A leisure traveler discovers your property while browsing online. She has some specific questions about connecting rooms and proximity options for a family reunion she’s planning. So, instead of booking through an online travel agency (OTA), she calls your hotel directly. Thanks to your hospitality call center, her call is answered promptly by a knowledgeable agent who accesses real-time inventory and customer data. The agent can see the caller’s previous stay history from your integrated customer relationship management (CRM) system and offers a returning guest rate, along with tailored suggestions for group activities.

Not only does your property secure a direct booking for multiple rooms, but the personalized interaction also leads to spa and restaurant bookings. Because your hospitality call center was optimized to deliver exceptional service, what started out as a simple room inquiry has transformed into significant revenue.

Stories like this one play out daily at properties that have unlocked the true value of their voice channel.

The voice channel remains crucial for hotels and resorts despite digital transformation, excelling at securing premium bookings and fostering guest loyalty. Read on to discover how this powerful touchpoint can drive more direct reservations for your property.

The true value of the hospitality call center

The voice channel isn’t just surviving — it’s thriving. Despite claims that “nobody calls anymore,” the data tells a completely different story. Phone calls influence over $1 trillion in U.S. consumer spending, and the global call center market is projected to reach $494.7 billion by 2030, at a 5.8% CAGR.

Furthermore, according to McKinsey research, call volumes have surged since the pandemic, with 65% of consumers preferring to contact businesses by phone and nearly 80% considering phone calls the best way to get quick answers. For hoteliers, these numbers underscore the voice channel’s foundational role in driving direct revenue and enhancing customer relationships.

The upward trend in call volume isn’t just about quantity either, it’s also about quality. Modern travelers are making more complex reservations, seeking detailed information, and expecting personalized service that only voice interactions can provide.

For hotels and resorts, a strong voice channel translates into higher conversion rates and increased revenue opportunities. In fact, industry analysts estimate that companies can boost topline revenues by up to 20% by transforming their contact centers into revenue-generating engines.

The message is clear: your voice channel isn’t just another booking option. It’s a strategic asset that can significantly impact your bottom line. Fueled by advances in hotel reservations systems and cloud-based solutions, your hotel reservations team can become powerful revenue generators, capable of offering hyper-personalized experiences, and delivering the kind of high-touch service that establishes genuine connection and drives high-value direct bookings.

Challenges facing the hospitality call center

Despite the obvious value of the voice channel, the hospitality call center faces significant hurdles that limit its revenue-generating potential.

Consider your hotel data management and reporting capabilities. While you may be able to track basic metrics like call volume, crucial insights about caller behavior and conversion patterns remain hidden. Without this visibility, it’s like trying to navigate in the dark. You can’t optimize performance or prove the true ROI of your voice channel.

Then there’s the frustrating reality of lost leads. Every hotel has received those calls that start with “I’ve got a quick question about…” Maybe these questions are about your rates, the parking situation, or whether Rover, the family poodle, can tag along. Every one of these calls is an opportunity to secure a booking. Unfortunately, too often your reservations staff simply answer those questions and call it a day, lacking the ability to track these callers for future follow-ups. As a result, these valuable leads simply vanish into thin air and you miss out on precious opportunities to lock in direct revenue and win loyal customers for life.

Marketing attribution is another blind spot. When a guest calls after seeing your latest promotional email campaign or visiting your website, that marketing touchpoint often goes untracked. As a result, you can’t tell which marketing investments are actually driving your voice channel success.

Last but not least, let’s talk about training. Your hotel reservations agents are the voice of your property, but traditional hotel phone systems rarely provide the tools needed to coach them effectively. Without call recording and monitoring capabilities, how can you help your team improve and deliver consistent, revenue-generating service?

These challenges all stem from the same root cause: technology that wasn’t designed for modern hotel operations. Think about it — how many opportunities slip through the cracks because of outdated systems and processes? Basic hotel phone systems and fragmented tools simply can’t deliver the unified view of guest interactions, sophisticated tracking, and actionable insights that today’s hotel operators need to maximize their voice channel’s potential.

