2024 hospitality benchmark report
Voice channel – North America
Voice channel – North America
In this chapter you will find
In this chapter you will find
Introduction
Introduction
Sometimes, you just want to talk to a real person.
Despite headline after headline declaring that “people don’t call anymore,” the voice channel remains an extremely valuable communication avenue, especially for hoteliers. Thirty percent of consumers pick up the phone to contact brands, according to a recent survey. And yes, this includes people of all ages.
Hoteliers use the voice channel to offer high-touch service for guests, handle complex bookings, and drive direct revenue. Your hotel reservation team can be a revenue powerhouse for your property when they have the right data at their fingertips.
We’ll dive into benchmarks for call center operations and voice channel conversion rates so that you can understand exactly what to expect from a high-performance reservation sales team.
Downloads
Downloads
North America voice channel benchmarks
North America voice channel benchmarks
The voice channel is highly profitable, clocking in an average booking value of $1,570 — higher than any other channel.
As such, you need a smart approach to securing those bookings. One side of that is having the data and technology to coach your agents effectively, and the other side is tracking important metrics to measure your overall call center performance. Keep these benchmarks in mind for identifying what metrics to track and how your hotel measures up.
From inbound to outbound: Benchmarks for lead call volume, conversion rates, non-booked leads, and more
From inbound to outbound: Benchmarks for lead call volume, conversion rates, non-booked leads, and more
The guest journey to booking can be complex, with 1-3 touchpoints across multiple channels per booked call on average. We’ll use the benchmarks of this report to trace the journey of an inbound call to an outbound booking, and direct revenue in the bank.
Quick links
Inbound call volume | Inbound lead call volume | Inbound lead call conversion | Non-booked inbound lead volume | Email capture rate for non-booked calls | Outbound conversion rate of non-booked leads and incremental revenue | Average incremental revenue per room from outbound calls
Inbound call volume
Call volume is essential for knowing how to smartly staff your team. We found that the average inbound call volume for hoteliers in North America ranged from 23 – 30.4 calls per room each month. Of course, you need to account for more than just busy and lean seasons, but down to the shift.
Reservation Sales provides a granular call volume report specific to your property and its historical data to give you information on who is calling, when they are calling, and the purpose of their calls. It also tracks call abandonment, daily lead numbers, and other relevant data.
Inbound lead call volume
Of course, out of all the calls your hotel receives, a smaller portion of them will be lead calls, i.e. calls from potential guests with a high intent to book. Our data shows that average lead call volume ranges between 3.8 – 6.7 calls per room each month, depending on the season.
Inbound lead call conversion rate
How many of these high-intent callers actually make a booking? About half – a percentage that stays fairly consistent throughout the year.
The Texas-based Hyatt Regency Lost Pines Resort and Spa implemented Reservation Sales because they wanted to increase the performance of their voice team to achieve new heights in both the guest experience and direct revenue generation. In less than a year, the Lost Pines hit a lead call conversion rate of about 60% – well above the average benchmark – and increased their average room revenue per booked call by 72%.
Non-booked inbound lead volume
But what about the other half of lead calls that didn’t complete a booking? Those are your non-booked leads, and they are one of your most important opportunities to capture more direct revenue. If you can’t track the volume of these callers and get in touch with them again, then you are leaving it up to chance on whether they’ll call back, book through an OTA, or with your competition.
The monthly average non-booked lead call volume ranged from 1.8 – 3.3 throughout the year.
Email capture rate for non-booked calls
One vital action a reservation agent should take with a non-booked call is to ask for the caller’s email address. With an email address, you can automate follow-ups with warm or cold lead campaigns and include these guests in other email offers. If a guest then converts through the email channel, you’re securing the same revenue while saving agents valuable time.
The average email capture rate for non-booked calls is 69.3%.
Outbound conversion rate of non-booked leads and incremental revenue
Even when you integrate the email channel, there are still critical revenue opportunities from non-booked leads to be secured on the voice channel through an outbound call strategy. Chasing these leads brings in pure incremental revenue, since it’s less likely that these guests would have converted another way.
To calculate this conversion rate, we only looked at outbound call conversions from non-booked leads who did not have an inbound call associated with them in the system in the last 30 days. This excludes a regular follow-up call, which reservation agents should do as a matter of course.
The result? An average monthly conversion rate of 3.5%. These extra bookings can mean the difference between crushing your quarterly targets and falling short of your revenue goals.
Incremental revenue per room from outbound calls
Using the average booking value of reservations made on the voice channel, an outbound call strategy like this brings in an additional $1,717 of direct revenue per room each year. Multiply that by the number of rooms on your property, and you can take that straight to the bank.
The team at Dream Inn Santa Cruz used Reservation Sales to power an outbound sales strategy that paid off. By pairing with our email marketing solution, their small reservations team could focus on voice channel sales. Their annual outbound booking revenue recently hit $350K.
