The benefits of a VoIP system are numerous for your hotel, your staff, and your guests, but one of the most important benefits is the ability to provide your guests with a more personalized experience. The hospitality industry thrives on the ability to create personal, memorable relationships with everyone who walks through the door, whether it’s their first visit to the hotel or they’ve been patronizing your business for years.As hotel technology has advanced, so has your ability to keep up with your guests, learn about them, and provide them with the experience they deserve. Here’s how a CRM (customer relationship management) system can help.
Real-Time Customer Information
We’ve all dealt with having to repeat our information over and over to a representative on the phone. It’s impersonal and frustrating, and it’s best if your hotel can avoid this irritation entirely. Most hotels have caller ID, but CRM can take your customer interactions up to another level.A CRM system will catalog your customers’ names, phone numbers, email addresses, and locations with time zones. You can integrate their purchase history, too — which rooms they’ve stayed in, how recently, and whether they had any special requests when they booked their room. When you integrate your CRM system with your VoIP system, all of this information can be pulled up on the screen automatically.This will allow for much more personal calls with your customers. Rather than answering the phone and simply saying hello, your front desk staff might say “Hello Mr. Smith, how are things in Denver?” You won’t need customers to dig up their confirmation numbers or login information, and you’ll be able to jump right to helping them with their reservation.
Better Customer Records
In addition to real-time information, you’ll be able to keep a long-term history about your guests. You’ll have a well-organized record of every email, phone call, and text message that’s ever been sent between your hotel and a given guest. You’ll also be able to see the rooms they’ve stayed in before, even at your other properties.With better records, you’ll be able to send more personalized communications to your guests. If there’s a guest that travels for business every year around the same time, you can email them to prompt them to book again. If a family visits you around the holidays on a regular basis, you can offer them a discount to visit in the summer, too.
Closed-Loop Analytics
When your marketers create leads to send customers to your website, they might not know if their marketing efforts are working. A CRM system integrated with your VoIP communications system will help “close the loop,” giving you a detailed record of which marketing channels have been the most successful and which aren’t generating as much traffic.When you know how a guest found out about your hotel, you can create customized landing pages to tell them about your hotel. For example, if someone clicked on an ad for your hotel from a blog entitled “Best Ways to Unwind,” you might advertise your pool and spa packages. If they seem more interested in tourist activities, you could talk about the restaurants and attractions near your hotel. When your CRM and VoIP systems are connected, all of this information will be available to anyone who communicates with guests.
More Efficient Staff
The best use of your staff’s time is the face-to-face interactions that make your guests feel noticed and appreciated. The more time your staff has to spend at the front desk on menial tasks like booking reservations and checking in guests, the less time they have to help guests with their particular needs.With CRM system integration, you can make the basic processes of your hotel much more efficient and automatic, freeing up your staff to provide guests with individualized attention. You can enable guests to check-in automatically, order room service online, schedule wake-up calls, and request housekeeping or maintenance all without occupying your front desk staff.
Incorporate SMS and Email
Modern consumers are less and less likely to use the phone when they need something from your hotel — they’d rather opt for the convenience of texting or email, which many hotels with outdated systems aren’t equipped to use. When someone does email your hotel, there’s often no way to integrate your email records and phone conversations.A VoIP system, when partnered with a CRM system, can bring together every form of communication your hotel and guests use into one easy-to-use database. You’ll be able to view transcripts of your calls next to texts and emails from the same guests so that no conversation slips through the cracks. The more you can remember about your guests and their needs, the better an experience you can give them.
