Marketing for hotels, or how to finalize sales using chat?

When you enter Los Angeles hotels in the search engine, you’ll see over 95 million results. Therefore we do not need to explain how difficult it is to reach a potential client looking for accommodation and how to encourage him to make a reservation later.

Searching for all proposals on the AllTheRooms website shows the number of over 13,000 locations (data for February 2018).
Commonly used marketing strategies (including SEM and its SEO component, ie the so-called positioning aimed at placing a given page as high as possible on the list of results) are very effective in terms of referring traffic to a website. However, such actions are not always enough to make a booking by a potential client. What should you do then, so the client chooses your hotel in comparison with the remaining hundreds of thousands of hotels? The solution may be a live chat sometimes aptly called a customer chat.

What is a Live Chat?

Chat with a client on a website is an increasingly common way to increase the number of finalized transactions. It has the form of a pop-up messenger window and gives you the opportunity to write in real time as well as real time voice calls. It therefore replaces the standard telephone contact. How is it possible that an ordinary conversation with an adviser has such a large impact on the behavior of potential clients?

First of all – disclose yourself

The chat configuration allows you to use the photo of a hotel employee as well as his name and surname. Before the physical visit, the client will see and meet the guardian, if possible, in a hotel uniform. If we add a professional start to the conversation, for example “Good Morning, my name is Jan Kowalski / Anna Kowalska. How can I help? “, We’re on the right track to finalize this transaction.

Second – show willingness to help

The customer visiting the hotel website for the first time may feel lost. It will probably be difficult to find the information you need, they may get discouraged and they may turn to your competition. That’s why you need an efficient web-based customer service. Remember, however, not to be too persistent – the interlocutors then feel trapped, even through virtual chat.

Thirdly – react at the right moment

How do you get this done? Live chat allows you to monitor the behavior of people on the site. When we see that the customer is canceling the reservation again and cannot decide, we initiate the conversation. It is also possible to configure this application to run, for example, after 20 seconds, when someone starts to get lost.

Fourthly – be professional

We ask how we can help or we inform about promotions. The customer will feel that we care for him. Ask questions, gets answers or links that direct him directly to the right place on our site. It makes it easier for him to make a decision and make a transaction.

Is it enough to get a client? CRM on board!

Taking care of the client is an important element of the CRM strategy. CRM systems are IT tools (software) supporting customer relationship management (CRM). We gain customer trust, finalize the transaction and we can expect the client to return in the future. Conversation histories, personal data or frequency of contact by the customer can automatically be registered in the CRM system. It’s a good idea to take care of it, because on the next contact the chat operator will see the data and on this basis will conduct the conversation accordingly.

How much does it cost to implement CRM in a hotel?

According to Gartner, the CRM software market will reach a record of $ 36 billion in 2017. Of course, this forecast also includes implementations for large corporations, where software costs are calculated in millions of dollars. However, the return is impressive. We can expect an increase of over 25% in sales efficiency with properly implemented CRM tools. Can a non-network hotel afford such an implementation? Probably not! However, software producers have been creating a special offer for small and medium enterprises for many years. They introduce so-called software as a service (from Software as a Service or in short SaaS). In the case of CRM / live chat in the SaaS model, the hotel does not have to worry about the costs of servers, backups and administrators. It simply pays a monthly relatively low subscription and starts using the software in a web browser, without having to install any software on your computer.

How to increase sales on hotel websites?

The solution is live chat! If it is implemented well, it will be part of the CRM program using the SaaS model, we can expect a significant increase in sales through our hotel website.

Michal Jedrzejewski