But here’s the good news: The right training and solutions can solve these challenges, helping your agents become revenue-generating powerhouses.

Revenue opportunities in the voice channel

When it comes to dollars and cents, a lot of money is left on the table when you don’t maximize your voice channel. According to Revinate’s 2025 Hospitality Benchmark Report, the voice channel converts higher than all other hotel marketing channels, with rates hovering around 50% across North America for Revinate customers. Furthermore, callers have a high intent to book at nearly 50%. So if you aren’t closing those callers, you are taking dollars away from your bottom line.

Beyond immediate bookings, the voice channel in hospitality provides a great opportunity for upselling and cross-selling. Maybe that caller asking about pet policies ends up booking a suite with a special pet package. Or that inquiry about parking turns into a reservation with additional amenities.

With regard to direct revenue, your voice channel is one of your most powerful tools for reducing OTA dependency. When guests call your property directly, you have a golden opportunity to showcase your value proposition and secure direct bookings. Your trained agents can explain the benefits of booking directly — whether it’s exclusive packages, flexible cancellation policies, or room preferences — while building a personal connection with guests that no OTA can match.

Despite our digital-first world, genuine human connection can be a breath of fresh air, and your guests still crave that personal touch. Personalized engagement from agents can be highly effective for fostering brand loyalty.

In his TED Talk and best-selling book, “Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect,” author and restaurateur Will Guidara explains that the secret ingredients of great hospitality include making people feel seen, making them feel welcome, and giving them a sense of belonging. He reminds us that we are in the business of making memories. To achieve this, you must be present with the person you’re interacting with — listening to what they’re saying — so that you can treat each person as a unique individual.

What better way to achieve this than through the voice channel. It allows you to offer the kind of personalized service that can tip the scales in your favor when a guest is deciding whether to book. After all, the heart of hospitality is all about making connections. And sometimes there’s no better way to do that than a good “old-fashioned” conversation.

Imagine a guest calling to book a room for their child’s graduation. A savvy agent might ask about the graduate’s interests and arrange a congratulatory message or gift in the room. These types of customized interactions do more than simply fill your rooms. They create unforgettable moments and forge connections that transform a one-time guest into a lifelong fan. In the world of hospitality, human touch isn’t simply a pleasant addition — it’s a game changer.

Furthermore, these voice interactions provide valuable insights into what your guests really want, serving as real-time market research to inform your wider strategy. Beyond gathering immediate feedback, each call presents an opportunity to collect qualified leads for future marketing campaigns and personalized outreach. Are you getting a lot of calls about your eco-friendly practices? Maybe it’s time to highlight your sustainability efforts in your marketing and build targeted campaigns around environmentally conscious travelers.

You need to start seeing your voice channel for what it really is: An opportunity to put more direct revenue in your pocket while building long-term relationships with your guests.

Setting the stage for your hospitality call center

Before we dive into the specifics of optimizing your hospitality call center strategy, you need a strong foundation And that means your guest data needs to be both accessible and actionable during every call your agents make and receive.

The fact is that your guest data is often spread out across multiple systems. Your property management system (PMS) may show what room a guest booked and for how long, but your restaurant Point-of-Sale (POS) system is where all their dining preferences are housed. Your spa system knows each specific visitor’s treatment history, but your email platform is what tracks which of those customers engaged with your spa promotions. With 86% of contact center employees feeling like they don’t have access to resources to handle customer needs effectively, gaining a complete picture of your guests becomes crucial. A customer data platform (CDP) gives your agents the full story of who your guests are and what they want.

Think of a CDP as the brain behind your hotel call center operations — it’s the technology that brings together all the fragmented pieces of guest information and transforms them into one coherent picture.

