digital marketing . Sales Efficiency
While web bookings are a great way for planners to book small meetings , most larger events need more human interaction and when that ’ s the case , faster response can only be achieved through improved sales efficiency . Following are a few possibilities .
Lead Management
Hotels get leads from various sources including several third party sites , email , phone , CVB , etc . Consolidating all the leads in one system makes managing and tracking the leads much easier . Systems that automatically read lead information from all the sources can improve efficiency .
In group markets , many hotels deal with several leads every day . Lead scoring technology enables hotels to ensure that the leads that are the best fit and most likely to convert get the quickest response and is a must have especially for convention hotels .
Once consolidated and scored , leads can also be assigned automatically to the right sales person to further reduce inefficiencies .
Automated Pricing
Pricing strategies at hotels range from a simple minimum rate per day to revenue managers quoting each rate - to rates being decided in meetings . Hotels need to ensure maximum profitability with minimum red tape . Automatic pricing is imperative to achieving this and systems , but in case of groups , these systems must focus not just on demand forecast but also on costs since costs related to middle men and group demands continue to eat up a significant portion of the profit .
Relevant Information
Another expectation a planner has is to get all the information that she needs as quickly as possible . While the expectation can be met in simple ways , hotels that up their game through the following ways will improve conversion significantly
Personalization
Hotels that personalize proposals to each group have a much better chance of converting groups as compared to ones that send a boiler-plate proposal . However , we also have to draw a line between delivering a personalized experience and the time it takes to create it so as to not impact speed to market .
Thankfully technology exists today that can create personalized proposals quickly by changing content based on the attributes of the group , segment , account , etc . so each proposal looks like it ’ s been hand-written for the specific group .
Presentation
Proposals are sometimes the first impression that a planner gets of the hotel , and hotels that want to impress their customers now implement technology like e-proposals so they can present immersive content like videos or virtual reality walkthroughs . Combined with personalized content , these proposals can deliver a strong first impression and improve conversion significantly .
Ease of Planning
Newer technology like virtual reality can make meeting planning easier and cost effective by eliminating the need for site visits and traditional diagramming tools . Hotels that implement such technologies will stand out in the crowd .
Please the Guest
This is the guest who is attending the meeting and will have all the expectations from the hotel that a leisure traveler would have , but there are a couple of differences worth mentioning .
Ease of Booking
While online booking for leisure travel is prevalent , most hotels make group attendees call reservations or send them to generic websites that requires them to enter a code to get the contracted rate . This is the time to make the first impression on the guest and hotels have a chance to personalize the booking site to the group to create a better experience .
Business with Pleasure
Another popular desire of guests attending conferences and meetings is to mix business with pleasure . Hotels that provide such information upfront will improve the customer experience and also open up opportunities to upsell and cross sell to the needs of the customer . For example , a guided tour of attractions the day after the conference has opportunity to upsell room nights and ancillaries .
There is also opportunity to provide such information and enable targeted cross sell on mobile apps if hotels provided such an app for events at their hotels .
About the author Ram Mohan is CEO and founder of GroupRevMax ( www . grouprevmax . com ), a cloud system that focuses on improving revenue and profitability of group business while improving efficiencies .
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