CRM

sunandaC

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While IT initiatives like centralised management and automating daily operations are important, the key part of retaining a customer is critical to the hospitality industry, which explains why every chain is taking the help of technology to improve efficiency. Take a look at Le Royal Meridien. The hotel has deployed a check-in system on each floor depending on the guest’s profile. This has solved the problem of long queues of customers at the counter, waiting to fill in details of their preferences.


CRM is also being adopted in a big way by almost all the big hotel chains in India. At present, every major hotel chain in India is investing in comprehensive systems that store complete profiles of their customers. The moment a guest checks in, he fills a form indicating his various preferences. If he is a regular client, the hotel immediately knows of his preferences and serves him accordingly.


Says Prakash Shukla, senior vice president, technology, and CIO, Taj Group of Hotels, “Every hotel has a major chunk of its revenue coming from its regular clientele. We too recognise this and have deployed customer information systems (CIS) to service the customer in a better way.” The same CIS can be accessed through any of the group’s properties. A CIS enables the hotel to keep a record of the exact profile of the customer and keep a tab on his preferences during his subsequent visits. CIS creates guest-centric processes that are essential for CRM. And since it focuses on preferences, requests and problems of different customers, it is a boon to the hotel management.


The same database is used to offer loyalty programmes to the customer. Most hotels today offer a customer different schemes based on his profile. In the traditional method, this was done manually with no clear understanding of a customer’s preferences. But now, with knowledge of the customer’s history, a hotel can service a customer more efficiently. Some hotels have even given their regular customers unique IDs to enable them to check their loyalty points on the Web itself.




Says Zahid Memon, systems manager, J W Marriott Hotel (Mumbai), “Most hotels know their customer preferences because relevant data can now be procured from the systems as and when needed. Earlier, data management systems contained only static information, which was used only to enhance efficiency of the hotel staff. But today, with the help of analytical tools, we can provide consistent service quality. CRM and software tools for front line staff have enhanced successful one-to-one relationships.”


In addition, most hotels have also embraced newer technologies with gusto. The Taj group, for instance, extensively uses VoIP and video conferencing tools on its internal network to cut communication costs.
 
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