Let the phone do your talking for you

By Peter J. Turpel

Interactive mass media is the rage in today’s marketing. While businesses focus on websites, search engine optimization, and click-through rate, they mustn’t lose sight of the original interactive platform - the telephone. This is especially true for the hospitality industry which relies heavily on Alexander Graham Bell’s trusty invention for the final critical step in the customer’s decision making process. All your marketing - ads, promotions, signage, direct mail, community relations - is devoted to that moment of truth: getting the phone to ring. It’s amazing how much of that effort and expense goes to waste as the phone call, that supreme interactive exchange, is mishandled.

Today we can marry the 19th century phone and 21st century technology to maximize the customer’s call-in experience and help with the following:

• creating an immediate positive impression of your property;
• keeping customers on the line until a sale is completed; and
• upselling customers with creative use of onhold time to suggest additional services and amenities.

Phone time/marketing time

Phone time is a marketer’s dream. Your highly qualified sales prospect has you top-of-mind (he’s looking for a place to stay and/or a place to hold his event and has dialled your number). The sales cycle is incredibly short (the shorter the better for all concerned). There are no competing messages. This last point reveals the problem. Usually, when a customer calls your property there are no marketing messages, no suggestions, no reinforcement for a primed and captive prospect. Silent hold time is the deadliest phone sin. Canned music at least verifies a phone connection but quickly
becomes a negative as the caller endures The Captain and Tennille’s greatest hits. Neither of these common scenarios is acceptable for a hotel serious about creating or maintaining its image.

Educate your guests

The educated guest is the mark of success at every hotel. It is simple to upsell a guest on special room rates, restaurant reservations, or conference room bookings once he or she has an understanding of your offers and amenities. Simple, that is, if you plant the idea in the customer’s mind at the right time, in the right way. The right time is on-hold phone time when the customer is just seconds away from making a transaction. The right way is a professionally executed marketing message broadcasted immediately before the reservation is taken. Your employees should focus on order execution and customer service. Your phone should do the upselling, with voiceover artists, professionally written scripts and background music.

David Butcher, vice president of information systems, Pleasant Travel Service/Hawaiian Hotels & Resorts, has seen positive results from a comprehensive phone marketing system, emphasizing the importance of "new technology, service and support." Butcher also uses his voiceover recording service for sales and marketing presentations, an excellent way to leverage resources and relationships with an on-hold messaging company.

Vahan Ryan, marketing executive for the Sahara Hotel in Las Vegas, has seen fast turnarounds on special service requests. "At the Sahara, changes need to happen ‘yesterday,’" said Ryan, citing a property’s need to react quickly to marketing and promotional opportunities. Through remote monitoring of the Sahara’s onhold messaging system and the ability to deploy new custom recordings via the Internet, Ryan can quickly tailor his "phone time" to any situation.

Automated + customized

A professional on-hold messaging company begins work like any other marketing company - with thorough consultation to learn your business, your customers, your competition and your goals. Through this process, the onhold messaging company will determine your customers’ "hot buttons" and help you decide which services and offers to promote during on-hold time. Multiple on-hold messages can
be rotated, giving the hotel operator extreme flexibility in promotional strategies.

The on-hold messaging company creates messages at an in-house studio, using experienced writers, voice over actors and technicians. The result is a high-quality audio production, custom-made for your property, an extremely effective marketing tool.

Today’s on-hold messaging systems are truly "hands-off" for the hotel owner. All recordings should be digital audio files delivered from a central location.

Invest in your success

As a hotel operator, you have plenty of places to spend your money - supplies, food, equipment, labour, insurance, and real estate. It may be hard to consider putting extra money into your "phone system." Remember, that an onhold messaging system is not a phone upgrade. It is a marketing program, like no other. It is an ad that you know is talking to those potential guests interested in you. There is no advertising waste. It is an incentive that doesn’t get thrown in the trash. It is a salesperson who never gets frustrated or tongue-tied. It is an investment in your success.

The record shows 140 per cent improvement in callers staying on the line with an On-Hold Message Service. The record shows immediate increases in per-average sales. On-hold time is your time with the customer. Own it with a modern marketing program that creates the most potent and best-positioned communications available to the hotel industry.