Most marketing and distribution leaders are already focusing on retargeting efforts, the most classic example of which is to pursue website visitors on their social media feeds. Other examples include email and social media campaigns retargeting previous guests and those who inquired via email.  However, often overlooked is the opportunity for hotel reservations sales leaders to train their teams to retarget what is the hottest prospect of all: those who inquire by the voice channel, but who are not yet ready to book during their initial call.

Perhaps this is because the job of a hotel reservations sales agent has always been viewed as fielding inquiry calls, answering questions, and attempting to close the sale on the first inquiry. Surely, a well-trained reservations agent will also know to create urgency and remove barriers to booking now when callers hesitate.

Yet sometimes callers are just not ready to book, regardless of the sales effort that is made. The following factors may increase their hesitancy:

• Planning a longer stay and therefore having special needs.
• Booking multiple rooms for a larger party, where others must later be consulted before a final decision.
• When significant deposits are required and/or more restrictive cancellation penalties apply.
• Traveling to a destination with an especially high number of resorts or hotels to select from.
• Preferring to book air transportation first before lodging.
• Booking at properties with a large number of accommodation types and packages to select from.

As I always say in our training workshops: The higher the rate, the longer the stay, and most importantly, the more emotionally engaged they are in their travel plans, the less likely callers are to book on their first call.

Sure, it is a good thing to ask for the caller’s email address and add them to a list for future email campaigns.  Yet when you consider that you now have a qualified “hot” lead at this point, it makes sense to pursue the direct sales effort further. This is especially true at destination-type resorts with significant potential revenue-per-guest potential and for any hotel with higher rates and longer stays.

The first step in implementing a retargeting effort for the voice reservations channel is to shift the mindset from “sales fishing” to “sales hunting.”  In the “sales fishing” paradigm, reservations agents wait for the digital “bait,” such as the website, SEO optimization, and OTA presence to lure in the digital bookings.  Alternatively, agents with a “sales hunting” mindset view every call, every email inquiry, and every inbound chat (or message exchange in an OTA) as a potential sales lead that is worthy of proactive follow-up.

After changing the mindset, your team will now need a system or process for tracking inbound leads for outbound, pro-active follow-up. These days there are several cloud-based sales CRM’s that make it easy to turn inbound calls into leads; some of these are even packaged up nicely for the hotel industry.  I would be happy to direct any readers to such resources.  The ideal system will require an investment, but it will then offer features that allow agents to:

• Complete a pop-up lead inquiry form that makes it easy for agents to select the best follow-up email from a list of templates and then enter the caller’s name, email, and phone.
• Trace the lead on the agent’s “lead stream” to remind them to place a follow-up call and – if necessary – also later send a follow-up email.
• Present any agent who answers an unexpected call-back with a pop-up text box with details the caller had shared previously.

However, if you are not yet ready to jump all the way in and invest in such a system, it is easy to get your agents in the game with something as easy as a tracking sheet you can create in Excel or Sheets to record:

• Caller’s name, email, phone, and dates/rooms requested.
• Date of their inquiry and notation of the first email sent afterward.
• Date of a follow-up call.
• Date of follow-up email.
• Did the caller end up booking? (Note: to truly measure this, it is also important to check to see if the guest ended up booking online, likely having been encouraged do to so by the agent’s extra effort.)

Finally, the ability to become a “sales hunter” and to execute a pro-active follow-up effort requires training on a new skillset.  Here are some training “best habits” for your hotel reservations sales hunters:

• Getting the email is most important, so go for that first.
  • Do not ask “Would you like me to email those to you?” or “Did want to give me your email?”
  • Instead ask assumptively: “Okay Mr. Kennedy, well then let me get your email address so I can send you these links along with my direct contact information.”
• Next, try to get their phone number and implied permission to call to follow-up.
  • Do NOT say: “Would you like me to call you to follow up?”
  • Instead say: “Super. I’ll shoot over an email with my direct contact information. I’ll also check back with you to see what questions you have and what else we can do. May I have the best phone number to reach you at?”
• Personalize follow-up email templates by restating something specific you learned about “the story” behind their plans such as:
  • “It was wonderful to hear about the plans for your (insert special reason for travel)…”
• End all emails and calls by expressing interest and offering personal assistance.
  • “Again, my name is Doug with in-house reservations. Let us know what else we can do to assist you with planning this important trip.”
• You should generally follow up at least two times:
  • One to three calendar days after the initial inquiry, depending on their “story.”
  • Three more days after that, unless they state a longer decision-making timeframe.

As Published Previously at www.hotelnewsnow.com (CoStar)

By Doug Kennedy

doug@kennedytrainingnetwork.com
@DougKennedyKTN