Without a CDP compiling all this data, you’re essentially looking at your guests through a keyhole when you could be seeing them through a picture window. A CDP provides you with a complete 360-degree view of each customer’s journey across your property, or even across properties within your portfolio. And when it’s integrated with a robust CRM, you’re maximizing the potential of your hospitality call center services by allowing your agents to truly personalize each and every conversation.

7 ways to optimize your hospitality call center

Your voice channel is packed with untapped potential. Whether you’re looking to boost direct bookings, improve conversion rates, or build stronger guest relationships, these seven battle-tested strategies will help you make the most of every call.

1. Collect lead data: Every call is an opportunity

About half of the guests who call don’t book on that first call. Let that sink in. Customers typically have between one and three touchpoints with your property before they book. This means every interaction is an opportunity to collect lead data that will help nudge them closer to that “Book Now” moment in future communications.

Your hotel phone system needs the right technology to capture crucial information beyond just taking messages. Train your agents to collect email addresses — to grow your marketing database — and gather vital details such as potential booking dates and special occasions. Most importantly, document guest preferences. You need to understand whether a visitor is traveling for business or leisure, whether they need connecting rooms, or if they’re celebrating something special.

2. Master the art of second-chance bookings

So, the question here is: How are you following up with these potential guests? This is where the power of notes comes in. The fact is, 28% of customers get frustrated when a business doesn’t recall past conversations. Choose a solution that lets your agents regularly record all that valuable data collected in step one, because it holds the key to personalizing second-chance bookings.

Pro tip: Standardize your note-taking process so that if a different agent handles the follow-up, they can easily pick up right where the last conversation left off. It eliminates that dreaded scenario where the caller has to repeat themselves.

3. Leverage guest data to drive conversions

By capturing leads and nurturing them with personalized follow-ups, you can dramatically increase your chances of conversion. Modern hotel reservations systems integrate with your guest data, allowing agents to see the complete picture of each caller’s history and preferences.

Agents can also use rich guest data to suggest relevant amenities and packages. If a visitor profile shows a guest frequently uses your spa, mention your new signature treatment menu. If they’re a regular business traveler, highlight your upgraded Wi-Fi and co-working spaces.

This isn’t about pushing specific room types or generic upselling, it’s about creating bespoke experiences that show you understand and value your guests.

4. Examine your hospitality call center reporting

Smart decisions start with solid data. Your hotel phone system is sitting on a goldmine of insights about your voice channel performance. Want to know which agents are crushing it with conversions? Who needs a bit more coaching on follow-ups? Modern reporting tools allow you to monitor data such as speed to answer, number of leads, follow-ups, and conversion rates. This data helps you to understand call activity and trends for each agent.

Reporting isn’t only about tracking your agent stats, though. By keeping tabs on call patterns, you’ll also spot revenue opportunities you may have missed. Maybe you’re getting lots of inquiries for Labor Day weekend — that may signal an opportunity to adjust rates. You’ll also see exactly where demand is heating up or cooling off, letting you know the best time to launch targeted promotions for slower periods.

Pay special attention to why guests don’t book. Rate too high? No availability on a particular date? When things change, like rooms opening up or new packages launching, you’ll know exactly who to call.

This type of data-driven approach can transform your voice channel from a reactive service to a proactive revenue center.

5. Coach and train your hospitality call center agents

A smart approach to improving customer relationships and securing more direct bookings is having the data and technology to coach your agents effectively. Success starts with transforming your hotel reservations agents from mere order takers to revenue generators.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Make the most of call recordings. With the right hotel phone system, you can record calls and build a library of winning calls that showcase best practices and create teachable moments for your team.
• Score for success. Consider implementing weekly call scoring to ensure agents hit key points — like actually asking for the booking (yes, it’s basic, but crucial).
• Develop a sales mindset. Train your agents to be active listeners who build connections and uncover guest needs by asking open-ended questions and presenting offers tailored to that guest’s needs or preferences.

