InterContinental Montelucia
InterContinental Montelucia Resort and Spa is a luxury property in Scottsdale, Arizona. Set in the breathtaking foothills of Camelback Mountain, the property features 293 guest rooms as well as 34 multi-million dollar privately-owned villas on 35 acres of lush desert landscape. The hotel opened to the public in 2008.
JC Thompson is the Director of Training and Quality at the hotel. He originally joined the staff to manage the 34 private villas but after a year of operation a need arose to both develop and drive quality at the resort. This opportunity brought together his passion for exceptional service, honed as a concierge for Four Seasons, with his natural ability to inspire people to perform better.
JC found a mentor in Managing Director, Valeriano Antonioli, and together they decided to embrace online reviews and social media to drive sales and improve hotel operations. Knowing that 80% of Montelucia guests were going to TripAdvisor before booking rooms, Antonioli saw an opportunity for Montelucia to be more customer-focused and socially savvy than anyone in the marketplace. This led to the further development of a quality role for JC.
At first JC spent hours every day visiting 10-15 review sites to see what was being said about the hotel. It was a time consuming and manual process. A few months later Antonioli heard about Revinate and scheduled a demo for JC to see if it was something that would help scale what they were trying to accomplish.
“I was instantly on board with using Revinate,” Thompson said. “From the first time I logged on I knew that I couldn’t live without this product. Revinate saves me hours of work each day so I can focus my time on training our 430 employees and improving the quality of our operation. There are so many features that I use daily, such as the ability to respond to reviews from within the system and forward any feedback via email. And, in order to continue to convey value in my quality role, it’s great to be able to PDF and share the scorecards and dashboards that clearly show the beneficial results of my program and how they correlate to an increase in sales,” Thompson added.
Today, review sites and OTAs are one of the biggest influencers in a guest’s decision to stay at a hotel. Understanding that encouraging reviews is effective in raising a property’s online exposure, The Montelucia has been proactive in driving reviews to major review sites. When feedback comes to the hotel via email, Antonioli will respond to thank the guest and ask whether the guest will share the story online. Employees also respond to tips and praise with a business card thanking guests for their kindness and letting them know that a review on TripAdvisor is the best gratuity they can give.
The Montelucia is also responsive to unfavorable feedback. When reviews come in with scores of three stars or below, Thompson is alerted via Revinate. Thompson immediately replies publicly to acknowledge the issue and then takes the step that so few hotels take: he brings the review with him to his daily operations meeting where it is discussed with the people empowered to correct the situation. Each issue is then included in weekly training sessions with employees delivering the service. Thompson appreciates that he always knows about issues as they are reported so he can quickly rectify any customer complaint. Making operational improvements based on online feedback has significantly improved guest satisfaction and loyalty.
Other groups within the hotel also use Revinate daily to track and share guest experiences. When Antonioli and Thompson saw Revinate’s social media monitoring, and features such as TweetConcierge, the fully-integrated Twitter client customized just for hoteliers, they immediately shared Revinate with the resort’s PR and online marketing teams. The PR team is able to stay on top of travel blog posts and news mentions for both Montelucia as well as its competitors. The Online Marketing Manager uses Revinate to track success on Facebook and Twitter.
Reports and analysis, such as Revinate’s intuitive dashboards, are now used for everything from competitive evaluations to sales pitches. The sales team has had excellent results showing potential customers how Montelucia ranks against its competitors on review sites. Prospects are usually won over when they see a Revinate dashboard because they know it’s a fair representation of customer reviews, and not a one-sided marketing document.
While it can be daunting to develop and implement a strategic plan for online reviews and social media, Revinate provides the guidance to make it easy. Partnering with Revinate has allowed InterContinental Montelucia Resort and Spa to look at social media as an opportunity to use online guest feedback to its advantage in marketing, sales and operations. In fact, there is no team at the resort whose business isn’t improved in some way by Revinate. And as long as JC Thompson is managing the quality, it will continue this way.
JC Thompson is the Director of Training and Quality at the hotel. He originally joined the staff to manage the 34 private villas but after a year of operation a need arose to both develop and drive quality at the resort. This opportunity brought together his passion for exceptional service, honed as a concierge for Four Seasons, with his natural ability to inspire people to perform better.
JC found a mentor in Managing Director, Valeriano Antonioli, and together they decided to embrace online reviews and social media to drive sales and improve hotel operations. Knowing that 80% of Montelucia guests were going to TripAdvisor before booking rooms, Antonioli saw an opportunity for Montelucia to be more customer-focused and socially savvy than anyone in the marketplace. This led to the further development of a quality role for JC.
At first JC spent hours every day visiting 10-15 review sites to see what was being said about the hotel. It was a time consuming and manual process. A few months later Antonioli heard about Revinate and scheduled a demo for JC to see if it was something that would help scale what they were trying to accomplish.
“I was instantly on board with using Revinate,” Thompson said. “From the first time I logged on I knew that I couldn’t live without this product. Revinate saves me hours of work each day so I can focus my time on training our 430 employees and improving the quality of our operation. There are so many features that I use daily, such as the ability to respond to reviews from within the system and forward any feedback via email. And, in order to continue to convey value in my quality role, it’s great to be able to PDF and share the scorecards and dashboards that clearly show the beneficial results of my program and how they correlate to an increase in sales,” Thompson added.
Today, review sites and OTAs are one of the biggest influencers in a guest’s decision to stay at a hotel. Understanding that encouraging reviews is effective in raising a property’s online exposure, The Montelucia has been proactive in driving reviews to major review sites. When feedback comes to the hotel via email, Antonioli will respond to thank the guest and ask whether the guest will share the story online. Employees also respond to tips and praise with a business card thanking guests for their kindness and letting them know that a review on TripAdvisor is the best gratuity they can give.
The Montelucia is also responsive to unfavorable feedback. When reviews come in with scores of three stars or below, Thompson is alerted via Revinate. Thompson immediately replies publicly to acknowledge the issue and then takes the step that so few hotels take: he brings the review with him to his daily operations meeting where it is discussed with the people empowered to correct the situation. Each issue is then included in weekly training sessions with employees delivering the service. Thompson appreciates that he always knows about issues as they are reported so he can quickly rectify any customer complaint. Making operational improvements based on online feedback has significantly improved guest satisfaction and loyalty.
Other groups within the hotel also use Revinate daily to track and share guest experiences. When Antonioli and Thompson saw Revinate’s social media monitoring, and features such as TweetConcierge, the fully-integrated Twitter client customized just for hoteliers, they immediately shared Revinate with the resort’s PR and online marketing teams. The PR team is able to stay on top of travel blog posts and news mentions for both Montelucia as well as its competitors. The Online Marketing Manager uses Revinate to track success on Facebook and Twitter.
Reports and analysis, such as Revinate’s intuitive dashboards, are now used for everything from competitive evaluations to sales pitches. The sales team has had excellent results showing potential customers how Montelucia ranks against its competitors on review sites. Prospects are usually won over when they see a Revinate dashboard because they know it’s a fair representation of customer reviews, and not a one-sided marketing document.
While it can be daunting to develop and implement a strategic plan for online reviews and social media, Revinate provides the guidance to make it easy. Partnering with Revinate has allowed InterContinental Montelucia Resort and Spa to look at social media as an opportunity to use online guest feedback to its advantage in marketing, sales and operations. In fact, there is no team at the resort whose business isn’t improved in some way by Revinate. And as long as JC Thompson is managing the quality, it will continue this way.