Intro/Outro – 00:00:04: Welcome to the Hotel Moment podcast presented by Revinate, the podcast where we discuss how hotel technology shapes every moment of the hotelier’s experience. Tune in as we explore the cutting edge technology transforming the hospitality industry and hear from experts and visionaries shaping the future of guest experiences. Whether you’re a hotelier or a tech enthusiast, you’re in the right place. Let’s dive in and discover how we can elevate the art of hospitality together.

Brent Sanders – 00:00:37: Hello, welcome to Hotel Moment Deep Dive. It’s presented by Revinate. We’re going to be covering successful outbound strategies to maximize direct revenue — strategies to effectively leverage the voice channel to propel your business forward. I’m Brian Stinemetz. I’m a client success manager with Revinate. I have Brent Sanders here from education, and Raul Martinez is our guest speaker today. We’ll see him here in a little bit, but Brent has some very useful information that we’re going to go ahead and start talking about. So Brent, take it away.

Brian Stinemetz – 00:01:10: Thank you so much, Brian. I appreciate it. So happy to be here with everybody. As Brian said, my name is Brent Sanders. I’ve been working —- next month it’s going to be 11 years for Revinate. Very proud. I’m part of the education and training department. So I get to talk to people, talk to agents, and talk to companies all the time about some of the success that they can have with outbound campaigns. One of my favorite topics, and I’m really excited to discuss it today. So without further ado, let’s just jump right in. Here’s a nice little agenda of what we’re going to be discussing today. We’ve had our introductions. The next part of this, I just want to talk about what do you mean by outbound strategies? What are we talking about here? And can we get a couple of examples, and we will be talking about four different types. And then we’re going to shine the spotlight on Raul and the Ambiente Sedona. So let’s get started. And find out how he’s been getting success using outbound strategies. So continuing on. You might be asking yourself, why is outbound even important? Well, the reason it’s important is because think about the money that you’re spending to get people to call in. And then those people that you’ve generated interest, piqued their interest, they called in, they asked some questions, your reservation salespeople do their very best to help confirm them into dates, but they don’t end up booking. So what happens then? Where does the story between you and that guest go? Well, if you have a place to store and secure some of this data, and you have plans to reach back out to the guest, that story can continue on. So I want to take a look at some of the information that we gathered in Revinate’s 2023 benchmark. This report is pulled from our customers who currently use our reservation sales lead management system. So we found that an average of 2.6 monthly non-booked leads are happening per room. So you can do the math there. 2.6 on your number of rooms. Think about the volume of inquiries that are there that you could still be in touch with. In addition, it’s very important when you’re thinking about outbound calling strategies that you also think about capturing emails on the inbound calls. Very, very important. One of the most important things to do is to be able to be able to communicate with somebody after the call is over. And if your reservation agent has been able to gather an email, even for the guests that haven’t booked, you’re going to be able to continue the conversations and nurture them throughout the upcoming timeframe. So as we’re looking at here, the average email capture rate for non-booked calls is about 69.3. Consider how many you’re capturing. Are you even capturing emails for people who don’t book? Something really to think about because it’ll drive your strategy forward. The next thing I really want to talk about —- because it’s always all about the money, as it should be. When you’re calling people back, and having connection with them, and setting them up with the perfect stay at your property, incremental revenue comes from those outbound calls. We see it across the board. It does go up and down throughout the year, but on an average yearly total, it’s $1,700 plus. Per room. Again, you do the math, multiply that. That’s some serious opportunity. So if you were thinking, “Should I have an outbound strategy or should I not?” I’m here to tell you the answer is yes, you should. And let’s talk about the examples. Think about how you would answer any one of these calls. Do you recognize every call is a serious lead? I know you do. You pay a lot of money to get those calls to come in. So just think about all the different ways there are to book your property. And someone’s at home dreaming about it. They’ve been on your website. They finally pick up the phone to call. They get your agent who does their very best, or maybe they get your agent who doesn’t do their very best. Whichever scenario is, if you have the opportunity to reach back out to them, you’ve got another chance. Now you might be saying to yourself, Brent, I could be way too time intensive. How am I supposed to do this? Listen, we also have automated marketing details that will trigger based on the lead status and how interested this guest is. You can trigger an email out, and you can decide when to trigger that email out. And then lastly, think about your reservations team during slow periods. When there’s time, and the phone’s not ringing, if they’re digging into leads and seeing which loyal guest hasn’t yet booked yet for this year, and they can find that guest and they can reach out to them and confirm them in advance proactively, you’re just putting rooms on your books much sooner than you thought you would be. And I know there’s not a person out there that doesn’t like to have the business on the books as soon as possible. These are great things. If you’re answering yes to any of these and you care about this, let me talk to you about the next few different types of outbound strategies there are to have. The first that comes to mind are second-chance bookings. These are exactly like what they sound like. Your agent is talking to a guest who has a lot of interest. They walk them through the experience, what it’s like to be a guest at your property. They find out exactly what they need, and they sell them the perfect room, quote the perfect rate, ask them for the sale. And the guest says, “It all sounds wonderful, but I should really talk this over with the boss.” And we all know who the boss is. And you know what? Stay out of hot water. You really should probably talk it over with someone. I joke, but in all seriousness, a lot of times people are spending a lot of money to come to your properties. They want to discuss this with their partner, with