6. Track your marketing attribution

Ever wonder which marketing campaigns are actually driving those valuable voice channel bookings? Advanced call center tech can tell you exactly that — whether those campaigns are online or offline.

Maybe a potential guest sees your billboard on Highway 101 promoting your “City Nights Package” and calls in. Your system alerts the agent who can immediately reference the offer. Or take your digital campaigns: someone clicks the link in that “Summer Family Getaway” email campaign your marketing team just sent out. Your agent sees this digital touchpoint and can tailor the conversation around your family-oriented amenities and suite options.

Tracking this attribution helps you refine your marketing strategy and invest your marketing dollars where they work best. Moreover, your agents will be better prepared to handle inquiries, leading to smoother conversations and higher conversion rates.

7. Maximize coverage with smart overflow support

Your voice channel revenue potential doesn’t end when your in-house team goes home for the night, or when your in-house agents can’t get to all the calls during peak times. By implementing strategic overflow and after-hours support, you can keep those booking opportunities flowing 24/7/365.

The key is finding a solution that feels like a seamless extension of your property. Look for a solution with professional agents who maintain your brand voice and standards, and deliver high booking accuracy. For luxury properties aiming to achieve or maintain Forbes star ratings, choose a solution with specialized agents who are trained in these exacting standards.

Here’s a final tip: Choose an overflow service that offers pay-for-performance pricing, so you’re only investing when they’re actually handling calls. It’s a smart way to balance service quality with cost efficiency while ensuring that no call goes unanswered.

Beyond silos: Integrate voice with other channels

When guests call your property, they’re not just potential bookings. They’re valuable leads that can fuel success across all your channels. With 89% of companies reporting higher customer loyalty through integrated channel strategies, it’s clear that there’s a powerful interplay between voice and online channels that needs to be considered.

Importance of capturing leads: Benefits for your guest ecosystem

In addition to its revenue-generation potential, think of your hospitality call center as a dynamic lead-generation tool. Every call, whether it results in an immediate booking or not, provides precious data that can enrich your guest profiles and empower future marketing efforts.

The numbers tell an interesting story: While email volume typically exceeds call volume by 400x, don’t let that mislead you. Hospitality call center callers show remarkably higher intent to book — we’re talking about a 50% conversion rate for calls compared to less than 1% for email. That’s the power of your voice channel.

Furthermore, when an agent captures a caller’s email, preferred travel dates, or specific interests, they’re creating opportunities across your entire marketing ecosystem. Perhaps someone calls about securing a summer wedding block but isn’t ready to commit. That information helps you personalize future interactions across your other channels — from targeted emails about wedding packages to social media ads showcasing your beautiful venue spaces.

Bottom line: It’s not about pitting one channel against another. It’s about understanding how they work together and leveraging each one’s strengths. The voice channel is your high-intent, big-spender channel. Email marketing relies on a higher volume of contacts, but it’s ripe for automation. They’re different tools for different jobs, and mastering both is key to maximizing your revenue.

Email marketing and your hospitality call center

Twin Farms uses Revinate’s Reservation Sales in conjunction with our Revinate Marketing solution to effectively close sales when potential guests called after seeing an email. The luxury destination achieved an average room revenue of $155K per campaign, and a lifetime revenue of $11M.

Impressive, right? Now let’s take a quick look at how integrating your voice channel intelligence with hotel email marketing can amplify your booking conversions:

