Seth's Blog : Training customers

Training customers

If you frequently run last-minute sales, don't be surprised if your customers stop buying things in advance. You're training them to wait.

If you announce things six or seven times, getting louder each time, don't be surprised if your customers ignore the first few announcements. You've trained them to expect you'll yell if it's important.

If you don't offer someone a raise until they find a new job and quit, don't be surprised if your employees start looking for new jobs.

The way you engage with your customers (students/bosses/peers) trains them on what to expect from interactions with you.

Drip, drip, drip.

      

Business of Loyalty: British Airways Uses Its Loyalty Program to Apologize

From Skift

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Seth's Blog : Caring is free

Caring is free

In the short run, of course, not caring can save you some money.

Don't bother making the facilities quite so clean. Save time and hassle and let the display get a little messy.

Don't worry so much about one particular customer, because you're busy and hiring more people takes time and money.

But in the long run, caring pays for itself.

Caring is expensive, but it also generates loyalty and word of mouth.

In the long run, an organization that puts in extra effort gets rewarded.

Not to mention that caring makes us all more human. Worth it.

      

The toxic antidote to goodwill

The toxic antidote to goodwill

Anyone who has done the math will tell you that word of mouth is the most efficient way to gain trust, spread the word and grow.

And yet...

It only takes a moment to destroy. Only a few sentences, a heartless broken promise, a lack of empathy, and it's gone. Not only that, but the lost connection can easily lead to lawsuits.

Doctor, the surgery seems to have gone wrong!

It's not my fault. I did a perfect job. Tough luck.

Architect, the floor is sagging, the beams were put in the wrong direction!

I don't care. There's a three-year statute of limitations, and even then, it wasn't my job to ensure that the work met the plans.

Airline, my two-year-old can't sit in a row by herself, and the agent on the phone said you'd work it so we could sit together!

It's not my fault. If you don't want to get on the plane, don't get on the plane.



In all three cases, there are significant operational barriers to magically fixing the problem. But that's not where the breakdown happened. It happened because a human being decided to not care. Not care and not express anything that felt like caring.

8 Secrets to Learn from the Ritz-Carlton Marketing Strategy

From Digital Spark Marketing

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Seth's Blog : Merely transactional

From Seth's Blog

Merely transactional

"We owe you nothing."

This week, all but one NFL owner voted to let the Raiders leave Oakland for Las Vegas (I'm not a football fan, but bear with me).

A nearly perfect example of how one version of capitalism corrupts our culture.

The season ticket holder bought a ticket and got his games. Even steven. We owe you nothing.

The dedicated fan sat through endless losing games. Even steven. Ticket purchased, game delivered. We owe you nothing.

The problem with 'even steven' is that it turns trust and connection and emotions into nothing but a number. Revenue on a P&L. It ignores the long-term in exchange for a relentless focus on today. Only today.

There's an alternative view of capitalism. Modern capitalism. Capitalism for the long-term. In this view, the purpose of an enterprise is to make things better. To minimize negative externalities and create value. Value for the owners, sure, but also for the workers, the customers and the bystanders.

"We owe you everything."

You trusted us. You showed up. You tolerated our impact on your world, even when you didn't invite us in.

It'll never be even steven, but we can try to repay you. Thank you for the opportunity.

I think this is what sports fans signed up for when they were first offered the chance to support a team. Maybe your customers feel the same way.

What information do luxury hotels keep on guest profiles?

A guest profile on a good property management system will come with everything you see here. Make a reservation, or check into the hotel, one time, and that ‘file’ will exist for years — or until they change the system.

And that’s their ‘floor sample’, the screenshot provided to their prospective hotel company buyers. The ones I’ve used have an added button on the above screen where, with one click, we can bring up your photo and a sample of your signature (both of these come off your drivers’ license when we scan it the first time we check you in).

Is there a demand for a well-designed hotel website service?

Nothing would please me more. If the cost were modest, I'd probably use it even for hotels that don't really 'need' it. (Franchised properties, and Best Western member properties, each have their own webpages on the big brand site. They might have a static website of their own, but click the 'reservation' link, and you go to the franchise organization's reservation page for that property.)

But that's just me.

The problem you're going to encounter in marketing such a thing is that owners of franchised properties expect the franchise to hand them everything - and if they don't, it's presumably because they don't have it to give. If the owner has a 72-room property, he expects the central reservations system to send him fifty new reservations a night. In real life, it doesn't work that way. So, he concludes, it's not possible: after all, Choice and Wyndham are professionals. Or, if it's a corporate-owned property, they might hire an in-house sales director, who'll try to pull it off by soliciting personal connections and face-to-face contacts in the area - 'sales' without any good marketing. There seems to be no convincing people that better can be expected or demanded of a hotel website.

The problem you're going to encounter with franchise organizations is, they're collecting fees and royalties on what they have at minimal investment to themselves, so why should they invest in anything more? (Likewise, why should a grungy biker bar with tattoo-covered topless dancers spend the money to renovate into an upscale gentlemen's club? They're already making all the money they can imagine with exactly what they have, and the overhead is as low as it can get . . . You get the idea.)




