By: Kevin Doucette
Customer retention and world-class customer service are imperative and key-factors for the hospitality industry in today’s competitive environment. But what happens when a large group request comes to one property within a chain, but the property cannot take this business because of other commitments. What can they do? Losing the business is not an option in today’s market. Until now, manual steps had to be taken to find alternatives to accommodate the group within the chain. Faxes or emails were sent, phone conversations ensued. If a suitable alternative was found, the group had to be created manually in the new property’s system.
With “Referral” functionality these manual steps are a thing of the past. This cross-selling functionality allows the creation of a group booking in one property of a chain to be sent to one or several other properties as a referral, via a central Sales Force Automation (SFA) system. The steps are similar to creation of a lead in SFA, where the booking frame work, the room grid, a meeting agenda, and other group details are entered and then target destinations are selected to send leads to. The status of the block in the originating property indicates the block as referral and can thus be excluded from property block reports and, of course, it will not affect property availability for the originating property.
Our MICROS OPERA Property Management System, as part of this functionality, is also sending the property owner information (name, owner code, phone number, email address) of any block to SFA in order to be able to have a reference for the originating sales person of a Referral.
