Virtual Reality (VR) technology is quickly becoming an important tool for hotel and travel professionals to practice handling difficult situations and resolving conflicts in a safe and controlled environment. VR training simulations provide a realistic and immersive experience for employees, allowing them to practice responding to challenging scenarios and develop the skills they need to effectively handle real-life situations.
Improving Confidence
Not everybody can feel confident in any given situation. One of the major benefits of VR training is that it allows employees to practice dealing with difficult guests or customers in a safe and controlled environment.
A VR simulation might involve a guest who is angry or upset about a service issue, or a customer who is struggling with a language barrier. By practicing how to respond to these types of scenarios, employees can learn how to remain calm and professional, how to communicate effectively with the customer, and how to resolve the issue in a way that is satisfactory for all parties involved. The data collected also allows to create new simulations to fit any situation or respond to specific requirement to improve employee confidence.
Handling Difficult Situations
Another benefit of VR training is that it allows employees to practice dealing with unexpected events and crises. How do employee respond to a fire in a hotel, a power outage, or a medical emergency? It needs to be practised before any problem occurs. By practicing how to respond to these types of situations, employees can learn how to remain calm under pressure and make quick decisions that help to minimise damage and ensure the safety of guests and employees.
VR training allows employees to experience simulated crises and unexpected events, which can help them to develop the ability to make effective decisions in real-life emergencies.
Improving Quality of Service
VR training can also help hotel and travel professionals to better understand the customer journey, such as how to make the customer experience more pleasant and welcoming.
VR simulations can show employee how to give guests a more personalised service experience, by learning how to detect guests‘ needs and how to offer them the best recommendations. By doing so, employees can improve the quality of the service provided and feel more confident, which will be beneficial for both the customer and the company. By developing the skills they need to handle challenging situations effectively and be able to provide better services, employees can experience increased job satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment.
Reducing the cost of Traditional Training
VR training is not only beneficial for employees, it can also be cost-effective for companies.
Traditional training methods often involve hiring expensive trainers or sending employees to off-site training programs, which can be costly and time-consuming. VR training, on the other hand, can be done on-site, and at a fraction of the cost. Using VR for onboarding training can reduce the cost of new employee training by providing a more efficient and cost-effective way to get new hires on the skills and knowledge they need to be successful in their roles.
Additionally, VR allows for repetition, mistake and try-out. Employees to practice the same scenarios multiple times until they feel comfortable with handling them. This can help to improve the retention of the training, reducing the need for re-training, and thus reducing the cost associated with it. Couple with AR training refreshers that can be launched from most smartphones anywhere, employees can keep on training on-the-go.
Reducing the Cost of Attrition
A robust Virtual Reality (VR) onboarding training program can help to reduce the cost of employee attrition by providing skills and knowledge and mitigate the loss of employees which can become costly for a company, as it requires additional time and resources to find and train new hires.
VR onboarding training allows new hires to experience realistic and immersive simulations of common scenarios they will encounter in their roles. By experiencing these unusual scenarios in a safe and controlled environment, new hires can practice responding to new situations and develop additional skills to handle them effectively in the real world.
This make them more prepared and confident to handle difficult guests and feel more comfortable with handling challenging situations, which can lead to increased job satisfaction and a lower likelihood of employees leaving the company.
Conclusion
Using VR for onboarding training can reduce the cost of new employee training and has many other benefits. It is a cost-effective alternative to traditional training methods, allowing companies to train their employees on-site, with repetition, at a fraction of the cost.
As VR technology continues to evolve, it is likely that more and more companies in the hotel and travel industry will turn to VR training as a way to improve the skills and knowledge of their employees. HR departments may need to adapt their existing training programs to incorporate VR technology to help employees practice how to respond to challenging scenarios and become the best of themselves in any given situation.
Quelle:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/impact-vr-employee-retention-hospitality-industry-caroline-letrange/
Foto: employees can learn how to remain calm and professional and how to communicate effectively with the customer to resolve issues.
