Most vendor pages in the hotel guest-request software space are written to sell their own feature list, which makes them a poor tool for comparing options honestly. This post is a vendor-neutral checklist — the operational questions a GM or ops manager should ask any provider, including Stayhos, before signing a contract.
Start with PMS dependency
The first question worth asking any vendor is direct: does your guest-request system require a live connection to our PMS to function? Some platforms are built assuming tight PMS integration is a prerequisite; others, including Stayhos, work without a PMS entirely. Stayhos also supports an optional CSV guest-stay import for hotels that want QR access checked against an imported stay list, but that's an optional extra, not a requirement for the Guest Hub or requests to function.
Get a straight answer on this before anything else, because it determines how much IT involvement and vendor coordination a rollout will actually require.
Ask what "no app download" really means
"No app required" gets used loosely in this category, so ask specifically: does the guest need to download anything at all, create an account, or install anything to submit a request? With Stayhos, guests scan a Room QR Card and the Guest Hub opens directly in their phone's browser — no installation, no account, and the room context comes from the QR code itself.
Some competing tools use "no app" to describe the guest experience while still requiring a native app for staff, or vice versa. Ask about both sides separately.
Ask how staff actually receive requests
A related but distinct question: what does the staff experience look like day to day? Do staff need a company-issued device, or can they use their own phone? Does receiving a new request require opening an app manually, or does it push a notification?
Stayhos staff use an installable web app — a PWA — with push notifications, so new requests reach a staff member's phone without needing an app store approval process for updates. It's worth asking any vendor whether staff notifications are real-time push alerts or something staff have to check for manually, because that difference shows up immediately in how fast requests get handled.
Ask how requests get routed and assigned
Routing is where guest-request systems differ the most in practice, and it's worth probing specifically. Ask: when a guest submits a request, does it land in a single shared queue that any staff member has to notice and claim, or does it get assigned automatically to the right person?
With Stayhos, requests auto-assign by role, shift, and housekeeping room mapping — a towel request routes toward on-shift housekeeping staff responsible for that room, without a manager manually reassigning every incoming ticket. Ask any vendor for a concrete description of their routing logic rather than a general claim that requests "get to the right person."
Ask what the analytics dashboard actually shows
Analytics claims are one of the easiest places for a vendor pitch to overstate what's actually delivered. Ask specifically: is this aggregate reporting — views, clicks, request volumes across the property — or does it track individual guests?
Stayhos analytics are aggregate and read-only, by design: they never track individual guests, build guest profiles, or connect to advertising. If a vendor describes "guest engagement analytics" without clarifying whether that means aggregate trends or individual-level tracking, ask directly. The distinction matters both for what the dashboard can actually tell a manager and for how the hotel should represent its data practices to guests.
Ask about shift management and housekeeping, not just requests
Guest requests are only part of the operational picture. Ask whether the platform also covers shift scheduling, housekeeping room assignments, an archive of past requests, and role-based staff permissions, or whether those require a separate tool entirely.
Stayhos includes shift management, housekeeping assignments, a request archive, and granular staff permissions in the same Staff Dashboard used for requests — which matters for hotels trying to avoid stitching together several disconnected systems for what is, day to day, one operational workflow.
Ask what happens with local recommendations, if that matters to you
If a hotel is also interested in surfacing local recommendations to guests, ask whether that's a hotel-curated list the hotel controls, or an open directory any business can join. Stayhos's Discover Near Us is hotel-curated — businesses are invited and activated by the hotel, not an open marketplace. This is a meaningfully different model from an open local directory, and it's worth confirming which model any vendor is actually offering.
Put the answers side by side
Once these questions are answered by every vendor under consideration, the comparison becomes much more concrete than reading feature lists side by side. A hotel evaluating guest-request software should be able to answer, for each option: does it require a PMS, what exactly does "no app" cover, how does routing work, what do analytics actually show, and does it include shift and housekeeping management. Those five answers do more to predict day-to-day fit than any marketing page will.
A practical next step
To see concrete answers to these questions for Stayhos specifically — PMS dependency, staff notifications, routing, and analytics — the Guest Hub demo shows the full guest and staff workflow in practice.