We are delighted to share 5 top tips the Mason Rose & Studio Black Tomato team has been discussing of late with award winning commercial acceleration specialist, Ali Powell.
1. Upselling/cross selling
- Lock in packages upfront to increase ancillary revenue
- How good are your staff at upselling? Train to sell from high to low
- How good are your staff at cross selling? So common in retail but not so common in the hotel industry – offer a glass of red wine with that delicious steak!
2. Improve the end to end customer journey experience – fix the leaky bucket!
- Focus on retention more – we tend to be very focused on customer acquisition
- Use a company to outsource your responses to reviews – you will be amazed at the opportunities you may be missing (eg the difference a personal response makes, the opportunity to upsell and so on) – currently only 20% of hotels are responding to all reviews, a wasted opportunity!
- Map out the entire customer journey from booking to stay to post stay – score yourself with your team and you will spot the areas to work on
3. Retention
- Invest in a sophisticated CRM to communicate in a bespoke, personal way and expand on a customer’s lifetime with you.
- Consider a membership or subscription service – eg lifestyle packages and co-working spaces – not so common for many hotels but a great way to ensure regular ancillary revenue.
4. Follow up
- Only 3% of customers with a group or events enquiry are ready to buy on the day. There are approximately 8 moments in the normal purchasing cycle for you to engage with the customer. Do you have an established, consistent follow up system?
5. Differentiation/stand out
- Select the right target audience for you – consider what you already do well and how you can differentiate on that. Be creative! Then sell it well.
For further information please contact Ali Powell:
https://comaccel.co.uk/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ali-powell/
or
Maria Pajares at Mason Rose: maria@masonrose.com
