A Smart Home Away from Home: Control4 Earns Our Editor’s Choice Award™ for Hospitality Automation Solutions

TL; DR: In the hospitality industry, guest satisfaction determines the likelihood of both repeat business and recommendations. At the same time, meeting the individual needs of guests can reduce a hotel’s operational efficiency. But by implementing automation technologies, hospitality managers can improve efficiency while exceeding guest expectations. Control4, a leader in smart home technology for over a decade, provides the hospitality industry with high-tech solutions for more efficient management and individualized customer service. With Control4 Hospitality Solution and a fully integrated Web Management Console, hotel managers can provide personalized comfort for each guest with easier oversight and energy efficiency. For its optimization of the hotel guest experience, Control4 has earned our Editor’s Choice Award for Hospitality Automation Solutions.

Success in the service industry — from hospitality to restaurants — is closely tied to customer satisfaction. At a hotel, guests can cost management time and productivity with repeat calls to the front desk and room service requests. And while dealing with vocal guests is important, an even greater loss for many hotels are the guests who don’t speak up when they have a less than ideal experience. When that happens, the hotel has no way of learning from — or rectifying — the situation.

When guests walk away dissatisfied and spread the word, companies can lose repeat business and new customers. In fact, 73% of Gen-Y guests don’t return after one bad experience and 85% of them pass the news on to friends and family. On the other hand, happy guests spend up to 50% more on additional products and services.

Smart technology can help hotels operate more efficiently while offering guests the customized experience that brings them back, benefiting both hotels and guests. With over a decade of experience as a leader in both smart home and commercial automation systems, Control4 offers an innovative solution for the hospitality industry: the smart hotel.

Control4’s Hospitality Solution suite features integrated management systems and built-in automation so that guests can control everything from lights to temperature to the television all from one remote. The technology is utilized in more than 20,000 hotel rooms — and counting — in 12 countries across the globe.

“The intuitiveness of the user interface is important to Control4 in the home, and is just as essential in a hotel environment, where there are rotating guests with varying levels of familiarity with technology,” said David Phillips, Director of Hospitality and MDU Sales for Control4.

Control4’s Hospitality Solution system helps managers delight customers by offering an intuitive, personalized guest experience while also streamlining operations and reducing costs. For its innovative use of smart technology to address the needs of modern service-oriented businesses, Control4 has earned our Editor’s Choice Award for Hospitality Automation Solutions.

One of the biggest challenges for hoteliers is catering to the individual needs of a variety of guests — all while managing and monitoring numerous details, controlling expenses, and running an efficient business.

While hotel managers do their best to design and stock rooms with the amenities and comforts that will make guests feel at home, they can’t anticipate every need of every guest. The Hospitality Solution makes it easier for hotel managers to meet customer needs more efficiently.

Automation Anticipates Guests’ Arrival and Maximizes Comfort

No hotel guest wants to walk into a stuffy room, and Now Occupied, one of the features of a Smart Hotel room, addresses that issue. As soon as guests check in, the management system activates occupancy protocols for their assigned room, automatically adjusting it to a comfortable temperature.

First impressions can make or break a hotel guest’s satisfaction. The smart hotel maximizes those first few moments by creating a warm, inviting atmosphere. As soon as guests enter their room, a welcome scene is activated. Lights turn on; music starts playing; drapes open, and a personalized greeting is displayed on the television. With an easy-to-use touchscreen remote, guests can choose to turn automation all-on or all-off and adjust the room’s lights, drapes, music, and media to their preferences throughout their stay.

Instead of a shrill alarm, guests can also choose to be awakened gently with an automated wake-up scene that slowly opens the drapes and gradually increases the volume of a selected news channel or music station.

With the Control4 Hospitality Solution, rooms are fitted with technology like wireless thermostats, music bridges, and automation controls — all of which integrate with thousands of the top vendor-managed devices many hotels use to accommodate their guests.

A Fully Integrated Hotel Management Solution Cuts Expenses

Giving guests greater control of lights, heating, and cooling could negatively impact a hotel’s bottom line without efficiency measures. Control4’s Hospitality Solution isn’t only designed for convenience; it’s designed to conserve energy, and this starts with guest controls.

The green setting on the control panel allows environmentally-conscious guests to limit their energy usage to reduce waste. And after guests check out, the management system turns off any lights that are still on and returns the room’s temperature to a vacant setting.

With Control4’s Web Management Console, hospitality managers also have greater monitoring and control capabilities to reduce expenses further. The management system is designed to fully integrate with other systems the hotel may already use for guest services, as well as products like locks, key cards, or mini-bars from over 10,000 of the most popular third-party vendors.

Because it is also scalable, Control4’s Hospitality Solution are ideal for hotels of any size or budget. Businesses in pre-construction, remodel, or looking to improve existing structures can even implement Smart Hotel software on one block of rooms at a time or all at once.

Not only does Control4 offer innovative smart solutions for the hospitality industry; similar systems can be implemented for a variety of business purposes — including commercial industries and multi-dwelling unit real estate.

With Control4 systems, companies can save crucial time by automatically cueing and controlling electronics and connected devices. Retailers can create an inviting atmosphere for customers and even monitor efficiency and security from any location. These solutions have been implemented successfully by businesses like Topgolf, a driving range facility that is also a restaurant, bar, and corporate events venue.

And Control4 can design customized solutions for restaurants, bars, fitness centers, and medical clinics — among others. By giving business owners more operational command — and the means to run more efficiently — Control4 makes it easy to reduce costs and create ideal atmospheres for both employees and customers.

The task of creating guest experiences that result in repeat business and positive recommendations is both demanding and vital to those in the hospitality industry. And, in an age of increasing connectivity, hotel managers are learning to rely more heavily on technology.

Already a leader in smart home automation systems, Control4 has advanced its technology to provide innovative solutions that meet the needs of the hospitality, business, and commercial industries by creating customer experiences that are inviting and efficient.

For offering integrated management systems that allow hotel and business owners greater oversight and control of their facilities — and designing the solutions that anticipate the needs of guests for personalized comfort — Control4 has earned our Editor’s Choice Award for Hospitality Automation Solutions.

“We’re proud to have the Control4 Hospitality Solution honored for its success in providing automation functionality with connectivity of over 10,000 devices to hotels on an easy-to-use control system for guests and management,” David said.