their travel partner, with their husband, wife, whoever it is, that’s fine. But don’t let it end. Ask the agent to then say, “If you’d like, I can make this really easy for you instead of you having to call me back and wait in the queue for me to answer the call. I can reach out to you in 24 hours. Tomorrow around the same time. How does that sound?” There will be so many people who will take you up on that offer. And now you have a lead queued up, ready to go, make some notes in there, make some notes of what’s so important to them, what you already learned. But give them a call back in 24 hours, 48 hours, and see what they think. If you have a multi-generational family coming to stay at your property, and they have to consult with a number of different people before the booking can be made, let them do all their consulting. Send them an email that gets them excited about the stay. And then follow up after they’ve had a chance to talk to everybody. See if you can answer any additional questions. More importantly, see if you can secure the booking. Very, very exciting. The next type of calls that come to mind are those people who are calling when it’s just too late. That’s what I say. For example, they’re calling for your busiest season, but they’re calling too late. Everything is already sold out. Or their favorite type of room specifically has sold out. Or maybe you have policies where you’re protecting a timeframe because it’s in demand, and you have a minimum night stay in place. But now, as the time has gotten closer, you’ve sort of released that minimum night stay, or you’ve changed it. And so now you have the ability, if you’ve been keeping track of your regrets and denials, you now have a group of people. We know that inventory changes naturally. It doesn’t always stay the same. Today, just because you’re sold out today does not mean you won’t have any rooms to sell tomorrow. People cancel. It’s a dynamic thing. So if you have a list of these folks, you can call them back as a room opens up and sell them the room that you now have. Or if the policy changes, you can call these people back and say, listen, good news. I know you couldn’t stay three nights when you had a three-night minimum, but now it’s only two, and you were looking at two. I just wanted to give you the first chance to book. There. Number one, outstanding service from your agent to this potential guest. Number two, you’re getting a second chance for this person who you thought was just filed away. I love that. Now, not everything comes just with a phone call. If you can combine this with some marketing, you can have some triggered marketing that happens. And I think of post-stay comes to mind. After somebody leaves, a lot of people have a we miss you type campaign that’s going out probably maybe 10 months after they leave, just when it’s time for them to start thinking about their next vacation. And that will get them excited. But if you also have your team looking for loyal guests. Who come every year who haven’t yet booked, how nice to get a proactive call from a property that I visited and provided loyalty to, and they’re reaching out to say, “‘Hey, we wanted to make sure’that we got your room secured for this year. “We don’t want you to miss out.'” Feels so good. I feel like the VIP that you want them to feel like, and you’re making sure that this revenue is already on the books, and you’re not hoping this will come through. A long time ago, I learned that driving revenue is all based on strategies and hope, unfortunately, is not a strategy. So I think it comes into play just thinking about this. And then I think about pre-arrivals. A lot of people who are watching this webinar right now are realizing that you have so much to do at your property. You’ve got multiple restaurants, multiple activities. Let’s make sure that your guests that are coming have the full experience they need. And if you have the ability to have your agents reach out to people prior to their arrival, secure their reservations for the spa, secure the reservations for the restaurants, make sure they’re participating in any activities that you have, and they’re going to have a great stay. You answer any additional questions. These pre-arrival calls to drive that ancillary revenue is a great way to focus your time and energy. These are four of my favorite. People do different things that have come up with their unique ways of handling this. But here’s four easy ways to get into the outbound business. I mentioned before, if you have the chance to also pair this with automated marketing, you set up these rules in the marketing system that say, “Hey”–. Cart abandonment, for example, when someone’s on my website, is there looking around, enters some information, including their email address, but then decides to leave before booking, we can recognize that, send them a marketing send, and then follow that up with a phone call. Same thing with lead follow-up. People who are really, really interested, send them an automated marketing message that you can then follow up with a phone call. So in summary, especially looking at this page, the more touches you have, the more money, that you’re bringing in for these marketing sends, get your agents to boost what you’re already doing and drive your revenues higher and higher. So some of the key takeaways that I mentioned is make sure your agents are skilled. You’re going to start this, I say, change the culture in your reservations department to say we’re more than just a one-time transaction department. We’re building relationships and we’re going to follow this through. When you start making those rules, make sure agents are prepared and are comfortable to follow up with guests. Have them do it. Set goals. Define some key performance indicators for the initiative so that you can measure and track how well they’re doing. Celebrate the moves that are happening. Remove any obstacles that you find that are in the way so that there’s a clear path for them to continue doing this in a high level. In addition, maybe there’s an opportunity to incentivize this new behavior specific to reaching back out to guests. If these outbound calls are actually converting because your agents are proactively driving this, let’s give some of that proactive money back into their pocket in some form or fashion to keep this going. Lastly, and I say this lastly, don’t take for granted what a pre-arrival call could do to drive more revenue, more of your ancillary revenue, because you can make ancillary primary, maximize the wall of share, drive your on-property activities and restaurants. Also, if you’re a big property, make sure people are getting the full experience. I get really excited, Brian, talking about all this. I love it so much, but I think it’s about time for me to hand it back over to you so you and Raul can share a little bit about what’s happening at Ambiente.

