hospitality cloud/ hospitality crm
An Experience Worth Writing Home About: The Benefits of Hospitality CRM
This increased interest in travel is having a definite positive impact on businesses in the hospitality industry, including transportation, tourism, lodging, and more. However, as travel increases and these businesses see an influx in customers, certain issues arise.More clients means more information that needs to be handled, and with that comes increased risks of data error. At the same time, modern travelers bring with them increased expectations, particularly where service is concerned. In short, they want something spectacular they can share on online platforms.
With this in mind, successful hospitality businesses turn to hospitality CRM solutions.
What is hospitality CRM?
CRM stands for customer relationship management — a technology designed to help organisations manage their individual customer relationships. CRM functions something like an advanced, intelligent database. It captures and analyses client information and keeps track of all customer interactions. It then consolidates this information into a single location where authorised users can retrieve relevant data easily. Thus, customers get a more personalised experience built on accurate data.
Hospitality CRM builds on the advantages offered by conventional CRM, namely the ability to treat customers as unique individuals. With CRM for hospitality, cloud-based solutions allow organisations to develop an in-depth understanding of every client — past, current, and future.
This is because modern hospitality CRM takes things beyond the standard loyalty programs of the past. Where these rewards programs were generally designed to motivate existing customers into future patronage, hospitality CRM incorporates these programs while also focusing on improving the overall customer experience. In essence, it creats a one-to-one journey for every potential client.
Hospitality cloud solutions create a one-to-one journey.
What does it mean to experience a one-to-one customer journey? Simply put, it means that the customer feels as though they have the undivided attention of the business they are patronising, from first contact all the way through final purchase. Of course, this places significant demand on those providing the service.
In most cases, there are simply too few customer service representatives to work directly and exclusively with each individual client. These clients may have to be shuffled around between service reps, and when this happens, specific client data tends to get lost in the shuffle. Customers find themselves having to re-explain their situations and answer the same questions over and over. At the same time, personal preferences and client histories can be extremely difficult to keep updated and accessible.
Hospitality cloud software provides the solution. By maintaining the data in a single, central location updated in real time, hospitality CRM gives every service representative access to the same reliable client information. Now, the customer relationship can progress uninterrupted, even when it includes multiple points of contact within the organisation. As an additional benefit, CRM-based client surveys can help businesses constantly improve to meet customer expectations.
Hospitality CRM provides other advantages.
The one-to-one customer journey may be the most significant advantage of CRM for the hospitality industry, but it’s certainly not the only one. Hospitality CRM does nothing less than revolutionise client data for hospitality businesses. Here’s how.:
CRM improves data accuracy.
Conventional data entry suffers from a number of pitfalls. Human error means that client data may be inaccurate, giving businesses an imperfect foundation on which to build client relationships. Similarly, duplicate accounts, outdated information, and incomplete customer histories all have the capacity to derail client relationships. Hospitality CRM solutions unify the entire customer database, collecting and analysing client data automatically. Now, when service representatives access customer data, they can do so with confidence.
CRM is customisable to every hospitality business.
Just as every client is a unique individual with unique needs, no two businesses are exactly alike. Even within the hospitality industry, organisations will have different objectives, and rely on different methodologies. Effective hospitality -cloud CRM can be customised to any organisation, for data management solutions that address specific issues. At the same time, CRM is capable of scaling with growing businesses.
CRM provides easy access to all important documentation.
Contracts and other legal documentation are a necessary part of any hospitality business. However, they can be difficult to track down at a moment’s notice. CRM solves this issue by making all relevant legal documentation directly accessible through customer profiles. With the click of a button, associates can locate and review legal documentation without any hassle.
CRM improves employee productivity and collaboration.
Cloud-based CRM that is fully mobile friendly gives every employee access to the right data from anywhere in the world. Service representatives can answer questions and resolve concerns while on the go, allowing for faster service and happier customers. Likewise, many CRMs offer advanced employee communication tools, so that associates at all levels, across all departments, and in every location can come together to better coordinate their efforts.
CRM optimises marketing efforts.
Hospitality CRM solutions are designed to automatically gather and analyse client data. This provides insight not only into current customers, but also helps businesses develop a more accurate picture of their target audience. With CRM-informed marketing efforts, hospitality businesses can make sure that marketing efforts are being directed at the leads most likely to follow through.
Give travelers an experience to write about.
Travel has never been so accessible. But as more and more people are choosing to explore the world, their expectations are also increasing. The hospitality industry, in all of its forms, needs to be able to meet and exceed those expectations. For this, hospitality CRM is the obvious solution.
Salesforce, the world leader in business CRM, provides the software tools that travel and hospitality businesses need to ensure personalised journeys for every client. Data-based marketing identifies interested audiences, while AI-enhanced recommendations, cloud-based data management, and fully connected services create a seamless customer journey from start to finish.
Learn more about what Salesforce has to offer to this industry, and give travelers a customer journey worth writing home about.
