How The Voice Channel Drives Revenue For Hotels and Resorts A NAVIS White Paper An analysis of the importance of the voice channel in the hospitality industry and what hotels and resorts can do to leverage the opportunities. 389 SW Scalehouse Ct. Bend OR 97702 www.thenavisway.com
How the Voice Channel Drives Revenue for Hotels and Resorts EXECUTIVE SUMMARY It is an online and mobile world today, especially in hotel reservations. Or so we hear. The fact is that in spite of the digital buzz, the voice channel drives 75 to 80 percent of revenue at many properties, especially destination resorts. Just as surprising, the explosive growth in mobile device adoption is also driving call center activity. Most travelers report that although they research properties on their handheld, they use the push to dial function to call in their reservations. Clearly, voice remains vitally important for hotels and resorts, particularly up-scale properties where bookings are high consideration stays. In this segment of the hotel and resort market, hoteliers are adopting new voice channel strategies that deliver higher conversion rates and more revenue than ever before. Indeed, if operators once under estimated the value of voice-channel revenue in their marketing mix, they do not any longer. Today, the offline voice channel generates $3 in revenue for every $1 online. This white paper examines the effective new strategies driving call center reservation sales growth. The strategies encompass state-of-the-art Automated Call Distribution (ACD) technology and data collection, as well as training and best practices that transform callcenter agents from passive order takers to a cohesive reservation sales team. Outbound follow up calling is one part of the process. Other components include use of the voicechannel data to measure the success of ads and online marketing programs to generate inbound leads. Savvy operators today use call-center data to exactly quantify the value of each promotion. Game-changing voice tools give operators an ROI on their ads and promotions they never had before. This enables them to re-allocate marketing budgets to channels that drive the most reservations. The 21 st Century call center is definitely not business as usual. How the voice channel drives higher revenue for hotels and resorts is centered on the transformation of traditionally passive voice channel reservation offices into professional, proactive sales teams that close business. 2 P age
Today s Tough NOI Challenges Hotels and resorts looking to increase Net Operating Income (NOI) are well aware that group business is not trending toward their revenue goals. It is the leisure/transient segment that drives revenue today. But is it driving aggressively enough? For many hoteliers, leisure reservation booking is a passive order-taking activity governed by peak, sold-out periods with high-vacancy days in between. In the past, efforts to increase leisure business have been hampered by the inability to crossreference important data such as past guest stay information, source data, turndown percentages and cause. Typically, when a blind call reaches the reservation office, the agent does not know who is calling, if they are seeing information, whether or not they want to modify an existing reservation or book a new one, or take advantage of a current promotion. This makes it difficult for even a trained professional reservation staff to deliver high conversion rates. Just as important, without direct knowledge of the promotion a caller is inquiring about, hoteliers often must evaluate marketing ROI with math that is fuzzy at best. Most hoteliers measure the success of e-commerce, print and email campaigns by what is collectively booked online. They determine their spend on PPC not by goals, but by incomplete revenue attainment. However, the return on advertising spend (ROAS) could be much clearer. Many traditional reservation offices operate under low expectations with few conversion goals or accurate metrics to measure them. Hotels hire polite reservation staff, but view them as customer service order takers, not as the sales team they are. Repositioning them to a motivated, sales-focused reservation office propelled by new tools and practices, results in a significant increase in revenue. The best performing properties today are making that change. Leading operators are boosting voice-channel revenues hundreds of thousands of dollars a month by increasing their in-bound conversion rate and proactively contacting prospects with outbound follow-up calls. Properties that improve their reservation office operations have increased voice-channel conversions by more than 25%. 3 P age
The Power of Voice as Revenue Generator A professional, sales-focused reservation office is especially important for high-value leisure properties where voice is the major reservation source. Shoppers may research a resort online, but nearly always call a property to finalize a booking decision for a complex, $3,500 multi-amenity vacation. Data shows that reservation agents convert more calls when they are trained in solid communication and closing skills and have access to smart technology that identifies a caller s past-stay, demographic, and socioeconomic data. Successful properties balance their online investment with a concentrated focus on voice channel optimization, and it is paying off. 105% revenue growth. The Emerald Grande, a Destin, Florida, luxury condominium hotel with a $500 in-season ADR, boosted voice conversions by 20% with new call center technology and sales training for reservation staff. The call center team converted more than 35% of all inbound calls. This gave the Emerald Grande revenue growth of 105% over the previous year. The property did this in spite of a reduced inventory when it turned 17 units over to Wyndham Vacation Club in 2012. 