. So yeah, nice to see some ideas coming in from outside.

 

Glenn: I like that, and I’m a big proponent of us going to other industries to think of those ideas, particularly since we’re on this cusp of a massive technology revolution that’s happening right now. You guys are very involved in all of this, obviously, but how are you thinking, generally speaking, about the best application for artificial intelligence in our business? And I know every single component of our business. We’ll have that in there. So it’s kind of a too vague of a question, but try to be specific.

 

Tristan: So I’ll try and be specific. But for us we try and look at it. Yeah. How do you make your staff into superhumans. Right. Well that’s exactly what AI can do. It can really help your staff become superhuman by helping them understand their guests better, helping them answer queries that maybe actually can just be done automatically, helping them understand actually, what is the SOP for this? Because we’ve never seen this situation before, but actually there’s an SOP for it. So and particularly with, you know, staff, we’re looking at, you know, for the first time the longevity of staff retention is dropping. So we have to make sure that a the technology is easy to use and that new staff can get the answers they need really quickly. And that’s that’s what AI can do for us.

 

Glenn: Yeah. No. As you follow along with the stories here at the Hospitality show, you’re going to hear exactly what Tristan just said right now. You know, I’m all about keeping the humanity and hospitality. I think this is our best way forward to create a win win win for the owners, the associates and the customer at the end.

 

Tristan: Absolutely. I think that win win win is absolutely true because it can help you be more efficient. It can deliver a great personalized guest experience and it can help your staff be superhuman. So yes, it is that win win win.

 

Glenn: Yeah. Now, you guys have been really great at doing stuff around the world, and unfortunately, I’ve been a little bit USA locked for the last few years. So I’m starting to see where you’re going.

 

Tristan: To encourage you over.

 

Glenn: I know I got it. Come on. I have so many excuses to get over there and I haven’t found the right time. But one place that I have seen you rolling out and getting great success, for example, is in Resorts World Las Vegas. I love what Shannon McCallum, VP of Hotel Operations and the team is doing over there, to really move that digital dialogue forward with the with the guests.

 

Tristan: Yeah. And she she took a really bold stance I think. And well, it shows to be the first on the strip to actually use that technology. Absolutely fantastic. I think the great news is the results are coming in to support that.

 

Glenn: So give me an example or two about how they’re leveraging your technology to find success in a crazy, topsy turvy Vegas market.

 

Tristan: Yeah, I mean, it really starts with, you know, everything from post booking, trying to smooth that pre-arrival experience by messaging guests, getting them ideally to check in online so you know when they’re coming to see you. And then from there being able to check in online and then actually get your Apple Wallet key on your phone so you can go straight, straight to the room, skip the queue.

 

Glenn: Yeah. We talked about this in during high tech in June. That’s right. And what I really love is we’re at the next evolution of digital key technology. As a quick primer first generation of it didn’t really work for me. It didn’t really work for a lot of people. I would be at a Las Vegas casino resort. I’d go in the elevator, they’d all be holding up their phones, and they couldn’t get to their rooms. This technology is different. It works completely different to.

 

Tristan: It totally does. Well it’s NFC. It’s on this thing. And actually it even works when this thing runs out. That’s awesome. So yeah it still works. You can still tap it.

 

Glenn: Honestly that’s my greatest fear is stumbling back to the room at 4 a.m..

 

Tristan: With a flat battery. Yeah.

 

Glenn: You walk down that 45 mile hallway and then you find out you can’t get in the room.

 

Tristan: Yeah, well, that’s exactly what this does. And yeah, so even when it’s run out, tap the lock.

 

Glenn: But that’s just really the tip of the iceberg of what it does. I don’t want people to think that it’s a one kind of type solution.

 

Tristan: Not not at all. And I think when you when you start looking at what that wallet pass can actually do for you, it’s contextually aware. It knows your your stage of the journey you’re at, right. It can help you navigate your experience very much. The way airlines have used this stuff for a while, they started to get a lot better and I think, you know, hospitality will do the same.

 

Glenn: And to bring it back to where we started, that’s where people from outside the industry are going to be able to help. Historically, our industry has not been the most technologically forward, but we are making those leaps as we bring in more folks who have had experience with a lot of the big tech companies, for example.

 

Tristan: Totally. And we’re very lucky. We’ve got very close partnerships with Google, Salesforce, and they really help us. You know, they’re working with us on some AI, really exciting AI projects that I’d like to talk about sometime. Yeah. But yeah, bringing in that outside experience is essential. And obviously Apple, you know, have been great working with us to, you know, not only on the current evolution of the technology but also what’s coming next.

 

Glenn: That’s that’s pretty cool. What is the first step that you think people should take when they’re beginning their technological journey and transformation at their property?

 

Tristan: So I think, you know, first of all, you’ve got to lay the right foundation. So you’ve got to have a obviously a property management system that other systems can talk to. But then it’s all about putting over technology that allows you to streamline the experience with the guest. So how do you communicate with the guests in a really simple way? How do you make sure they can get to their room in a really simple way? So really, it’s all about making sure you’ve got that platform in place and then slowly start to activate more and more interesting use cases.

 

Glenn: Yeah. So what I’m going to take away from this conversation is you’ve got to give guests more and more reasons to love you when they love you. It’s going to be easier for them to want to spend more money.

 

Tristan: That’s exactly right. And you know, one of the best usability books I ever read many, many years ago, it was called Don’t Make Me Think. Yeah. And actually, that’s what we need to do for our guests. Don’t make me think. You make it easy for them. They will spend money with you. Right.

 

Glenn: Think about all of your lives where you don’t have to think. And also think about how you want to use the room, the inn room, or the hospitality experience and start to think about it from that lens, too. Exactly. Great talking with you, man.

 

Tristan: Likewise.

 

Glenn: How do we learn more about Alliance?

 

Tristan: Well, come to Alliance Comm and we’d happily chat with you there. Or start a conversation. But. Yeah. Come and see us.

 

Glenn: Groovy. And hopefully I’ll see you on the road. And remember, please like, share, subscribe this video. A lot of good stuff here. You’re going to want to relisten to it. So subscribing is key. See you all next time. Bye bye. Bear says have a good time.