Be a fly on the wall
I recently met with the event manager for my upcoming convention and was impressed to find out that he follows the Twitter hashtags of some of his in-house groups to learn what the attendees are saying about the hotel. If it is something he has control over (i.e. not enough diet soda at the breaks), he acts on it to better serve his customers. Brilliant!He is not the only one. A June 2010 article in the Wall Street Journal mentions other hotels that have employees actively monitoring social networking sites to see what their guests are saying—and then following up. For example, a conference attendee at the Orlando World Center Marriott tweeted that he had the worst room in the hotel. This property has designated front desk agents continually scouring Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. One of these agents saw the tweet and contacted the guest to apologize and offered to move him to a pool-view room.Unlike comment cards that are read after the guest departs, tweets and other posts can be responded to immediately which gives hotels a great opportunity for service recovery and promotes guest loyalty.
As a hotel sales manager, you too can be a “fly on the wall” to help you book new and repeat business. For example, if there is a group you are trying to secure for a future year, follow the hashtag during the current year’s conference, (to find out what the hashtag is, go to the conference’s website or call the organization’s office. Do not call the meeting planner), join their Facebook group or “like” their fan page. This will give you an opportunity to see what the attendees are saying (not just about the hotel; about anything that helps you better understand who they are and their likes and dislikes) and use that information when selling to the planner. For instance, if attendees are tweeting about all of the great things there are to do within walking distance of their current hotel, and your hotel is in a similar type of location, stress this when selling to the meeting planner. The key is letting the planner know you learned this by following the current year’s conference or reading it on a social media site.I expect a sales manager to do their homework and visit my organization’s website before soliciting my business. Taking it a step further will really catch my attention and could set you apart from your competition.
