Use ChoiceADVANTAGE Data to Optimize Hotel Sales
How Choice Hoteliers Can Leverage ChoiceADVANTAGE PMS Data with Event Temple To Increase Sales Efficiency and Win More Business
This year, at Event Temple, we became a Choice Hotels Canada Qualified Vendor. Choice Hotels Canada is one of the largest and most successful lodging franchisors in Canada, with more than 350 properties currently open or under development. The majority of their properties use ChoiceADVANTAGE PMS to manage their reservations.
At Event Temple, we offer hotels and venues a modern solution to sales and catering software. Our Sales CRM and Event Management Platform are designed to optimize a hotel’s group and event business.
Both ChoiceADVANTAGE and Event Temple store integral data. Hoteliers can use this data to increase the lifetime value of a customer, plump up the number of prospects in a property’s pipeline, and positively impact the amount of closed group and corporate business.
In this article, we will explore the data that hotels can mine from their ChoiceAdvantage PMS and how they can leverage this data to bulk up their Event Temple pipeline, increase sales efficiency, and, ultimately, close more business.
What is a PMS?
A Property Management System (PMS) is the brains of a hotel’s operations. It manages the entire guest journey — from the initial reservation to checking out. This is the system that stores a guest’s reservation, their on-premise spending, and any other guest information gathered by the front desk. When used properly, it can be a valuable source of data including travel segments, guest preferences, and feedback.
ChoiceADVANTAGE is the cloud-based, user-friendly PMS used internationally by over 5500 Choice branded hotels. It’s able to manage reservations, store guest data, and assist hotels with revenue management. The system integrates with choicehotels.com, Choice central reservation systems, OTAs, and the Choice Privileges loyalty program.
What is a Hotel Sales CRM?
A Customer Relationship Manager is technology that manages all your company’s current and potential relationships and communications. Businesses use a CRM to nurture and develop their business relationships which, if used properly, should result in more closed business.
Event Temple is a cloud-based technology that traditionally falls into the Sales and Catering software category however, we are a growth platform for hotels and venues. Users can use the sales CRM and event management software to prospect for business, manage and nurture leads, send proposals and contracts, and close more deals to create predictable revenue streams.
What Data Can Hoteliers Get From ChoiceAdvantage PMS?
There is powerful data available in a PMS — from a guest’s personal preferences and loyalty status all the way to prospective group business that can help generate predictable revenue for a hotel. It can be easy to get. All that’s needed is a proactive front desk team willing to have strategic conversations with guests and track the information gathered in their PMS.
Read: “3 Ways To Generate Sales From Your Front Desk Team”
Let’s start by looking at leveraging personal preferences for the transient guest.
Imagine you’re a returning guest at a hotel. Last time you stayed, you purchased a bottle of local red wine and commented at check out how much you enjoyed the red wine and inquired about the winery. Unbeknownst to you, the hotel front desk made a note on your file. On this stay, you enter your room and find a complimentary bottle of wine from that winery and a 15% off coupon on a winery tour.
How would you feel?
Personally, I would believe that my business mattered. This hotel has not only won my business, they’ve also turned me into a promoter and will recommend the property based on my experience. This resulted from someone writing a note on my file and another person noticing it.
There are so many other data points a hotel sales team can pull from a guest’s folio in the PMS to generate future revenue opportunities.
How to Mine Data from ChoiceADVANTAGE for Hotel Sales Prospecting
Now that we’ve looked at the individual experience, we can dig into bigger opportunities: group and corporate sales. The premise is the same — enrolling the front desk team into having conversations with guests and documenting their learnings in the software.
There are many different properties that hotel sales teams can use to mine ChoiceADVANTAGE for prospective business including:
- Market Segment
- Rate Code
- Length of Stay
- Job Title
- Industry
- Reason for Stay
Let’s look at an example on how to leverage this data.
Your manager has set a target goal to increase transient corporate stays by 20%, you decide to prospect for local negotiated contracts.
But where do you start?
It’s simple — follow these 6 steps to create a warm prospect list:
1 — Look at your ChoiceADVANTAGE PMS and filter bookings based on the ‘reason for stay’ and select the appropriate field, for example: ‘Business Travel’
2 — Export or copy the names of guests who have traveled for that reason into an excel spreadsheet. Include as much information as possible like first and last name, email address, market segment, company, job title etc.
3 — Go to LinkedIn, add any missing information to your spreadsheet and connect with them. Thank them for recently staying at your property and begin to build rapport with them. When appropriate, ask if the prospect or anyone else from the company is planning on traveling to your area. Find out who would be the best person to speak to about locking in a corporate rate for them.
4 — Add both contacts (new prospect and established contact) to Event Temple’s sales CRM. Include any notes from your LinkedIn conversation.
5 — Send an email to the new prospect from your Event Temple integrated address (cc’ing your contact). Introduce yourself and explain why you are reaching out. All additional email communication will be tracked in Event Temple.
6 — Repeat with each contact. By the end of these steps, you will have a bulked up LNR pipeline from your data in your ChoiceADVANTAGE PMS. You will be able to send and track all communication and contracts in Event Temple and pull reports on your results.
You can use the same strategy for group business. Filter by market segment fields like ‘Sports’, ‘MICE’ or ‘Corporate’. All you have to do is alter the conversation points and direct the conversation to a group or event booking. Add these leads to a different pipeline in Event Temple and work them from your CRM.
Final Thoughts
ChoiceADVANTAGE PMS stores integral data for a hotel sales team. Sales teams can leverage the data to increase corporate and group sales and, ultimately, hotel revenue. All one needs is a proactive front desk team who is willing to gather strategic data points that can be mined by the sales team. Hotel sales professionals can filter through their PMS data to mine for prospects, connect with key decision makers, and complete the sales process in Event Temple’s Sales CRM. After fine tuning the process, hoteliers will find that they have a predictable revenue stream and will be empowered to make data driven decisions about their business.
