FT LAUDERDALE – November 19, 2009: Negotiation is an important part of the group and meeting sales process. How sales people initially respond to requests for discounts and price reductions is critical and can have a significant effect on prices throughout a market. Don Bundock, President of Quality Track International, says “A very important part of GroupMetrix, our group-rate shopping service, is the rate-resistant response to a property’s initial group proposal. We have engaged in thousands of group-rate shop calls where our shopper is price-resistant. When we push back on rates, we get one of three responses:
Not only do blind fades occur three times as often, the rate drop following a blind fade is greater (13% rate drop for blind fades vs. 8% for qualified fades). There have been cases where sales managers have dropped rates by 40% without asking the simplest questions such as, “Which other hotels are you considering?” or “Do you have a target budget in mind?” This behavior undermines rates for the entire market. It is not enough to know your competitor’s pricing, you must also know how they are reacting to price-sensitive customers. A blind fade indicates a lack of knowledge about the competition and betrays a weak and irrational pricing strategy. Knowing which properties have a history of “going rogue” on pricing enables the development of a value-based sales proposition that targets and succeeds against a competitive property that is engaging in irrational pricing.  GroupMetrix clients
have the
market knowledge to enable them to set prices correctly and cut down on
the
amount of negotiation. GroupMetrix clients engage “qualifying
questions” in
response to rate-resistance twice as often as their competitors and are
able tune
their pricing based on awareness of market conditions and competitor’s
behaviour.GroupMetrix group-rate shop reports show the competitor’s pricing, how much they dropped their rate when rate-resistance is applied and whether the competitor engaged in a blind or qualified fade. Being aware of competitive pricing enables and sales practices enables the development of a selling strategy to effectively compete against those in the market who attempting to complete on blind pricing. GroupMetrix CompSet Group-Rate Reports provide unparalleled insight into competitors’ rates and pricing strategy and include all the rate components that factor into a group or meeting quotation: room rates, inclusions, in-room internet, catering (breakfast, breaks, luncheon and dinners), meeting room rates, AV rates, meeting room internet rates, minimum F&B guarantees, comp rooms, upgrades and master bill discounts.
Additional competitors can be added if desired. Volume pricing for management companies and market clusters is also available. Click here to view a sample GroupMetrix rate report - Sample Report Click here to view a short online presentation - Online Presentation GroupMetrix is the world’s only systematic provider of competitive set group rate information. For more information contact: Mr. Donald Bundock, CEO, Quality Track International, Inc., at (416) 693-5426 or by email at [email protected]  About Quality Track International,
Inc.: Quality Track International, established in 1998, is a
leading worldwide provider of a full range of mystery shopping services
and PCI compliant call center monitoring to the hospitality industry. |