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Industry Focus: What CRM Can Do for Hotels & The Hospitality Market
Forrester Research has reported that only 36% of business travelers said they were brand-loyal in 2009, compared to 42% just two years ago. This almost mandates the need for an active CRM system, and in the premier hotel chains the use of CRM has become fairly commonplace, though it is leveraged almost exclusively for frequent guest rewards.
Hotels & CRM
For hotels, CRM strategy includes offering guests discounts or free, extended stays based on the points generated through frequent or lengthy visits at any hotel in the chain. While this does afford the hotels the opportunity to capture guest information and incorporate repeat marketing initiatives, the hotel industry has by and large not been able to go beyond this concept into a more innovative and broad-based CRM application. Rewards and discount offers are only one small aspect of hospitality CRM, and a small part of understanding customer behavior to create customized packages for individuals is equally vital. In this respect, casinos and gaming resorts appear to have made an attempt to enhance the customer experience with some novel, hospitality-specific CRM tools and the bigger hotel chains are also starting to utilize these for the same result.
How to Use CRM?
There are many ways in which the CRM system can be utilized to make the customer’s hotel stay memorable, so that he/she returns for the same experience. Information on room preferences for families, or any special needs like non-allergenic bed linen or a humidifier in the room would signal to the customers that hotel management is concerned about their welfare and comfort.
The hotel website can act as a nodal center for the building up of a CRM system and at a reasonable cost. The website can be integrated with the CRM application and enable customers to handle personal information, preferences, reward programs and track other useful data in an ambience they can control and feel secure in. Whatever the size, all hotels can collect, analyze and manage customer information and create customer-centric agendas with the aid of diverse CRM tools.
Parameters of CRM
There are certain CRM parameters which are specific to the hotel industry as a whole. These add value to the hotel experience and ensure that a guest comes back again to regain that “feel-good” factor.
- VIP Guests: There will always be some guests who are more welcome than others and this is entirely due to their frequent sojourn at the hotel concerned and also in terms of their actual spending pattern. Profitability is always the bottom line and knowing who these guests are and catering to their particular needs and demands would be beneficial in the long run.
- The power of information: Information about customers is the key for creating publicity initiatives and programs. Once the data is available, the concerned personnel can use this to enhance the customer experience and offer value-added benefits which will pull them back again and again.
Hotel CRM in The Future
CRM technology and its tools will definitely play a bigger role in the hospitality industry in the future. Traditional reward programs will get better with CRM tools and with better understanding of the potential of CRM, hotels can branch out into newer territory like social media and other channels to build branding and attract more customers.
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