• Reminder emails. Post-call follow-ups deserve strategic attention. After receiving a guest inquiry, trigger a series of automated, thoughtfully timed emails that reflect their specific interests. This kind of customized outreach shows that you remember their needs while gently nurturing them towards booking.
• Shopping cart abandonment. When potential guests abandon their booking journey, your voice channel can be a perfect recovery tool. You can recapture their attention by sending a personalized message. Then, within 24 hours, you can have an agent call with customized insights: “I noticed you were interested in our mountain-view suite. Did you know it includes priority reservations at our rooftop restaurant?”
• Warm lead follow-ups. Your voice channel can be the perfect closer for warm leads who’ve engaged with your email campaigns. The key is using both channels to their strengths. Email builds interest with beautiful imagery and detailed information, while your hotel reservations agents add that human touch, addressing specific questions and highlighting relevant benefits based on the warm lead’s email engagement.
• Cold lead follow-ups. Your voice channel can strategically warm up cold leads when paired with campaigns personalized by implementing email segmentation. Sending a segment of family travelers campaigns like “Top 10 Family-fun Activities Near Our Resort” or “Family Vacations Made Easy” will encourage them to engage with your content and allow your hotel reservations team to follow up with segment-specific talking points.
• Pre-arrival and check-in communications. Your voice channel insights can make pre-arrival and check-in emails more personal and profitable — working particularly well for upsells. When an agent books a reservation, they can capture specifics about the visit to your property. Then, your pre-arrival emails can present relevant special experiences that appeal to the guest.
• Post-stay communications. Your voice channel can transform routine post-stay emails into meaningful guest relationships. To allow both channels to work together, you might start with a thank-you email mentioning specific details from a visitor’s stay. Then have a reservations agent follow up with a warm message, highlighting a particular experience the guest enjoyed and offering to share exclusive similar experiences. You can also use this opportunity to receive feedback to improve future guest experiences.
• Ancillary offers. Your voice channel can turn ancillary offer emails into personalized experiences that also lift your bottom line. Let’s say a couple books a romantic weekend getaway. Your ancillary offer email showcases relevant add-ons like couples’ massages and private dining. A hotel reservations agent can follow up, saying something like: “I noticed you’re joining us for a romantic weekend. The candlelight dinner package in our email caught a lot of couples’ attention. Would you like to secure the best sunset seating time?”

When your voice and digital channels work in harmony, they help you create those “wow” moments guests remember. Your hotel reservations team can transform automated email offers into bespoke experiences, while email campaigns can reinforce the warm, personal connections made over the phone. It’s not just about booking rooms or selling services, it’s about making every customer feel like a VIP.

Hospitality call center benchmarks

What drives exceptional voice channel performance in today’s hospitality landscape? Let’s review the data from Revinate’s 2025 Hospitality Benchmark Report, examining benchmarks for call center operations and voice channel conversion rates — so that you can understand exactly what to expect from a high-performance hotel reservations team.

Once again, data revealed that the voice channel is one of the most profitable channels in hospitality, delivering truly phenomenal results:

• The voice channel converts higher than all other hotel marketing channels, with conversion rates around 50% across North America.
• Implementing outbound calls resulted in an average of $1,748 in incremental yearly revenue per room.
• Email capture rates stayed consistently high, at 72% or higher, boosting hoteliers’ marketing efforts to convert callers who didn’t book.

These benchmarks give you a clear picture of your voice channel’s potential to drive significant direct revenue. Keep an eye on your own property’s metrics and compare them. Make sure your team captures caller contact information, and stay in touch with prospects. When you treat every call as an opportunity — whether it converts immediately or not — you’re setting your property up for sustainable revenue growth through this high-value channel.

Choosing the right hospitality call center solution

By now you can see that your voice channel isn’t just about answering phone calls. It plays a key role in your business success. It’s about creating a profit-lifting engine that helps you reduce OTA dependency while delivering exceptional guest experiences. And for that, you need to choose the right technology to help you capitalize on every opportunity. Here are key elements to look for in a hotel call center solution.

Advanced lead management

Every ring represents revenue potential. The right system helps your agents capture customer info smoothly during natural conversation, making follow-up a breeze.

Look for technology such as Revinate’s Reservation Sales. This type of cloud-based solution guides agents through lead capture with features that allow them to gather essential details such as email address, booking timeframes, and reasons for visiting. Hotel phone systems tech with advanced lead management capability integrates with your CDP, giving agents access to rich guest profiles to help boost inbound conversion rates, generate net-new revenue from outbound leads, and drive additional revenue through lead nurturing.

