What if I told you that internal fraud robs hotels of up to 6% of gross revenue every year?
And that’s not counting credit card fraud by guests and vendor scams.
You’d probably ask how you can make fraud detection a priority, right?
The first step is having a hotel audit and an integrity visit, so you can pinpoint any place that your business may be “leaking” money.
This method is more popularly referred to as secret shopping in the retail industry, so here are 4 ways integrity visits can benefit fraud detection for your hotel.
1.Trust Your Staff and Hire With Confidence
Your staff is one of your most valuable assets, so you want to make sure you can trust them.
Implementing and promoting a fraud detection program like integrity visits provides the peace of mind that any unscrupulous employee will be caught. Moreover, that they will be dealt with immediately.
This also sends a message to other new hires that this type of behavior will be addressed and not tolerated.
Integrity visits can help you crack down on the following problems:
- Employees pocketing money
- Employees purposely overcharging customers
- Employees giving discounts to friends and families
- Improper cash handling, like leaving the drawer open unattended
2. Protect Your Customers
This is your biggest priority.
You need to protect your customers from any sort of fraud including credit card fraud.
Your customers are trusting you with their valuable payment information. Any breaches of that trust will mean you’ve lost that customer for life.
What's stopping that former customer from telling everyone they know that they were victims of fraud while staying at your hotel?
Which leads us to our next point...
3. Manage Your Reputation
A dissatisfied guest will also tell thousands of people they don’t even know by slamming you in a negative review on online review sites like Travelocity. Negative reviews tarnish your web footprint and online reputation. We don’t have to tell you how important that is to a hotel’s success.
The last thing you want is the word “fraud” anywhere in a review because that can be an instant disqualifier for future visitors.
4. Fraud Detection Saves You Money
Unfortunately, businesses can lose up to $187,000 before they’re even aware of being defrauded. That’s a big price to pay.
Wouldn’t you rather know about it before it affects your bottom line?
Catching fraud before it starts, or at least in its early stages, can save you hundreds of thousands of dollars.
These steps can help you tighten security at every single level of your hotel, including:
- Guest services
- Front desk staff
- Hotel restaurants
- Hotel bars
- Gift shops
- Room service
- Hotel maintenance
- Spa services
- Pool bars
- Catering services
- event planning
- valet and
- bellman services, as well as convention planning.
To learn more about how to keep your hotel safe from fraudulent behavior, keep checking back with our blog, and reach out to us to hire a mystery shopper or integrity visit for your hotel.
