john smallwood
Ground Zero and Your Brand’s Image
Travel Outlook | March 25, 2021
John Smallwood President Travel Outlook Your Hotel’s Call Center is Your Brand’s First Impression In today’s consumer world, a brand’s image carries as much weight as the brand's service. Without branding, there would be no sure-fire way to differentiate yourself from your immediate competition. Imagine shopping for groceries in a store without branding. There would be no way to identify your favorite snacks among dozens of identical items. A brand’s image gives the company personality, relatability, and encourages brand loyalty. For hoteliers, your brand’s image can be made or broken by your reservation d...
Digital Marketing and the Voice Channel: A Symbiotic Symphony
Travel Outlook | February 17, 2021
John Smallwood CEO Travel Outlook Scott Meldrum Founder, Principal Strategist Digitality How to Optimize Digital Marketing Performance via Voice In today’s world, digital marketing efficiency is not only mission-critical, it‘s a business imperative. While hospitality marketers typically look to improve conversion rates from their digital campaigns on their websites and within the booking engine, there are many opportunities to optimize digital marketing performance within the voice channel. In fact, these two communication channels co-exist in ways that are very symbiotic. In this article, we’ll ex...
Unity in a Virtual Workplace – How to Unite Disparate Teams to Work as One
Travel Outlook | November 18, 2020
John Smallwood, CEO Travel Outlook Allison Ahrens, President Hospitality Revenue Solutions November 2020 In addition to the large human cost that COVID-19 has had on the world, its effect on the hospitality industry has been unprecedented. Because COVID has taken more jobs out of the office and further online, companies have been forced to look at how they can keep their teams united in the virtual workplace. Having previously written about silos in the workplace, this article looks at the “new norm” for hotels as they seek to unite disparate teams seeking to work as one. ...
The Future of Hotel Call Centers
Travel Outlook Hotel Reservation Call Center Services | September 8, 2020
Why Outsourcing May Be in Your Hotel's Best Interest As hotels slowly reopen in parts of the US, it’s time to question the future role of hotel call centers. In the following interview, we’re speaking with Travel Outlook’s CEO John Smallwood and its Vice President Operations Brett Puffenberger, about the challenge’s hotel-based call centers are facing today and in the coming months and maybe years. Can you talk about the challenges’ hotel-based call centers are facing today? John: A major issue for hotels that are starting to reopen is having enough on-property staff to field incoming calls. A lot of hotels still have employe...
The Game-Changing Rules Around Revenue Optimization
Travel Outlook Hotel Reservations Call Center Services | July 15, 2020
Maximizing Revenue While Adhering to New Service Standards The global pandemic has turned everything on its head, with the hospitality industry hit particularly hard. As hotels slowly reopen, they must adjust their revenue strategies to ensure they drive demand while being careful with their pricing decisions. In such challenging times, it’s tempting to drop room rates to stimulate bookings. But for many travelers, the priority will not be price, but safety. A $100 discount on the room rate is unlikely to tempt the decision-making of many but could end up harming a hotel’s profitability if there’s very little demand to drive in th...
The Imminent Influx of Call Volume
Travel Outlook Hotel Reservations Call Center Services | June 9, 2020
Get the Most Revenue from Each Call The hospitality industry has never faced a challenge quite like this. COVID-19 has brought the industry to its knees, and despite lockdown measures being steadily eased, it’s clearly going to take time for the hospitality sector to recover. Yet travel demand will inevitably grow (as we’re now seeing in our call volume at Travel Outlook), which means US hotels need to capitalize on all new reservation inquiries. But will hotels have enough onsite staff to pick up the phone? Reassuring guests in uncertain times Some US hotels have already started reopening their doors, but occupancy levels remai...
Uncompromised Customer Service
Travel Outlook Hotel Reservations Call Center Services | May 12, 2020
What Role Will Call Centers Play in the New Norm? The travel industry is facing a challenge unlike any other right now including immense distress and financial uncertainty, leaving hoteliers wondering what the future holds. Now, more than ever, the industry needs to pull together, stay strong, and find ways to support one another. What lies ahead remains unclear. But what we can safely assume is that customer service, procedures, policies, and restrictions will change in ways we never imagined. Therefore, we must start planning now for the day when travel resumes. John Smallwood, CEO at Travel Outlook, says, “While call volume ...
Operating in a Silo
Travel Outlook Hotel Reservations Call Center Services | January 23, 2020
How to Unite Revenue and Marketing Teams By definition, the silo effect happens when team members, or leadership, do not share common goals, have aligned strategies, exchange information, or use collaboration tools. The silo mentality affects not only those in the silo but stretches across the organization. On the surface, it hurts employee morale but can, also, impact a company’s bottom line. For hotels, revenue and marketing teams have traditionally worked in a silo as separate entities at hotels. Working separately in the past, building the brand and maximizing revenue were often seen as two distinct and independent goals. But that ...
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