Latest / The Modern Hotelier / #290: The Hospitality Platform Improving the Guest Experience | with Will Gilbert
Transcript
- The Modern Hotelier #290: The Hospitality Platform Improving the Guest Experience | with Will Gilbert === David Millili: Welcome to a special HITEC Modern Hotelier, the most engaged podcast in hospitality. Don't forget to follow, subscribe, and like, and let us know in the comments what you think about today's episode. Steve, who do we have on today? Steve Carran: Yeah, David, excited for this one. We are meeting our friend, good friend, Will Gilbert, co-founder at Bodhi. Thanks for sitting down with us, Will. How are you doing? Will Gilbert: Doing great. It's been a great show. Steve Carran: Good. Steve Carran: Yeah, David, excited for this one. We are meeting our friend, good friend, Will Gilbert, co-founder at Bodhi. Thanks for sitting down with us, Will. How are you doing? Will Gilbert: Doing great. It's been a great show. Steve Carran: Good. Will Gilbert: Well, since last October we have 10X'd our business. Wow. yeah, both in customers, and revenue. The team is on all cylinders. I think, you know, it's never been better than before. and, you know, coming to this show, with a lot of momentum you know, we're the only platform now that can prove a measurable return on investment. We're showing it here on our ROI calculator, today, and that's caught the attention of a lot of, a lot of big names, that you know. David Millili: We see you're showing off many new features at the show. So you talked about the ROI calculator. So can you talk about some of the new features? Will Gilbert: Yeah, sure. But, you know, first off, we're not a features company. You know- Okay ... we're a platform, and really, features are just products. And anyone can create products, and we create one, someone else creates another, and round and round it goes, and the customer is no better off, right? So, Bodhi is delivering change, sustainability and profitability, to our customers, and features alone don't just do that. Now, of course, we're absorbing the entire hotel ecosystem, and we're showing off the new things here, like our housekeeping integrate- our housekeeping modules, valet for the c- you know, for your car, and even work order management system. So continuing to grow the platform and the feature set, as we naturally would. David Millili: Platform gets thrown around a lot in this industry. What does that actually mean to you and Bodhi? Will Gilbert: Yeah, I mean, everyone calls themselves a platform- Right. ... as they walk around here nowadays, right? It's the, it's the buzzword, for the, you know, for the decade. And really, you know, people take a bunch of products, they throw it together, they call it a platform. And that's not what this is, right? Bodhi is is purpose-built, and it's proven. Purpose-built, meaning it's was built from the ground up to run a hotel, not stitched together after the fact. Proven, you know, we're the only manufacturer or only platform that actually can prove a return on investment. And you know, the true test of a platform is something that everything is in one place, and the more you use it, the smarter that it gets. And you know, and we, when we come out with new features, you don't buy it again, you just get it, right? So if the stuff that you have now, the day after you signed doesn't get better, it was never a platform. Steve Carran: You mentioned a guarantee on investments. How do you promise that when most vendors won't even put that in writing? Will Gilbert: Well, the best part is, you know, we've earned the right to. Our platform, unlike anybody else, we're confident in those numbers, right? We see, you know, everything is based off real customer data in our calculator, which are the labor hours coming back, the guest satisfaction scores going up and the revenue that's showing back up. And, you know, for us, it's not a risk putting it in writing, it's just honesty, and we stand behind the numbers. David Millili: So what's a problem that hotels are living with every day that they shouldn't have to? Will Gilbert: These are nothing new. Everyone's just accepted them. You know, hotels know that you're gonna walk up to a room where the battery in that door lock is gonna be dead. They're gonna walk into a room that it's too hot or it's too humid, or there's a water leak, or the minibar fridge is at, you know, 80 degrees. And you know, those negative reviews directly hit revenue. And just go, you know, look at Forbes and Cornell and the Star Report, that data is crystal clear. You know, with every drop in rating affects occupancy and your rate for the hotel. And so, you know, nobody's done this before, and that's why Bodhi's setting the hospitality world on fire. You know, some out there have a door lock that talks to a thermostat. We're a complete business platform, and business platform is a very important thing. We're not just fixing the guest room, we're transforming the entire business. David Millili: Of everything you've rolled into the platform this year, what's the one thing that makes operators' eyes light up? Will Gilbert: It's really the ROI calculator. Yeah. You know, they come into the booth, we put in their property, it pulls up their number of rooms, their average ADR, shows them all the things that Bodhi's gonna do for their property, and those things are protect their revenue, get rid of those negative reviews. You know, look after things like water leaks, energy savings of course, right? And also room turnover. So for us, you know, they come in here, they plug those numbers in, and you know, they just light up. And the best part is you can do it yourself. You know, you can go to roi.gobodhi.com, and put your own details in and see the results. Steve Carran: One thing we've been talking about a lot at this show is AI. We haven't even heard you bring it up yet. Are you incorporating it into Bodhi? Will Gilbert: Look, I mean, everyone claims they have AI, and of course we have AI, right? But the difference is everybody else takes AI and bolts it onto their product and they call it innovation. We don't do it like that. You know, Bodhi AI works alongside. The main thing here is making sure that it's a measurable result for the customer, not just some gimmicky thing. So of course, we have AI. And then, you know, something that people don't like to talk about that much is that with AI you can vibe code an app and walk around here and see a lot of different things that have popped up, but who's taking care of the infrastructure? Who is looking after the data and the privacy behind the scenes? So we're excited here at this show to show off our SOC 2 Type 2 compliance. You know, fully audited, zero exceptions. Not just saying how we handle customer data, but actually proving it as well. David Millili: And so where does Bodhi go from here? What should the industry expect over the next year? Will Gilbert: Well, you know, people have slogans and things they put in their lobby walls in their offices, and you know, for us, nobody can predict the future, right? For us, though, what we can do is commit to keep growing the company bigger and better for our customers and our employees. And, you know, bringing in, from day one our main goal is to be that building operating system, and we're gonna continue on taking those things out of silos and bringing them into our one platform. And you know, in a year from now, people are gonna be asking not what Bodhi does, but what doesn't it touch in a hotel? David Millili: So for operators, hoteliers watching or listening who are intrigued at what you're talking about, what's the first step to working with Bodhi? Will Gilbert: Simple. Come try it. Or go to roi.gobodhi.com, put your hotel on there, see what the numbers are. Come to the booth and see us. Come to one of these shows. Go to the website and connect with us. The best thing is run a proof of concept, 'cause I can tell you something, everyone that's put a proof of concept in their hotel, nobody's returned it. It speaks for itself and they see the numbers. David Millili: So that does it for another episode of The Modern Hotelier. This is where, Willie, you can let people know how they can get in touch with you, how they can find out more about Bodhi. Will Gilbert: Most important thing, go to roi.gobodhi.com, put in your hotel details, see the numbers for yourself. It, it's great when you do. And then, you know, reach out, LinkedIn, go to the website, gobodhi.com, schedule a demo, and better yet, let's do a proof of concept in your hotel. That does it for this special high-tech Modern Hotelier, the most engaged podcast in hospitality. So whether you're watching or listening, we appreciate you and hope to be with you again soon. Steve Carran: Thank you. David Millili: Thank you.