You may have guessed by now that we at Triptease are fully paid-up members of the CRM fan club. We believe that done right, it can work wonders for hotels, helping bring about the personal touch that people crave from hospitality at every step of the customer journey. And best of all, that can be achieved with data that hotels already have. But you don’t have to take our word for it. We’ve drafted in some specialists who have the proof.
Revinate provides software for hotel operations, marketing, revenue management and CRM. It works with over 25,000 hotels — a deep database to draw from. For the third part of CRM: A Hotelier’s Guide, Revinate presents the evidence that best illustrates the power of CRM.
Segmentation
CRM is often used to tailor marketing messages, particularly email, to various audiences. Taking the time to group recipients of your emails into segments can really pay off. Revinate’s data shows segmentation results in:
- 20% higher open rates
- 70% higher click-through rates
- 73% higher revenue per recipient
Campaigns
One of the main reasons hoteliers invest in CRM is to create targeted marketing campaigns they can track and assess effectively. Again, email tends to be the method of delivery. Below is a breakdown various types of email campaigns and how they have performed for Revinate customers. Bear in mind, MailChimp’s February email-marketing statistics (which are based on emails sent to 1000 subscribers), show an average open rate of 20.69% for the travel industry.
- Pre-arrival campaigns: 57% open rate, 15.5% click-through rate
- Pre-arrival with “upgrade” in subject line: 61% open rate, 30% click-through rate
- On-property welcome: 48% open rate, 1.5% click-through rate
- Post-Stay “winback” from OTA: 33% open rate, 3.3% click-through rate
- One-time promotion: 19% open rate, 2% click-through rate
- Case study: One hotel campaign offering direct bookers early access to a flash sale achieved a return on investment of 1:100 in just two days.
So the data is pretty conclusive; CRM can lead to some impressive results. But what else can Revinate tell us about what makes good CRM? We asked for the team’s best learnings and observations.
Hotels want to organize their data
We find that overwhelmingly hotels want better database visibility. They know they have troves of information locked away in their PMS, but they’re not able to access it, or if they can, it’s almost impossible to make sense of it. Hoteliers want easier access to their data and they want it presented in a way that is actionable and insightful. They understand that only with this data can they provide more personalized experiences for their guests, whether it be on-property or through their marketing efforts.
