by Doug Kennedy, August 2007
Although having an effective hotel reservations sales training program
is one key ingredient of a sales development action plan, other essential
components will ensure that your hotel is actualizing the full potential
of each and every transient reservations inquiry. Too often managers
only implement the sale training component, and then if they measure the
results at all, they do so exclusively through mystery shopping test calls.
Other hotels make little or no effort at reservations sales training, mistakenly
believe that the hotel reservations function is less important today than
in days past, with the proliferation of information, virtual tours, and
photo galleries that are available online.
Yet if you listen to real calls from real callers these days, you�ll
find firsthand that the Internet has only broadened the spectrum of calls
that agents receive. Even after viewing the hotel and its rooms directly
online, many still want to call and talk to a live person, especially if
it is first time visit. Others have read online reviews at places
like TripAdvisor, IGOUGO and Travel Post and want to get personal opinions
and suggestions from on-site agents.
If you are looking to keep your team on the continuous and ongoing journey
to reservations sales excellence once you have exposed them to sales training,
here are some other components for maximizing hotel reservations sales
success.
Know when they are calling. Despite the availability
of better technology at lower price points, too many reservations offices
still lack proper call tracking systems. Some have no phone activity
reports at all, while others manage only from a report showing only a monthly
or daily roll-up. Make sure your phone activity reports tell you:
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Call activity by hour, day, week and month.
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Dropped calls by hour, day, week, and month and percentage of dropped calls.
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Average hold time.
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Average talk time per agent.
Right-sized staffing. Make sure your reservations office has
enough agents to realistically field the call activity you are receiving,
which is why the staring place is the above reports. Excessive budget
cuts in this department only hurt bottom-line profits not help, so instead
of looking at reservations with a �cost control� paradigm, they need to
be investing in maximizing sales effectiveness and optimizing revenue opportunities.
Cross-train other staff to field reservations calls during bottle-neck
periods. Move the reservations function from being just a person
or department into being an important function that others can also cover
when necessary. (Likewise, cross train reservations staff for dual
functions in other related areas such as sales, administration, conference
services.)
Streamline side-work. Certainly it is a good idea to utilize
reservations sales agents for other administrative tasks during periods
of slower phone traffic, and this even helps justify and off-set the costs
of right-sized staffing. However, during periods of peak activity,
make sure agents aren�t asked to toggle back and forth between selling
on the phone and being a data entry clerk for rooming lists or extranet
reservations. Otherwise, agents might rush callers in an attempt
to clean-up their stack of side-work, not to mention that it is highly
distracting.
Implement call recording/logging systems. Not long ago,
systems for recording and logging all inbound reservations calls were practical
only in mega-call centers for hotel brands, which did in fact implement
them despite investments exceeding six figures. Nowadays, call recording
systems are available at all price points, making them feasible for virtually
any lodging company. Such systems allow for quality assessment and
coaching of agents based on real calls from real callers, so agents can�t
bias the results by detecting the test caller. Agents will also benefit
from the opportunity to hear themselves on the phone. (Such systems
have an added by-product of allowing for calls to be reviewed to resolve
disputes from guests who claim certain things were said � or not said �
during the call.)
Know who�s calling. New emerging technology now not only
records and logs calls, but also identifies the name and mailing address
of nearly all callers. What�s even more exciting, is that some systems,
such as the Narrowcast system by Navis (www.NavisTechnologies.com) , actually
tell the agent the economic demographics of the caller�s neighborhood according
to the Nielsen marketing demographics rating system. So agents can
identify right away the more affluent callers.
Measure, measure, measure! In the reservations department
as in life, you get what you measure. Again too many reservations
departments only look at certain key metrics, preventing them to see an
overall comprehensive picture of how agents are really doing. For
example, some only look at total reservations booked or total revenue sold,
thinking that the agent who sells the most is automatically their best
producer. While this often proves to be the case, when you start
to look at call conversion, you sometimes find that the top agent in terms
of revenue/room nights is really just a call-grabber who rushes the indecisive
callers or pushes them back to the website, moving on to the next caller
who is ready to book. Make sure you are measuring:
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Total revenue sold by agent and by department.
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Total number of bookings by agent and by department.
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Total calls received by agent and by department.
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Call conversion ratio (number of calls vs. bookings) on at least a �raw�
basis (looking at all calls and all bookings.)
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Average revenue per booking. Over time, this will indicate whether
agents are taking the time to upsell to higher rated accommodations and
packages.
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Monthly monitoring-based assessments or at least mystery shopping test
calls. Ideally, make sure your reservations agents are assessed on
real calls that are monitored and recorded for training purposes.
Or if you don�t yet have the necessary monitoring technology, be sure to
use a mystery shopping supplier that that works proactively to minimize
detection during test call inquiries.
Implement proper recognition and incentive plans. Many managers
don�t want to offer an incentive because they argue �that�s what we pay
them to do anyway.� Yet few managers make this same argument for
their traditional hotel sales department. Still, it is true that
employees should not receive an incentive for doing their job, which is
to help the hotel achieve its expected transient revenue goal each month.
That�s why the best incentive is to set a monthly goal about 10 days out
based on the most updated forecast. When the goal is achieved, a
celebration (i.e. pizza or ice cream party) can be held. Yet when
the goal is exceeded, a percentage of the additional revenue can be shared
with the team. The true measuring stick for an effective incentive
is how enthusiastic managers are about paying it out. If it is properly
structure, you should be emphatic when agents receive large bonuses.
Indeed, implementing contemporary, customer-focused, reservations sales
training is a key ingredient of any recipe of reservations sales success,
but other essential components such as those listed above will provide
your hotel or company on the roadmap to continuous success on the endless
journey to reservations sales excellence.
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Doug Kennedy, President of
the Kennedy Training Network, has been a fixture on the hospitality and
tourism industry conference circuit since 1989, having presented over 1,000
conference keynote sessions, educational break-out seminars, or customized,
on-premise training workshops for diverse audiences representing every
segment of the lodging industry. Ee-mail Doug at: [email protected] |
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