13% increase in ADR and call conversions. TradeWinds Island Resorts in St. Petersburg Beach, Florida, generated a 13% increase in both conversions and ADR in the first full year after implementing the new call center strategies. The company put in place sales training, statistical reporting, and call center phone technology. It also began a proactive outbound call program that created a source of significant new revenue. $80,000 outbound call revenue in one month. KeyLime Cove Indoor Waterpark Resort near Chicago generated $80,000 of new outbound call revenue in one month and increased conversions more than 10%. Its voice sales training program and call tracking resulted in improved guest satisfaction scores and provided accurate ROI measurement for promotions and advertising. Here are five important tactics hotel and resort operators are using to support an aggressive voice channel revenue optimization strategy. Five Ways to Optimize Voice Channel Revenue The newest processes and technology to optimize voice channel sales and increase revenue are based on proven tactics. The bottom line is that passive call taking is out and proactive, incentivized sales tactics are the only way to run a reservation office. 4 Page
1. Transform reservation agents into a sales team. Begin a professional sales training program and implement ACD technology that lets managers track each agent s caller engagement and conversions. Most call centers only track the number of reservations an agent makes but do not track turndowns or conversion percentages. Call center phone technology should be able to track total calls taken to set conversion goals and score each agent s success. This sets the foundation for performance-focused training and incentive plans. Call monitoring systems should enable hoteliers to identify top performers and direct more calls to them. It will also indicate which agents need additional training to improve their performance help reservation managers develop incentive programs to improve team success. In addition, implement voice center call recording technology that helps managers monitor if agents are handling calls professionally and meeting data gathering requirements. Did they use a proper greeting? Personalize the conversation? Get an email address? Offer an upsell or amenity opportunity? Schedule a follow-up call? Recording calls lets managers easily identify areas for improvement, provide personal sales counseling, and compare the improvement in future performance evaluations. TradeWinds Island Resorts, Vice President of Marketing Travis Johnson says that his 24-person reservation office previously operated a manual call center with no integrated way to track performance or follow-up on calls. The company s new technology and training from a single provider created a cohesive team with goals. Today his agents understand performance objectives and have the tools to deliver on them, to the tune of a 13% increase in ADR and conversions. Initially TradeWinds had no way to follow up on information inquiries, or easily get back to callers we had to turn down. Our new consolidated ACD phone system, statistical reporting system, caller identification and tracking technology, and sales training made a huge difference in our call center revenue generation. Johnson said the trend toward mobile use was a factor in TradeWinds working with NAVIS. "More people are using smart phones and tablets to contact us, but most use the voice channel to book. NAVIS implemented a 'push to talk' on our system that makes it easy for mobile people to call us quickly." 2. Treat every call as a selling opportunity. Today s technology provides reservation agents with valuable information about an inbound caller before they pick up the phone. Information such as the campaign they are calling for, caller demographic data, historical stay information and the amount spent, and if another team member took their previous call are 5 Page
valuable to establishing a close relationship. When an agent has this information at their fingertips, they handle the callers request in a more personalized manner and are more likely to convert the booking. Intelligent ACD routing functionality sends the most promising calls from the most favored demographic groups to the highest converter on staff. This increases the likelihood of conversion. If the guest does not book and calls back the next day, that call automatically goes to the person who talked to the guest previously. If that agent is not available, all the information collected is then sent to the next available top-performing agent so connections are constantly nurtured. Destin s Emerald Grande Chief Operating Officer Bruce Craul explains that staff training was an integral part of his voice-channel optimization strategy that boosted conversions 20%. "I watched our reservations people become sales professionals, real closers. The training showed our team how to build a relationship with each caller and make them want to come here. They ask questions about the caller's family and their favorite activities, and match our offering with what is valuable to them. He credits new phone technology with providing a solid foundation for this stellar performance. We put a second screen on our reservations agents desks that displays each caller's location, the promotion they are calling for, their demographics, socio-economic profile, and phone number. This helps us know our callers better, provide better service, and it sets the stage for our outbound sales effort. 