Brent Sanders – 00:15:04: Excellent. Thank you. Thank you for that, Brent. I’m a client success manager with Revinate. Been here for a couple of years. Prior to that, I was a client success manager for several years at another organization. I’m very excited to bring on our guest, Raul Martinez from Ambiente Sedona. Ambiente Sedona is a luxury property located in Sedona, Arizona. I had the honor of doing an on-site implementation for them. They have been a customer of Revinate since 2022 and have seen great success for their voice channel strategies. We’re going to talk through what they’re doing and hopefully spark some ideas for you. Raul, thank you so much for joining us today. Why don’t you give us a little bit of background about yourself and your role at Ambiente?

Raul Martinez – 00:15:53: Thank you, Brian. Thank you so much for having me. So I’ve been with Ambiente now for the past couple of years. It’s a brand new property. We opened in February of 2023. It’s a luxury property in Sedona, Arizona. And I’ve been here from the start. A little bit of background on myself. I’ve been in the hospitality industry now for about 12 years, mainly in the Sedona area. So I’ve seen everything from front desk operations and then reservations as well. I’ve been a reservation sales agent myself. So I’ve seen that whole side. And then I have also worked my way up into revenue management a little bit.

Brent Sanders – 00:16:25: Nice. And then what has been your experience with and without Revinate?

Raul Martinez – 00:16:30: Absolutely. So we’ve had Revinate the entire time we’ve been open as a brand new property. So speaking from prior experience at other properties, it’s great to have a tool like Revinate to be able to keep a very well-organized database of potential leads and potential bookings that you’re missing out on. As a reservations agent myself. In prior years, you don’t really realize when you get a phone call and you go through everything and they don’t look without having that kind of management software tool. You don’t really realize how much you’re missing out on, and you don’t really have any way to go back and talk to those guys and stay engaged with them. So it’s great having that resource. It really helps a lot with keeping things organized.

Brent Sanders – 00:17:14: Excellent. Thank you for sharing that. And then one of the unique things about what your property does is incentivize an outbound revenue. Can you talk me through that a little bit?

