Mr. Kall

Guest Service / Customer Experience Mgmt

Need Customers? Then “Customer Relationship Management” Matters!

By Rob Kall, President, Bookt LLC

You have heard it all before. The Internet has leveled the playing field for travel … today’s lodging-shopper has more channels and choices … new strategies and tactics are needed to effectively compete in today’s socially connected online world. Okay. That is the way it is. Let’s talk about Customer Relationship Management as a practical approach and toolset that can give you an edge within today’s reality.

Gaining and Retaining Customers

Back in the late 1950s, IBM developed the first true automation innovation in the travel industry by envisioning and launching SABRE, the first computerized reservation system, automating the way American Airlines booked reservations. SABRE really “took-off” so to speak and sparked a revolution in travel technology. It is not too surprising then that IBM again, in 2001, produced the definitive “blueprint for customer relationship management in the travel industry” – and it remains as solid today as it was when penned 10 years ago.

Basically, IBM knowingly said that it takes a “disciplined” approach to collect and then apply traveler information to the building of strong customer relationships. That methodically, in a step-wise approach, you must:

1. Continually refine your insights into customer needs, habits, and economics
2. Develop and deliver targeted and tailored value propositions based on that knowledge
3. Focus your time and business resources on activities that help produce what is above in 1 and 2

Cause and effect. Today’s even greater level of interaction with past guests and prospects (the cause) provides the opportunity (the effect) to even better understand the needs, behavior and values of individual customers and customer segments. Which is a good thing as the intense global competition for lodging consumers tends to make our offerings and services increasingly similar, so customer “relationships” have become the transactional currency of successful sales, marketing and service-driven lodging companies. Truly, “relationships” matter and are today’s powerful brand differentiator. This is where CRM comes in and can make the difference between a booking for you or one of your competitors.

CRM for Lodging Companies – the M is as important as the R

Great news! You do not have to hire an expensive IBM consultant or buy their costly mainframe to effectively “gain and retain” customers. Not anymore. What you do need is integrated software + marketing; software to help you effectively organize your actionable customer and prospect data + marketing that continually interacts with your targets throughout all of your channels. Savvy lodging professionals understand that the “M” for Management of the “C” for Customer (including Prospect) data is as important as the “R” for Relationship in CRM. Only when you are able to “M” an always growing number of “C” information will you be able to nurture your “R” with your target’s specific needs and deliver the explicit values they seek and do so within multiple layers of engagement. Thus, savvy lodging managers are working with integrated software that delivers scalability to accommodate more and more information from more and more touchpoints for more and more prospects and past guests.

CRM done right

As far as choosing software goes, it is best to focus on your specific business needs rather than getting lost in the bells and whistles of the various CRM System offerings. In other words, do not get sidetracked by all of the amazing things that a random system promises; instead, think about your particular business, your staff, your pain-points, your touchpoints – and what your CRM needs to accomplish to gain and retain your target guests. Keep it simple. Identify the sales and marketing activities you will actually employ to engage new and past customers, and select a CRM system that is reliable, proven and scalable to that end.

Keep it simple. CRM done right will result in your ability to:

• Capture new targets and understand their unique preferences
• Nurture a developing relationship by providing tailored information and offers
• Convert prospects to sales/bookings
• Incubate past guests – continue to nurture – continue to convert for new bookings
• Measure results and effectiveness, and refine your tailored offerings

Savvy lodging managers “keep it simple” by selecting and then employing CRM software as a tool that supports one straightforward goal – the ability to continually refine their insight into customer needs and then directly target (and deliver) their value-proposition(s) to meet those needs.

Social CRM

The travel world is abuzz with discussion and debate on social media. Let’s move beyond buzzwords and clichés, and continue to keep it simple… When it comes to Social CRM, there are four core ideas to internalize and act on:

1. The online community is influential – so join the conversation and never try to control it.
2. The social customer is not looking for intimacy with you – just tangible value and in some cases a way to open a conversation.
3. Past guests primarily rely on their own experience in deciding whether to do business with you again.
4. Prospects primarily rely on your brand’s reputation – especially via reviews from family, friends and past guests.