3. Implement a systematic outbound calling program. Communication is a two-way street. The call center is no exception. Use phone technology that collects caller information and use it to initiate an aggressive, proactive outbound calling program that compliments the inbound side. Caller information enables agents to become self-confident proactive salespeople, not just order-takers. Outbounding is a valuable new revenue source for us, says TradeWinds Director of Revenue Shelly Palmquist. Now we are able to follow up on first-call turndowns. People appreciate it we call back to offer alternate dates or new opportunities. A large percentage of our callers book their stay during our outbounding follow up call. In fact, people are surprised when we call them back and value the follow up when we provide new information. Outbounding supported by new training and data collection technology helped KeyLime Cove achieve its incredible $80,000 of new business in one month. Our 6 Page
reservation agents get the inbound phone number for most callers from our reservation system, says KeyLime Cove s General Manager Dale McFarland. This makes it possible to call back people who were turned down or dropped the first time due to high call volume. 4. Use call center data to make informed marketing promotion decisions. Voice channel technology can be used to generate call source data that enables hoteliers to know which of their promotions and marketing channels pay for themselves and which can be ended. By creating a unique toll-free number for each campaign, operators can leverage phone technology to track promotion-generated calls and revenue they produce. This process is effective for search engine marketing, PPC, paid-link marketing, direct mail, or the latest e- mail blast. For the first time, marketing executives can measure precisely which marketing investments are delivering results and put their ad budget where it makes the most money. Tying total revenue back to the phone call is something e-commerce marketing professionals have never been able to do until now. This integration and connectivity is unique to the NAVIS reservation sales solutions discussed in this paper. Access to this combination of online booking revenue and offline booking revenue is regarded as the Holy Grail in voice channel optimization. Across the board, accurately attributing the - revenue value to each call delivers dramatic results for the hotels and resorts that use it. General Manager Dale McFarland at KeyLime Cove values the promotion tracking results from NAVIS creation of individual 1-800 numbers for each promotion. The system instantly shows which campaigns are winners and losers based on actual promotion revenue performance, he said. This makes us smarter about how we spend marketing dollars. The data enables us to put our ad spend in the most successful promotions for bigger ROI and higher occupancy. Plus, our conversions are stronger, and our call center staff is enjoying extremely high guest service scores thanks to our ongoing sales and communications training." 5. Consider using a reservation center for after-hours calls. By offloading after-hours and overflow calls to a professional 24x7 reservation center, hoteliers will ensure their properties and booking performance will be consistent. 7 P age
The NAVIS Difference The properties mentioned in this paper use technology and services from NAVIS to optimize their property reservation performance. Based in Bend, Oregon, NAVIS has 25 years experience optimizing call center performance and increasing revenue for the hospitality and vacation rental industries. The company s solutions are built on two pillars reservation team best practices and call center technology that outdistances anything else available in the market today. NAVIS solutions are at the heart of the strategies discussed in this white paper. The Emerald Grande s CEO Bruce Craul said, The voice channel continues to be the primary revenue source for our resort. Our decision to invest in a program to make our call center processes more sales-focused and our reservation team more professional was a good one. The ROI on this decision was very fast." Want to know more about how NAVIS solutions support the strategies discussed in this paper and increase revenue for hotels and resorts? Contact info@thenavisway.com. 8 P age
Premier hotels, resorts, and vacation rental companies across North America use NAVIS solutions to drive revenue from the voice channel. The NAVIS Reservation Sales System includes multiple products and services, all designed to help your company optimize sales productivity and increase leisure revenue. NAVIS Narrowcast Captures and reports data about your callers, your agents, your marketing and your business. NAVIS RezForce After-hours and overflow professional call center booking services. NAVIS RezCast Marketing tracking and professional call center services. NAVIS RezForce LUX 5-Star/5-Diamond professional call center services. The NAVIS Data Marketing System includes multiple products and services, all designed to help your company optimize marketing productivity and increase leisure revenue. NAVIS REACH Guest-centric marketing system using actionable, targeted lists. NAVIS Data Mining Powerful data mining and segmentation. NAVIS HMS Housekeeping Management System. 9 P age