5 Preconceived Ideas about Hotel CRM Tools

Customer relationship management software is an extraordinary tool that can help hotels deliver the most unique experience to their guests all the while keeping the staff productive and updated. However, hotel CRM tools have been greatly misunderstood when it comes to their operations. 

 

What are the 7 Preconceived ideas about Hotel CRM tools?

1. CRM tools are effective if the hotel has extraordinary offers to give

A small gesture can make the customer experience all better. You do not have to own a super expensive hotel with all the luxury amenities in place to deliver an exceptional customer experience. Consider, that A has booked a room in your hotel for a night's stay. While they are filling out the form, they mention their birth date. The birthday is two days after the booking. You can send an email asking for the culinary preference of A. When they come to stay at your hotel, you can add a box of chocolate as a complimentary gift from the hotel to wish them the best for their birthday. The customer satisfaction that will come from this experience will be leaps and bounds more worth than the investment in the £4 gift basket. 

 

 

 

2. CRM dehumanises the customer relationships 

Quite contrary to this, CRM helps you establish a far more personal relationship with your customers. When there is a healthy balance between the work accomplished by the CRM and the hotel staff, it can help you offer a seamless and unique experience to the customers. For example, B is checking into the hotel after booking a room online. The CRM will send you a notification as B's check-in time grows closer with a picture of B. As your hotel staff spots them, you can greet B and make them feel like a valued member with this personal attention. 

CRM is not meant to replace humans in the hotel industry, it is a tool to make human lives simpler.

 

3. No one wishes to see typical CRM emails with basic phrases and generic content 

When you are using CRM software, it is inevitable that you will send some generic emails to your contacts. That is because you cannot expect the AI to write a personalised text with emotions. There are 4 billion daily users of emails. It is an effective tool for marketing that should not be overlooked. You can read important KPIs for successful marketing campaigns to understand it better.  

As mentioned above, CRM is not meant to replace humans. It is used to help them. What can be done is your marketing team can write a personalised email using the data of the customers that have been segmented accordingly and the CRM can send mass emails to these contacts. 

 

4. Hotel CRM sends too many spam emails 

Hotel CRM Software sends spam emails, or that is the common preconceived notion. CRM is a communication tool that is dependent upon how the hotelier uses it. It takes actions based on the operations of the user. It is up to the hotelier whether they wish to write personalised emails for their contacts list and plan out an efficient mailing process for the same. If these emails meet the needs of the customers, the contacts will look forward to receiving newsletters from the hotel. 

Rather than sending 4 emails to the customers, hoteliers can send a thoughtful message that carries value and nurtures customers. 

 

 

 

5. Supply-side marketing > Need side marketing 

While you cannot anticipate the needs of a customer travelling from a long distance, you sure can give them pointers for their trip. Content is a valuable tool when it comes to nurturing a lead. CRM is not intrusive. It is only so when the data is not well-segmented and the mailing list has not been personalised. 

For instance, let us consider a customer is travelling from Paris to London. You can send them an email asking whether this is their first time in London or not. For this example, let us say, it is customer C's first time in London. 

In that case, you can send a London travel guide, restaurants to try out, places not to miss, what to expect from London's weather, public transportation map etc. You are offering them a bunch of information that they need. 

 

Summary

In the early stages of using hotel CRM, we still have a lot of growth to experience in the industry. CRM can help you optimise the customer experience. By automating communication tasks and administrative ones, CRM saves hoteliers time and energy. It is meant to make humans productive rather than replace them.