Considering the above, savvy Lodging Managers use CRM to make it efficient to capture activity on social outlets and then to communicate with individuals and the entire community. In other words, it’s just another channel to do what you do. However, the savviest among us exploit this still-emerging channel by recognizing they are competing for people’s time, attention, data and ultimately endorsement – and acting accordingly.

Acting accordingly? Yes, with actions focused on design and implementation of customer/prospect engagement tactics as capsules containing “tangible value” in return for that time/attention/data/endorsement. And with regard to “endorsement” – namely effectively garnering and promoting positive Guest Reviews, this is your online reputation and is absolutely a mega-element to your online success. (Note: at Bookt, Guest Reviews for our clients are displayed within the lodging-shoppers property selection process, at the point of sale. Endorsement = Bookings!)

Customer Segmentation

Some marketers make the mistake of focusing just on what people “are” and miss the real opportunity – looking at what people do. Clearly, CRM systems are built to record individual characteristics (Guest Profiles) from which you can create and launch target marketing programs containing tangible value. But it is even more important to act on customer and prospect “behavior” because it is here that CRM closes sales. If you just deal with Guest Profiles you are like a salesperson that continually spouts off features and benefits but never goes in for the close – and waits for the target to do that for themselves. If you also look at customer and prospect behavior you can identify where people are within the Sales Funnel (sales process) and both know precisely when to engage and what to engage them with.

For this you need to have a more sophisticated CRM – one that lets you visualize and track actionable individual online behavior. This is called the Digital Footprint.

The Digital Footprint

Some bookings just “come to you”. Others – probably the ones you are not getting today – these you need to work for. Thus, a CRM system which allows you to see and track (all in one “view”), the incremental online activities and behaviors of your prospects and past guests (their “digital footprint”) – this is a CRM that fuels conversion. These sales don’t “come to you” – you come to them. Digital activity is a predictor of purchasing activity. If your CRM can track visits, chat, agent conversations, email click-through, offers they have looked at, past reservations, quote generation, preferences, etc., then you are in position to maximize your Sales Funnel. If not, it is time to upgrade to a CRM that can.

Target Email Marketing

Drip-drip-drip. Why? Because it works-works-works. Particularly when combined with customer segmentation for groups of people with shared preferences. Drip-drip-drip. This is classical online marketing but CRM gives you an edge.

What is not so classic and requires the “digital footprint” capability is target email to individuals. This is especially fruitful when your email “offer” is activity-based. Like “10% off” for an online booking for someone who visited your site, generated a quote, but did not book within 4 hours. Does your CRM system alert you to that type of real-time opportunity? And does it contain an integrated automated email capability? Good for you if your CRM does – time to consider an upgrade if it does not.

You cannot manage what you cannot measure

Every article on CRM seems to end with some version of that old quotation… “You cannot manage what you cannot measure”. Yes. It’s true. Analytics. Metrics. Analysis. You don’t need to be Einstein to understand the value and importance of the numbers.

Let’s end this article with Einstein – from a sign that he hung on his wall in his office at Princeton University. It said… “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."

Einstein’s simple sign reminds us that CRM, like any other tool, is only as good as the people who use it. That at the end of the day it is you, the savvy lodging manager, who will successfully exploit the potential of CRM based on your focus, creativity and skill-set. As mentioned above, the “M” is as important as the “R” in CRM. And you don’t need to be Einstein to know that you are the “M”.

Rob Kall, President of Bookt LLC, is a 'technopreneur' at heart. Drawing upon his 12+ years of experience in developing and implementing real estate and property websites he founded Bookt in 2007 to fill a void in the global vacation rental industry. Mr. Kall is a master of emerging web technologies, especially as applied to the travel industry, as well as behavioral targeting and engagement, deciphering marketing trends into widgets and applications, and online distribution hubs beyond the GDS. Mr. Kall holds a Bachelors in Computer Science from University of Boras, Sweden. Mr. Kall can be contacted at 800-941-0868 or rob@bookt.com Extended Bio...

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