Here's my wish list: Stand by for lots of edits - and additions - over coming months: I'm just getting started. And I intend to never finish - this business is constantly evolving. (Anyone who tells you otherwise probably runs an older property with a badly dated '70's appearance that smells musty and is probably in need of serious renovations.)

Rate configurability:

I want more than 'Best Available Rate', AAA-AARP, and whatever whiz-bang promotion the franchise organization has going that, as often as not, has your hotel renting a room for next to nothing so the franchise as a 'whole' can benefit. One feature of a very suite-intensive (if not all-suites in all locations) new brand that we're working on (http://pinterest.com/beechmont27... , if you want an advance sneak peek) is going to be a rack rate that drops automatically if you request a stay of three days or more, and again if you request a stay of a week or more.

Hotels for sale: Quality Inn, Sneads Ferry NC (No longer available)

Property offering

Listing broker: Jonathan Ruprai, Marcus and Millichap, via Loopnet
TripAdvisor reviews: Bubble score 4.0

Property website:

Quality Inn Sneads Ferry (Choice Hotels child site)

Asking price	$3,800,000	Given
Number of rooms	68	Given
Annual gross	$1,241,000.00	Calculated
Occupancy	58	Calculated
ADR	$85.00	Given
REVPAR	$50.00	Given
Room revenue multiplier	3.06	Calculated

The facility:

This facility was formerly a Holiday Inn Express.

Click for map

The market:

Even this property's negatives work in its favor.  This one is doing well even with a Quality Inn franchise, yet has some potential. It's in a beach resort area that has needed a hotel for a long time, but it's also near some demand generators so that you're not entirely dependent upon the beach resort.

After checking out of a good hotel, what services is it reasonable to expect to use for the remainder of that day? (I checked out of the Park Hyatt today at noon, left my bags and when I retuned to collect them I sat in a reception lounge reading for a bit and I charged my phone. I was told that as I was no longer a guest I shouldn't stay long! Where would be a good place to draw the line as a recent guest and what you can and can't do.)

I can't give you a good answer (at least not in terms of present-day applicability) to that question because frankly, most hotels do not have a policy on that, nor have they ever considered one.  

Someone on the hotel staff might okay it, as a personal accommodation in the spirit of hospitality (which most hotels encourage among their staff - and I will concede based on what you tell me that the staff at the Park Hyatt that you describe was being a bit harsh). But - as you yourself noticed -  that leaves you at the mercy (or whim) of the hotel staff; which can vary not only from hotel to hotel, but between individual managers and staff members within the same hotel.  



A hotel needs to have a policy in place for it, and frankly, most don't. (Unapologetic spam piece: now that I've seen your question, we will.) 

Who owns a hotel's social media accounts?

If it were my franchised hotel, and there were nothing in the franchise agreement to the contrary, I'd rename the Facebook and Twitter pages to reflect my new brand (whether the new franchise or my own brand developed in-house), see that there would be no further references to the old brand henceforth (other than a brief and to the point announcement of the flag change), keep the accounts and pages (as well as the customer data); and the departing brand and/or management company could kiss my royal, half-breed, Moravian/shanty Irish . . . (whatever) if they have any objection. 



Any deviation from that drill would have to be specifically provided for, chapter and verse, in the old franchise agreement - if the old franchise agreement even anticipated such a thing as social media. Ethics? I honor my agreements. I might go beyond the letter of an agreement in order to honor a relationship, but franchise changes and management company changes, like divorces, frequently do not happen under the happiest of circumstances.

Sales: What are some best responses to "Sell me this hotel room"?

"I see you have no idea whatsoever how to successfully market a hotel, or how to find or identify candidates who might, nor would you know how to work with and properly supervise someone who could perhaps help you in that area; so I won't waste any more of your time. Good day."

Hotel sales and marketing people do not sell hotel rooms, they market the hotel. You might point out a unique design or uncommon amenity item in the rooms; but as far as 'selling a hotel room' goes, there is very little differentiation between hotel rooms found within the same class of hotels, even between competing hotels, unless you're selling a recently renovated Class B or economy property.

Hotel channel management software API: what solutions exist out there for a PMS?

One of the reasons that Open Hotel (http://openhotel.com/ ) is my PMS of choice is that I’ve found them to be pretty decent about working with third-party developers about exchanging APIs when there’s a reason to.

I got them talking with one third-party hotel CRM site.

And I even found one franchise organization that will let us use Open Hotel if they will accommodate a two-way API. Terrific - I’m not a big believer in hotel franchising anymore, and I’m developing my own brands, but occasionally I encounter an investor whose financing will restrict him to a national franchise. With that franchise, I can use the same property management system that I’d use in an independent hotel, or one operating under one of my own brands, and have a little more uniformity in the bookkeeping department.

There are a lot -- two or three dozen, anyway -- of new cloud-based PMX out there, competing for a very limited market of hotel business. And most of them drive me a little nuts, because there is so much that so many of them won't do.

And for a tech company that markets a hotel PMS, that's suicidal.