TrustYou, the guest feedback platform, has bought Checkmate, the real-time messaging service, for an undisclosed sum.
The statement said:
"The acquisition of Checkmate enhances the TrustYou platform, allowing hotels to actively engage guests before they arrive and while they are on-site in real-time through SMS, email, and even Facebook messaging.
"For hoteliers, this drives engagement and allows hotels to always be informed about their guests’ experiences."
Benjamin Jost, CEO and co-founder of TrustYou, explained that TrustYou had bought Checkmate for its technology and product. "We have customers in common and a lot of the conversations in the run-up to the deal were with these shared clients about what our combined businesses could do together, and we're super-excited."
In the medium-term, Checkmate will continue to operate as a standalone product. However, Jost said that engineering teams from both businesses are already working on integrating Checkmate into its platform with the enhanced products slated to be ready by the end of the year.
He said that Checkmate is "the missing link" as it enables TrustYou to capture and collate the on-site experience of guests via their messaging with the hotel, link that to what is then said in surveys and on review sites and share that back to the hotel.
"We looked at whether to build something ourselves or acquire a business," he said. "Hotel guests are using messaging, it could be SMS, it could be Facebook Messenger, to talk to the hotel while onsite so it made sense for us to buy a business with not only the technology but also the vision to understand messaging's future role."
Deal terms were not disclosed.
Related reading from Tnooz:
Since Expedia invested, CheckMate has sped up its rollout (Dec 2015)
Checking in with Checkmate, Drew Patterson’s B2B hotel tech mobile tool (July 2014)