Performance analytics and coaching tools

Success leaves clues. That’s why real-time performance tracking is non-negotiable. In fact, Deloitte research shows hospitality call center innovators are 2.7x more likely to allocate resources toward analytics and insights compared to their less advanced counterparts. Your platform should let you monitor key metrics at a glance while making it easy to dive deeper when needed.

Real-time performance tracking is essential for developing top-performing agents, revealing details such as which agents excel at upselling or handling objections. Look for hotel phone systems with call recording and scoring capabilities that make coaching sessions productive and actionable, so you can more easily spread winning strategies across your team.

Smart routing and campaign attribution

Your hotel phone systems should be working overtime to track marketing ROI. When someone calls in response to an Instagram ad or email offer, you need to know it. Look for platforms that automatically track which online and offline campaigns are driving calls and how much revenue they’re bringing in.

Bonus points for a solution that automatically routes calls to agents best equipped to handle specific requests. For example, a corporate booking should go directly to your business travel specialist, or calls could be routed to agents fluent in your potential visitor’s preferred language, enhancing communication and satisfaction.

Scalable support

Your voice channel needs to handle anything — from quiet Tuesdays to peak season craziness. Consider solutions offering professional overflow support with agents trained in hospitality. The best overflow solutions feel like a seamless extension of your team, maintaining your service standards even during your busiest times.

A solution such as Revinate’s RezForce on-demand contact center picks up when your team logs off, ensuring you never miss a single call. Our solution offers U.S.-based agents trained to maintain your brand voice and standards, with an impressive 99% booking accuracy rate. And the pay-for-performance model is cost-effective, letting you scale support up or down with demand. For luxury properties striving to earn or uphold prestigious Forbes stars, RezForce Lux agents hold certification in Forbes Travel Guide’s 5-Star standards.

The Salamander Collection took its call center operations to the next level by allowing Revinate’s RezForce agents to manage overflow and after-hours reservations. In conjunction with other Revinate solutions, the company saw a 270% improvement in outbound revenue growth from March to April 2024.

Hospitality-specific technology

Generic call center tech won’t cut it in hospitality. The platform you choose should speak your language — understanding concepts like length of stay, shoulder nights, and rate categories.

Integration is crucial too. Your hotel phone systems solution should play nice with your PMS, CDP, and CRM, as well as your spa, golf, retail, folio, and F&B outlets. This allows agents to make every call count, and helps drive ancillary revenue opportunities.

Expert support

Finally, you want to partner with a provider who understands the hospitality industry. Your technology partner should act like a strategic advisor, helping you spot opportunities to boost revenue through your voice channel. Look for dedicated support teams who understand the unique challenges of hotel operations. The best providers offer regular check-ins, share industry insights, and help you stay ahead of trends.

When all these pieces come together, you create a voice channel that consistently delivers both revenue and customer satisfaction. The right technology transforms your hospitality call center from a cost center to a profit driver, while giving guests the kind of personalized service that turns casual visitors into brand evangelists.

Make every call count

Nearly nine out of 10 customers have stopped doing business with a company due to poor call center service. Let’s face it, in today’s hyper-competitive market, an optimized voice channel isn’t just nice to have. It’s a must-have for driving revenue and building guest relationships.

The right tech makes all the difference. You need advanced tools to help your team capture every opportunity, track performance in real time, and transform inquiries into loyal guests. With modern solutions such as Revinate’s Reservation Sales and RezForce, you can transform every “Hello” into the start of something special.

Take a good look at your current voice channel strategy. Are you making the most of every call? Are you equipping your hospitality call center team with the tools and training they need to succeed? If not, now is the time to step up your game. Take a look at our helpful guides, “The voice channel conversion playbook for hotels” and the “10 best practices for your hotel call center.” Your bottom line will thank you, and so will your guests.