Artificial intelligence for the hotel industry

Please ask m

Challenge

In the MICE industry, a fast response time is key to winning over a customer. For example, when they’re booking for conferences or events. Business to business means switching quickly and being the first with a price that the customer can respond to. But how do you combine that continuous flow of requests with things that really offer your guests added value? Like processing special requests or providing a bit of extra service. After all, time is precious, for both the companies that want to book and the hotel chains. That’s why Harborn continuously invests in the ongoing cooperation with Please ask m: artificial intelligence for booking requests. The application to free up hotel staff and drastically reduce response times.

It started as a private assistant...

Please ask m didn’t just happen. The roots lie with Postillion Hotels. They asked Harborn to develop an assistant for them, based on artificial intelligence. In other words, a digital extra employee, to handle business requests quickly and correctly. His name? Michiel. A fully independent AI-based application (and colleague), developed to fit the needs of Postillion Hotels. Michiel’s skills were also very interesting for the rest of the hospitality industry. We started looking for an assistant who could work anywhere.

...Grown into a tech start-up

Please ask m was created as a spin-off to build the application further, or rather, to rebuild it. We took the best qualities of our first digital assistant and developed the new assistant from scratch. We carefully examined whether certain functions were desirable or not and adapted them to fit the new application. Please ask m is an independent start-up and product owner. Together with Harborn, as a hybrid development team, working continuously on m: a new assistant that can support any hotel.

Technologies

PHP/Symfony Framework
API Platform
Vue Frontend Framework
Python
Azure Spell check
Tagtog
AWS services (S3, SQS)

Pleaseaskm.com

m, the AI assistant for the hospitality industry

Artificial intelligence is the brain of m. The application is trained to recognise information and learns every day, making it better at its job. Of course, we wouldn't introduce you to m if he was still just a rookie. m can already read e-mails, make quotations and process everything in the linked reservation systems. m also has its own booking engine, which means that bookings can be made using the hotel's own website. Making it possible for requests to come in directly, without intermediaries. m doesn’t need a human assistant to check availability and makes offers completely independently. That leaves staff free for other activities, like preparing a large, customised quote or providing extra service to guests.

Infographic over hoe de applicatie van Please ask m werkt.

Wherever the request, m will take care of it

Using the web form, m helps the hospitality industry because it makes direct requests easier. Hotels can now take back some of the profits from the big booking parties. Also, in a market where third-party booking companies are popping up like mushrooms, it's also nice for employees not to have to switch between the various channels. That’s why more and more of these parties are currently being connected to m, in order to centralise and manage the data that comes through them as well. m is thereby acquiring the function of channel manager and saving even more time for hotels.

A creative brainstorming session with colorful sticky notes and icons on a whiteboard, showcasing creating a content strategy in digital marketing.

Schermafbeelding van de applicatie Please ask m.

The m of more

m is a very solid application, particularly due to the good cooperation between Harborn and Please ask m. Together, we ensure that each piece of code written for m complies with a number of basic rules, by looking critically at each part of the solution. That’s why you won’t find any quick fixes, only sustainable solutions. Instead of hard coding, custom creations, and above all: no hotel-specific components. m is made for all hotels, offering what they need in a solution that can be connected to any combination of systems. Although interest is high, investing in the product remains just as important as connecting new customers. By continuing to develop in a hybrid team, we ensure that the application gets exactly the attention it needs. Harborn organises focus days with Please ask m, so that the product can respond to challenges in the industry. On the technical side, Harborn also helps the junior front and back-end designers at Please ask m. Everyone assists each other, with a result that benefits the entire industry!

100000+

Emails processed every year

80%

Faster response time for quotes

Ferdinando

Commercial Director

Looking for a smart hospitality solution?

Are you looking for a similar solution yourself? Whether it's a smart assistant, artificial intelligence, a planning tool or another piece of digital craftsmanship: Harborn can help you. We love to think about how we can automate your problem and the best form to make it successful. Questions about m? Talk to F (Ferdinando), he is project lead on this case. He will be more than happy to answer them. Feel free to contact us.

+316 1368 1514 ferdinando.vandepanne@harborn.com