In the fast-paced environment of the hospitality industry, most hoteliers would agree that developing and sustaining strong guest relationships is key to long term success.
NB: This is an article by Terri Miller, CEO & Co-Founder of Concilio Labs
For that reason, customer relationship management (CRM) tools have become one of the most valuable strategic and tactical solutions in the hotel ecosystem. Over the last few years, the leading hotel CRM platforms have advanced to become much more guest-centric, enabling visibility into centralized guest history data, preferences, and buying behaviors, while also acting as highly effective outbound email marketing solutions. In fact, it’s noted that 79% of leads fail to convert without a CRM, and the ROI on CRM is usually more than $5 to every $1 invested. However, as the modern guest continues to evolve, and the number of communication channels continues to grow, it has become apparent that the potential for CRM influence is exponential.
Does Collaboration Bring Innovation to Life?
In technology, successful implementation of new ideas require collaboration with complementary partners. When it comes to CRM advancements, one may believe this could be the secret sauce for innovation and market leadership. Many of the most popular hotel CRM solutions were developed before the digital age took over. This means they are often limited when it comes to flexibility and may have challenges when it comes to taking advantage of the ever-growing web, social community-driven sources, and self-maintenance of guest data. Acquiring digital agility often requires a significant investment of time and resources. So do these hotel CRMs accelerate quickly to meet emerging demands? By fostering innovation via symbiotic partnerships and integrations. At Concilio Labs, we’ve developed an intelligence platform that unlocks powerful insights from hotel and guest data to take any CRM to the next level.
Getting Personal
Technology makes it possible to create meaningful interactions throughout the entire guest journey, starting at pre-arrival and continuing to post-stay. Each touchpoint presents an opportunity to establish a long-term, mutually beneficial loyalty relationship and, without these relevant insights, hoteliers could be missing out entirely. A holistic guest view delivers information and context beyond general preferences. What is the travel intent and purpose? What do buying behaviors say about who travelers are and what they look for in a trip? Do they have an extensive personal network? Could they drive loyalty through that social influence? Further, with access to more in-depth guest insights, hoteliers can better tailor individual or collective marketing efforts to communicate and sell to guests in a more personalized, effective manner. Our proprietary guest scoring systems reveals the real person behind every reservation and their value to the hotel.
Tapping Into Social
With digital influence, social media exists as an incredible channel through which hotels can connect with their guests.
Using the social insights gathered by a comprehensive CRM tool (or tools), hoteliers can compile a guest profile that will help determine each guest’s value to a hotel. Combining reservation, guest, and marketing data with each guest’s online behavior and persona, hoteliers, can then create tailored marketing campaigns to communicate intelligently to guests. This helps hoteliers to strengthen their guest relationships and better affirm their value by anticipating guest needs and expectations before they even arrive on property. Further, hoteliers can also determine who may deserve special attention, based on extensive social influence and long-term loyalty value to the hotel. After all, the number of social media users worldwide in 2018 is 3.196 billion — that’s a lot of potential influence!
Targeted Campaigns
Analyzing guest data and understanding demographic groups, psychographics, and value can steer guests towards the products or services best suited to their needs. Data can also drive geo-targeted ads that are tailored to guests in town for events, offering relevant promotions via multiple channels. The culmination of location data within a visual CRM solution also helps hoteliers to stay on top of their property and any related feedback (especially for multiple locations), to be more attentive to the guest commentary, both positive and negative. After all, it is one thing to understand your guests and quite another to be able to act on that data — insights should be about a (highly effective) a means to an end.
Author Bio
As CEO of Concilio Labs, Terri is responsible for driving the strategic and tactical growth of the company, while ensuring innovation is at the forefront when delivering solutions hoteliers truly need. Her wealth of experience in business, management, and technology guides all facets of the company’s success. Prior to Concilio Labs, Terri was the Vice President of MICROS eCommerce leading the creative, delivery, and technical departments. With a passion for delivering results, Terri continues to grow Concilio Labs with a focus on becoming the leader in developing and delivering smart hotel products and services.
