Monday, 10 September 2012

How can SMS enhance CRM within the Hospitality sector?

Enterprises are now realising the benefits of using SMS for CRM. According to a recent SITA survey almost 9 out of 10 airlines intend to offer flight search, check-in, boarding passes, purchase and status notification as part of their core mobile services offering. Mobile services should be a key consideration for hoteliers and other hospitality providers given that a large proportion of hotel and event guests are often airline passengers enroute.

In the HeBS Digital’s Sixth Annual Benchmark Survey on Hotel Digital Marketing almost one-third of those surveyed intended to spend up to 49% of their advertising and marketing budgets on digital marketing initiatives, although hoteliers only spent about 15.6% on Mobile Marketing. The reason for this is explained quite concisely by Michael Kasavana, NAMA Endowed Professor of Michigan State University's Hospitality Business School, who found that, "When considering mobile technologies, many hospitality managers are not convinced of the potential benefits resulting in enhanced guest engagement, improved customer satisfaction, and increased consumer spending."

Mobile technology, and in particular SMS solutions, can in fact open the door for companies in the hospitality sector to re-market to opted-in consumers by sending them targeted, relevant branded information that adds value by offering incentives for participation and streamlining the guest's overall service experience. There are also a multitude of other ways in which SMS can be used to improve client relations, for instance by encouraging feedback and conversation, updating guests in terms of bookings, service availability and generally ensuring that they have all the sufficient up to date information requested.

Within the hospitality sector there is one group of enterprises who are well aware of the branding and CRM advantages that SMS has to offer. Restaurateurs are already incorporating SMS into their communications strategies to drive consumer loyalty and encourage repeat bookings and visits. The market certainly is more than willing to participate as, according to Pew Research released this year, 30% of smartphone or cell phone owners used their phone to decide whether to visit a business such as a restaurant. SMS therefore offers the diner a quick and instant way to confirm their reservation and when used intelligently will save restaurateurs money, remove the need for unnecessary admin and free-up phones, computers and most importantly staff.

We have been providing highly reliable and effective mobile services to the hospitality sector since 1999 and during this time our clients have benefited from improved efficiency of their communications, reduced administration and marketing costs as well as enhanced the overall customer relationship process by keeping customers informed through SMS and more importantly by listening to their requirements and suggestions.

With our wealth of experience in the hospitality sector we have a range of services that can be tailored to suit a number of differing requirements and solve a number of problems. They range from simple easy to use SMS solutions to fully integrated enterprise packages designed to complement and enhance your existing communication software. To read further examples of how SMS can enhance CRM in your enterprise, please view our Sector Information.

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