Raul Martinez – 00:17:23: Yes, absolutely. So when we started, we want to incentivize our sales agents on every call that they got. Every call that came through, we give them a percentage of that sale. Of course, every sales agent is going to get. What we didn’t realize is that these outbound calls, they take a little bit more commitment. They take a little bit more time on the sales agent’s part, right? So when you have downtime, you can be using that downtime to be optimal and to reach out to guests that you maybe weren’t. You weren’t able to book the first time. Maybe they needed to speak it over with someone. And instead of letting that go and just not picking up the phone and calling them back, we’ve pushed them a little bit by giving them a little bit more of a percentage incentive than their normal inbound strategy. So that really just helps to push the sales agent. Of course, like Brent said earlier, it’s all about the money. So that trickles down to our team members as well. They have their own goals and aspirations. And they have their families that they have. They have to take care of. So when we incentivize them a little bit more, it helps them to feel as though they can take that step and really utilize their time to reach back out to these potential leads.

Brent Sanders – 00:18:33: That is awesome. Thank you for sharing that with me about the outbound strategy as far as the incentivize. Now, you have other strategies in place as far as outbound revenue. Let’s take a look at some of those examples. This slide shows your cart of abandonment campaign. So when guests leave your booking engine before completing the booking process, you have an email sent to them to follow up in one minute. And then you have another email sent up to them after two days. How has this been performing for you?

Raul Martinez – 00:19:00: That’s a great question, Brian. So we really like to take advantage of these campaigns because every guest is a potential lead. Whether they were on our website for five minutes or for 10, 15 minutes, they went onto our website for a reason. There was something that drove them to check us out, whether it’s just because they want to be in the area or whether it was our property specifically that they were interested in. Every lead is a serious and potential lead. So having these campaigns in place. So another reminder. A reminder to our guests that, “Hey, we’re here for you. We’d like to take the time to talk to you about your expectations and what it is you’re looking for.” And it’s a great opportunity for our agents to reach out and build a rapport with the guests, build a relationship with them. And I really like these campaigns. I feel like they’re just there to help us.

Brent Sanders – 00:19:49: Nice. And then you have a couple other campaigns set up. We’ll take a look at those. Here’s the one that you have, which is warm lead follow-up,, which is scheduled to go out three days after a warm lead. Walk me through this campaign, if you will.

Raul Martinez – 00:20:01: Yeah. So the warm lead follow-up, that one is going to be anytime one of our reservation sales agents is on the phone with a guest, and they are talking them through the experience and training to get them to book into the property. They kind of get a feel for how serious this lead is. Is this something that the guest is trying to get done right away? Do they need a little bit more time? Is it something that it’s kind of six, seven months in the future and it’s all that prioritized right now by the guest? And so they kind of take the time to feel those things out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they’ll feel that this is a very warm lead. This is a very hot lead. It’s got a lot of potential. They’ll go ahead and market as such. And then this will go out just a few days later just to kind of keep the guests engaged and keep us engaged with the guests.

Brent Sanders – 00:20:45: Okay. And then the last strategy you have going on right now is the cold lead follow up campaign. Again, can you kind of walk me through this, see how this works for you all?

Raul Martinez – 00:20:55: Sure. Yeah. So the main difference here with the cold lead and the warm lead — so as I was saying before, sometimes you can just get a real good sense that, “Hey, this phone call, I need to close the deal soon.” Or, “This guest, you know, I may not lose the potential booking. But there are times where guests are calling way in advance. They’re still sorting through things. They’re trying to figure out their travel plans, their airline fares, all that.” And so this is when we kind of know that there’s a little bit more time and we can prioritize some of the warmer leads and leave these cold leads to be a few days later or a little bit later for sales agents to reach out. They don’t have to be in such a rush to reach out to the guests.

Brent Sanders – 00:21:34: That’s awesome. Well, again, Raul, thank you for joining us today. We are so excited to see the success Ambiente Sedona has been having and look forward to much more success.

Raul Martinez – 00:21:44: Same here, Brian. Thank you so much for having me.

Brent Sanders – 00:21:46: Absolutely. That concludes our webinar for today. If you’re looking for more resources on our voice channel or hotel strategies in general, our resource library is a great place to check out for inspiration.

Brian Stinemetz – 00:21:59: Thank you.

Raul Martinez – 00:22:00: Thanks, Brian.

Intro/Outro – 00:22:05: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Hotel Moment by Revinate. Our community of hoteliers is growing every week, and each guest we speak to is tackling industry challenges with the innovation and flexibility that our industry demands. If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. And if you’re listening on YouTube, please like the video and subscribe for more content. For more information, head to Revinate.com forward slash hotel moment podcast. Until next time, keep innovating.