The market has never been harder to navigate and bringing business to hotels is not what it used to be. Contracted businesses have dropped dramatically and according to most assumptions, it will take years before the hotel has the same volume of corporate guests as before COVID-19. As an impact of dropped volume and revenue decrease many hotels have been forced to reorganize and sales have been lower in priority.
Despite the fact the hotels can’t afford as many sales hours as necessary, sales for the hotels has never been more important. In a tougher market, sales can make an even bigger impact than before. The hotels that manage to work with sales in a better and more effective way will increase their market share and get a competitive advantage.
So how can you achieve more with less?
The power of data
It’s a common problem that hotels struggle with data. Being smarter with utilization your data will create better opportunities and target more profitable markets and accounts.
Hotels that have a smart setup with correct data get a huge advantage in their market. It means more easily can focus on the most profitable segments and agreements. It’s also more important than ever to keep track of the shifting segments and demands to know where you should focus your energy.
Productivity increase is necessary
Before COVID-19, the global traveling was growing consistently and as a result of that hotels have got stuck in old patterns and worked inefficiently. The hotels have still survived because of the growing travel volumes. Did you know that the hospitality industry is at the bottom. The lack of new ways of working and the use of the right technology infrastructure creates opportunities to make changes in business strategies and working methods.
The hotel PMS usually do not visualize and present all the data you need in order to improve your sales performance and keep track of your agreements. If you can find all the necessary data, you need to spend hours retrieving, managing, and compiling data. Investing in new technology is a must to accelerate and increase your productivity within sales.
CRM developed for hotels
Implementing the right CRM will increase your sales effectiveness - Close more deals, focus on the most important contracts, automatic alerts are just some of the benefits.
To maximize your CRM, integrate the software with your PMS if possible. This means you have direct access to all data in your CRM and you can get deals automatically transferred to your CRM pipeline. The CRM you use should remove some of your biggest obstacles
Here are a few examples of features and the pain points they tackle.
Feature: Automatically import data from the hotel PMS
Pain points:
- Manually input data from the hotel PMS to the CRM takes a lot of time
- Finding the correct information about the production of room nights and revenue from all companies included in a corporate contract is almost impossible
- Updating data daily to keep track of pick-up from your contracted customers is time-consuming
Feature: Team collaboration (team reports, revenue forecast, live dashboards, etc.)
Pain points:
- Data about leads and sales is stored in spreadsheets locally, on salespersons’’ computers and not accessible for the team
- Salespersons don’t know their current contribution towards team goals
- Challenging to make adjustments on the fly because up-to-date information isn’t readily available (all decisions depend on the most recent weekly report)
Feature: CRM as a single source of truth
Pain points:
- Searching through emails for the latest progress with a lead
- Maintaining a separate document with email templates
- A separate calendar with sales appointments that aren’t connected to lead information
