Top Reasons Why Salesforce Is a Great CRM for Hospitality

• Date: March 2018 •

Today it's hard to imagine an industry with tougher competition than hospitality. Both small family-owned hotels and big-name international resorts chains compete with each other for customers. And as for the customers, their needs evolve, and they are no longer satisfied with just clean rooms, free Wi-Fi and smiling front desk agents. They expect a highly personalized service when hotels foresee their needs and whims and know their likes and dislikes. That's why quality customer relationships are an invaluable tool in the arsenal of hospitality businesses.

And here is when CRM (customer relationship management) software comes into play, significantly facilitating customer interactions. Salesforce is a leading CRM software provider, and numerous hospitality businesses took advantages of the solution, such as Quest Apartment Hotels, Carlson Hotels Worldwide, HotelTonight, and others. There are a number of reasons why they chose Salesforce as their CRM provider. We at Twistellar tried and singled out the most prominent of them. Check them out.

Key Advantages of Salesforce CRM Software in Hospitality Industry

Unified customer view

Salesforce allows storing all the information related to a specific guest and regularly updating it with newly available data.

As a result, in each given point of time the hotel staff has all the information needed to provide an experience tailored to the preferences of this specific customer. Moreover, if it is a large international brand, these data are available to all its hotels through the CRM, which is critical for catering to the needs of frequent business travelers who spend a large share of their time on the go.

Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty

Guests are very likely to choose the same brand again if they are satisfied with the service during their first stay.

And if they get a consistent great customer experience time and time again, they may turn into loyal brand ambassadors, not just bringing profit to the hospitality brand but also new customers by spreading the word about it. Besides, satisfied customers mean great reviews on major booking and travel website, which is a vital part of building a great reputation of the brand.

Actionable analytics data

Using data about tracking room and banquet halls occupancy for making decisions won't take the hotel too far. Hospitality generate tons of data daily, and all of it may turn out to be useful.

Thanks to advanced predictive analytics algorithms employed by Salesforce, as well as reporting tools and dashboards, hoteliers can detect specific patterns in guest behavior, track the performance of a single employee, team or the entire hole hotel. This might be helpful for adjusting pricing policies, creating seasonal offers, developing appealing loyalty programs, and making important strategic decisions. Besides, this might provide insights into the needs of a specific customer and offer opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell the services of them.

Automation solutions

Apart from giving hoteliers hints about what actions to take next, Salesforce also provides them with tools to take these actions.

Salesforce allows hospitality professionals to address their marketing, sales and customer support needs through Marketing, Service and Sales Cloud. Thanks to these clouds' capabilities, hotels and other hospitality businesses can automate numerous routine tasks, streamline their marketing campaigns, as well as track and analyze the campaigns' results more efficiently.

Streamlined customer support

Companies are increasingly conscious of the importance of multi-channel customer service, and the hospitality sector is no exception.

This is especially true for large brands with their hotels and resorts dispersed throughout the world. Salesforce allows handling interactions across all channels in a unified manner. Whether it is email, phone or face-to-face conversation, the associated information can be used by the whole customer support team. Besides, it is stored for analysis in the future, helping managers and supervisors detect weak points in interactions, giving them ideas about how to improve custom support, as well as how to use these data for improving the operations of a single hotel or the entire brand.

Extra hospitality-specific tools

Utilize the extra capabilities provided with AppExchange applications.

Apart from countless apps which are universal and equally applicable to most industries, AppExchange has dozens of applications listed which are aimed at some specific business sectors, including at hospitality. These are apps for hotel management, restaurant and property management, booking engines and others.

Vast integration opportunities

However multifunctional Salesforce may be, it can't address all the aspects of operating a business.

Still, switching between several systems and inputting data manually from one to another is not just painful, but also takes time which otherwise could be used more efficiently. Salesforce offers immense opportunities for integrating third-party solutions, including hotel and restaurant management tools, property management systems, front desk software, and more.

These were just a few things that make Salesforce a great CRM solution for the hospitality industry. When implemented properly, Salesforce has all the potential to boost the efficiency of a hospitality business and give it an extra competitive edge.

Twistellar's Salesforce Expertise at Your Service

We at Twistellar have delivered dozens of successful Salesforce projects for companies from various industries, including hospitality. If your hospitality business is ready to implement Salesforce CRM to streamline its operations, Twistellar team will gladly help you with it. We can provide your organization with the following CRM-related services:

solutions scoping and consulting;
Salesforce implementation;
quality assurance;
maintenance and support;
integration of your legacy systems with Salesforce;
development of custom solutions for your entire brand or a single department;
etc.

If you have a project idea in mind for your hospitality business, share it with us. Request a non-binding, no-strings-attached quote from Twistellar's Salesforce consultants today.

Our team has completed dozens of successful projects on Salesforce consulting, optimization, and custom development. Looking for a partner who will speak the same language and fulfill your expectations? Get in touch to discuss your ideas today!