To retain old customers in hotel industry and meeting their expectations is the challenging part.
As old customers are the gems of the hotel industry because they trust the hotel for a better service experience.
Getting one customer in the hotel took much effort, and retaining them is another challenging part.
As, when any customer comes a second time to the doorstep of your hotel it comes with expectations, and meeting those expectations is necessary for the hotel.
Why Customer Retention Is Important?
The importance of returning customers cannot be underestimated in the world of the hotel industry.
According to numerous studies, it costs anywhere between five and eight times more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep an existing one.
Long-term, developing a strategy for guest retention can bring in a tonne of money and profit for your business.
How To Retain Old Customers In Hotel Industry?
Customer retention methods can not be the same for every customer.
You have to divide the customer according to their likes and dislikes and provide them personalized and customized service.
Then provide the services according to their wants and desires. Then plan the strategy to how to approach them. As a result, they become our regular customers
Let’s discuss each method from starting.
Step 1. Search your CRM for past leads.
If you know where to search in your CRM, you might find a bundle of data about previous clients.
Review your previous leads at least once every quarter to see if there are any repeat customers.
Be careful while approaching your lead. One wrong link and missing information will result in loss of any important customer
It will take some time to go through everything but provide benefits in the future. Once you find the lead get in touch with them.
Step 2. Make contact with leads
When you’ve located some excellent leads in your CRM software, it’s time to get in touch and offer something of value.
When planning to reach out to your approach, take note of any prior interests, activities, or actions that the guest showed during their previous stay.
For example: Did they place five orders for chocolate ice cream during their previous visit?
When they book, send them a message offering a free sundae or any other similar item. Send this kind of message to your last previous customer according to their last purchase.
Step 3. Make your leads feel special by rewards
Your hotel’s loyalty program should reward regular visitors and convince them to stay there again and again.
However, going above and beyond your hotel’s reward system can result in even better rewards and lifelong spokespeople and customers.
Provide offers them like: A free cup of coffee each morning on customer visit from their favorite coffee shop or points on a card that could one day (maybe) add up to a free night’s stay.
Although a guest may receive more money in the form of loyalty points, a personalized incentive may be more motivating and add more personality.
Step 4. Make connections after the stay
When any client completed their duration of stay you should stay connected with them afterward.
That is called post-stay communication. This includes many things like feedback forms and sending notifications for newly added services and facilities.
Let’s take an example for this: Your customer enjoyed all the services of your hotel like food and beverages, amenities, room service, and many others.
But after staying going to the airport to board a flight is very difficult. When you send a feedback form to the customer for feedback and ratings. The customer mentioned this transportation problem.
So, here hoteliers must take this problem as an opportunity. Work and add this transportation facility for clients. Once this get adds notify your customer via email or messages.
This is how via feedback and communication you can engage your client.
Once you have taken feedback from your customer try to stay in touch with them.
Step 5. Send an automatic message to customers
It is very time-consuming to send the message or mail it manually to each customer separately. Also, one separate human resource is needed to send messages manually.
Therefore is required to automate the messaging process for clients. The automated process will send one predefined message automatically to the assigned list of customers.
You can schedule the automatic messages accordingly.
For example, You can plan to send the messages before any festival or marriage season. You can choose the mass mailing for this.
Send the mail to a group of customers regarding any offers for marriage season. This kind of mail attracts the customers and they can give a thought to the same.
Other Methods For Customer Retention
From the above-discussed methods, there are a few other ways that can help in customer retention. These methods are for customer groups and technology use.
Pick your VIP and vital guest
Many hotels have regular customers or we can say some business trips are regularly conducted in any hotel. These kinds of clients are essential for us too.
Usually, these business trips usually book a large number of rooms and avail many other services. So it is important not to lose customers like this.
It becomes the hotelier’s responsibility to retain these kinds of customers. Therefore, there are few ideas to do so.
Once your guests have arrived, everything you do should be centered on providing them with gracious, individualized service. Accommodating their unique wants and needs.
When you provide a great experience they will definitely return. Before their visit, identify your VIPs. Confirm that staff is informed of their preferences and requirements.
Give them a warm welcome and leave their preferred beverage in their room.
Make Use Of Technology
Currently, some hotels use technology to streamline and simplify the check-in process.
As well as, to provide their guests with special in-room experiences, such as swipe cards for turning lights and fans On / Off.
Nowadays many hotels avail robots for minor tasks like serving food and chopping salads.
Hotels that embrace technology to automate repetitive tasks discover that it frees up working staff to concentrate on serving customers.
That result in building stronger relationships, which over time results in improved retention rates and a higher bottom line.
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