We all know how important it is to monitor data from digital marketing campaigns that boost hotel direct bookings. However, usually those analytics only track online activity and engagement. One of the best ways to bridge the gap between your online and offline marketing activities is by tracking your phone calls using simple new digital tracking technology.
Travelers often want to know more about the experience they’re about to embark on. And, they want to interact with someone on your hotel staff or reservation center to get the answers. This is especially true at resorts or destination properties, where it is extremely common for guests to call and want to speak with someone personally before pulling out a credit card to make a reservation.
Here are three key reasons to start using digital tracking technology to analyze phone calls for your call center or reservation agents: 1. Listen and Win
You may already have sufficient intelligence about your guests. However, call tracking offers even more powerful insights to understand them like never before. Most phone tracking vendors now enable management to “listen in” to recordings of any/all calls. What makes this feature so impactful is that you are hearing from the guest firsthand, using their own voice and words to express their concerns and wants. This insight will show you how customers are actually interacting with your hotel—in their own words—and what is needed to win the guest’s trust.
2. Monitor Your Reservations Team
Taking #1 a bit further… by “listening-in” to recorded phone calls, you can see how well your guest service team deals with guests and what needs improvement. How is your guest services team handling simple and complex inquiries? How are they conveying your hotel’s unique experience over the phone? Are they up-selling properly and easing the guest along towards booking a reservation? The idea is to boost conversion rates and guest satisfaction by fine-tuning your guest engagement and customer-facing experiences.
3. Measure Your Marketing
If you’re only measuring your digital results, you’re missing a significant KPI of success: phone calls! Again, simple new technology is readily available and allows you to attach a custom phone number to each of your hotel marketing campaigns – both offline and online – and see which are driving the most phone calls. You can apply phone tracking to a variety of assets including PPC, social advertising, display advertising, press releases and marketing videos. Even your hotel website can have its own number to gauge how much phone traffic it generates. You can track which numbers/campaigns are generating more calls and the length of the calls.
