Some 20 years ago, people came to know about different places only through travel magazines and journals. Certainly, there were limited sources of information.

New bookings came through Hotel reservation offices, travel agents or phone calls. These new bookings were then transferred to physical books, which were then fulfilled.

Today, this old school approach doesn’t work. Even the bookings comes through offline channels, you need to follow it up through online channels.

In this changing dynamics, even some of the old-well established businesses are facing trouble at keeping themselves afloat.

A CRM-based reservation management can help you update your booking system. Primarily, it helps you solve the limitations on the availability of information.

However, things have changed dramatically with the flourishing popularity of internet and online information.

With increasing acceptance of online travel portals, like Makemytrip, Trivago and Goibibo, tourists now have a range of information sources and hotel booking opportunities. Research shows that near about 148.3 millions of travel bookings made on the internet each year. That means more than half (57%) of the travel reservations are made online.

It has two main implications (the first one is positive and the second one is negative)-

• More people are now showing interest in travelling; that means more visitors and more profits.
• It becomes ever more complex to handle the reservation process, accumulating each portal with the booking system.

Of course, if there is problem, there will be definitely a solution – CRM software for hotels.

Since millions of people are using internet across the globe and accessing different information regarding popular and non-popular tourist places, CRM software creates a large database, where prospective customers can be targeted. 

It is easy, convenient and saves a lot of time that makes reservation system software a must technology to implement into hotel businesses.

Integrate all your reservation channels to a single platform

The first and most crucial challenge for the hoteliers is to manage multiple booking channels at a time. Going further, you cannot eliminate a single process of booking from your system, since each booking process epitomizes different types of customers.

People who aim for discounts and offers are likely to make reservations from travel portals.
78% of travelers would use mobile apps if they are offered discounts.

Likewise, customers who have long-term and good connection with the hotelier may just give a phone or drop a mail for quick booking.

The hospitality CRM software will help you to integrate all the external channels, so that you can track and keep record of every booking both automatically and manually.

For an example – with Kapture Crm you can see the entire booking information in a single dashboard, instead of going through multiple channels. It makes easy to figure out the room availability as well. So, you can easily respond to a customer enquiry just by checking the CRM dashboard.

Speed-up and manage all the responses to customer enquires

The second issue frequently faced by the hospitality executives is to managing customer enquiries and giving response quickly.

Customers usually have four types of enquiries, about-

• Availability of hotel rooms
• Room tariff details
• Hotel location
• Hotel facilities

The fact is customers are now using various means to communicate with the hotel managers and executives. A large portion of travelers use social media for enquiry purpose; the other half prefers enquiries through travel portals, phone calls and emails.

With CRM application you can integrate all the enquiry channels and give response from within the software itself.

For example –you can receive social media notifications and response to the customer queries through Kapture CRM.

• It helps you to give quick response to customer enquiry, thus assure customer satisfaction from the very beginning
• With this reservation management software you can raise ticket for each enquiry and then can track the status of the query or assign the task to the team members.
• It helps to measure the lead generation rate and to make reports by analyzing customer data and other information.

Comparing reports and improving performance of individual Booking Channels

The third issue is quite technical and not directly related to customer service, but profoundly needed for organizational improvement. If you own a hotel or resort, you always want to know which booking channel is providing you the maximum visitors. It can be any of your integrated channels.

A suitable CRM for hospitality industry can help to get the exact report regarding your customer preference.

After comparing the reports you can prepare a better marketing policy to reach out highest targeted customers.

For example – with Kapture CRM you can view the performances of all your revenue streams on the CRM dashboard. Thus, you can figure out your most profitable channel of reservation and can analyze the incoming reservations and revenue from the online travel agent (OTA).

Conclusion

The hospitality industry is tightly packed and competitive (Pun intended).

With internet becoming the best channel to discover new opportunities, you need to have a centralized platform to manage all interactions. This will help you take the audacious decisions required to manage customer interactions.

A good hotel management platform will help you increase customer satisfaction. And satisfied customers are more likely to recommend you to their friends and families that help you get more guests.

If you are thinking of resolving your hotel’s reservation issues, visit Kapture CRM to have an idea about hospitality CRM. You may ask for Kapture demo or try our free CRM trial. For more information call +91 7899887755 or send your email at [email protected].

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