Despite access to a lot of data, hoteliers have long underutilized the data at their disposal, perhaps because it was too fragmented of insufficient or variable quality or perhaps because they were not even sure where to start.

When used effectively, guest and stay data can provide hoteliers with the opportunity to improve direct customer interactions, improve revenue and optimize the way properties are run.

At face value, the challenges in hospitality are not dissimilar to those in other industries like banking, retail and automotive.

For hoteliers though, Harvard Business Review says that customer experience is the number one reason travellers use to select hotels the decision based on experience often outweighs price, location or star rating. The experience might be their own or it may be the experience of others too if they have never stayed there before. The same piece cites positive past experiences as resulting in 140% more spending.

Pretectum’s view is that one of the best ways to improve the customer experience is by leveraging the data that you have of your guests. With the Pretectum cloud-based CMDM you collect guest data, some kind of understanding of your guest and their demographic. With this optimized guest master data system in place and a good approach to evaluating and maintaining clean, organized, de-duped and error-free guest data, the analytics possibilities are endless.

Pretectum considers this to be one of the easiest ways to maintain your guest database to target an improved customer experience.

A well-maintained guest database will include not just the basic data about the guests but likely includes rolled-up or aggregated purchase behaviours too. That same database will also contain guest preferences as well as feedback from past surveys. This information can be incredibly valuable for developing your marketing or customization and personalization approach to your guests.

Connected

Industry analysts suggest that new customer acquisition is about five to seven times more than retaining existing ones. 65% of many companies’ business actually comes from repeat business customers.

Integration of your core systems to the CMDM is all done via APIs, these could be your property management system (PMS), your CRM system or your CDP. Connecting your systems allows you to set up automation, integrated and unified search and real-time data validation.

Making use of the guest data gives hoteliers an ability to anticipate guest needs, this is done by leveraging the central customer master data management system that comprises the guest database and analyzing tastes, behaviours and preferences.

You’re only really able to consistently impact the guest experience positively by analysing and using guest data effectively. Even ahead of check-in you can upsell accommodation with relevant offers and upgrades. Offers don’t have to be limited to just your facilities they can be part of collaborations or co-sells too! For offers to be timely, innovative and relevant they need to layer in guest preferences, rewards and discounts.

There should be little doubt, that you can use your guest database to improve your customer relationships and grow your business. It all starts with the first easy step of evaluating your business needs and evaluating the choices available to you in terms of customer master data management systems that can be complementary to the systems you may already have in place.

Contact Pretectum to learn more about how you can leverage CMDM to improve your hospitality business.