Eric Oppegaard
Customer relationship management (CRM) tools can help your hotel create a personalized and unforgettable experience for your guest, and do it at scale. But are you using your hotel CRM tool correctly? Make sure you’re getting the most out of your CRM solution by ensuring you know how to take advantage of all its functionalities – from basic, everyday practices to more advanced tactics that will help you provide a great guest experience at scale, while driving incremental revenue.
Before we dive in, be sure to visit our ultimate guide to guest loyalty to access an all-encompassing rundown of guest loyalty, its evolving nature along with proven strategies to position your brand for successful long term guest relationships.
Increase pre-stay engagement with personalized transactional emails
Have a food and beverage special you want to promote on the weekends? Do you want to drive traffic to a certain event in the city?
Transactional emails have a higher open rate (54%!) than marketing emails (21%) – this is the perfect time to engage your guests before they arrive on property.1 Dynamic content that populates based on guest stay parameters is a great way to delight your customers with offers and information tailored to their visit.
Convert OTA bookers to loyal customers
Make it a best practice for your front desk to collect and update each guest’s email address during check in.
Hotels don’t receive the email of guests who booked through an online travel agency. Updating email information at check in gives you the ability to send special offers that entice guests to book their next stay through your website instead of an OTA – driving loyalty, more direct bookings and more revenue.
Segment and target your marketing emails for the best results
Segmented marketing campaigns perform markedly better than their non-segmented counterparts: Marketers have found a 760% increase in email revenue from segmented campaigns. 2
Deliver highly targeted marketing campaigns by creating filters such as location, age and top guests. If you have a sudden occupancy and need to fill rooms with little notice, to make a last-minute getaway offer to potential guests in local zip codes.
Set up triggered rules to automate sending abandonment and upgrade offers
If guests abandon during the booking process and have provided their information, send them an offer to bring them back to your property and complete the booking. Once they book, offer guests the chance to upgrade with a spa package or a room upgrade in their pre-arrival message.
Get the most bang for your buck by using an upsell feature that is based on a flat fee, not a commission model.
Super-charge your CRM with CRS integration
Integrating your CRM and central reservations system is crucial to creating a cohesive guest experience, while capturing more spend and driving revenue.
With both systems working together, you have more data points (such as browsing history) to personalize guest communications: For example, you could send an abandonment email with the specific room or package they looked at in the booking engine.
References
1 TravelClick’s Guest Management Solutions Aggregated Email Results 2017
2 Direct Marketing Association, National Client Email Survey
