What technology is used to increase direct sales? Part 1.

Ok yes, we are clear that marketing is the “ Set of principles and practices that seek to increase trade, especially demand ” (yes, I have copied it from the description made by the RAE).

I remind you that in this blog we don't want to use terms and explanations that will drive you crazy, so we try to explain it in a way that everyone can understand:

To summarize very briefly, we can say that we have two types:

- Marketing to increase direct sales

- and marketing to make our business known both digitally and in other media

I remind you that as we discussed in the post "Habernos llamado" (We have called ), direct sales are sales made from the hotel's own website and therefore no commissions are paid to intermediaries and therefore the benefits are usually higher (although it also has its risks... (We will discuss this topic in other posts on the HotelSAAS Blog)

To increase or encourage direct sales from our own website, there are various technologies specialized in this goal. (Listed in alphabetical order so we don't miss any.)

- Direct channel benchmark: The Direct Channel Benchmark is a platform that provides real-time data on direct bookings for both our hotel and the competitors we want to "spy on." It provides information on the entire sales process and even recommends actions aimed at increasing our hotel's direct sales.

- Business Intelligence for marketing: Like the rest of BI, business intelligence provides us with a wealth of data for marketing. Once analyzed, it can provide a wealth of highly relevant information for our business. In this case, this technology is recommended for all types of marketing, as it can help us better understand our target audiences, improve content, better channels, and more convenient publishing times. However, we recommend it for hotel chains that have the resources to analyze the data. Data is of no use if we can't analyze it and implement a strategy.

- Call Center: Yes. Indeed, it is a great incentive for direct sales, as it is a call center where agents receive calls requesting information about our hotel or hotel chain, seeking assistance, and thus interact with both current and potential guests , thus increasing the chances of closing the sale. In the case of the hotel or lodging segment, a call center is recommended for hotel chains with a high call flow. The main objectives of a call center are increasing direct sales and increasing guest or potential guest satisfaction.

- Chatbot: A chatbot is the "little robot" that appears on websites (of all kinds) that usually asks us, "Can I help you with anything?" and the "guy" answers immediately. That is, it is a virtual assistant that helps the user resolve doubts, obtain more information about the product they are looking for... and always immediately. (I imagine you have realized that due to online sales and fundamentally because of the speed with which some pages like Amazon act, for example, we want everything immediately.)

Continuing with the Chatbot, I'd like to tell you that, as it's software based on artificial intelligence, it almost perfectly detects guest questions or needs, almost always providing an immediate response. In most cases, chatbots detect multiple languages and therefore address the user in the same language. The main objectives of this type of technology are to increase guest satisfaction, save staff time, and, of course, increase direct sales. Yes, you guessed it. Recommended for all types of hotels with online sales or a website (regardless of whether they want to increase direct sales or not).

CRM. ( It should be forbidden to have a business without a good CRM.) What is CRM? It stands for Customer Relationship Management, that is, a software where we accumulate all the information regarding our potential, actual, or even prospecting customers, regardless of the type of business we have. The objective: to get to know our customers, save all the information from communications with that potential customer, and offer them what they need.

There are two types of CRM:

B2C CRM: that is, Business-to-Customer CRM. This is the CRM used by companies with an end customer (the customer as a person, not as a business). In the case of hotels and other types of accommodation, it helps us tremendously to obtain customer data such as where the customer is from, their age, gender, when they've stayed at our hotel, which hotel in the chain, how much they spent on their stay, how many times they've stayed... In other words, a wealth of data that's invaluable both for getting to know them better and for creating highly granular email marketing campaigns targeted at that particular guest, giving us the opportunity to offer them what we already know they like and therefore increase the establishment's direct sales.

B2B CRM : that is, Business-to-Business CRM. (I'm constantly reminded of my friend Marina who says she goes crazy with abbreviations and strange names :-)) It's the CRM that a business has and in which it stores data from other businesses. A company that sells services to other companies and in which all the data about the relationship with that business is recorded (company data, employee data, whether we've already "attacked" them, whether they've purchased our products or services, how much we charge them...). In other words, a ton of data that, just like in B2C, helps us get to know them better and therefore offer them the product that best suits their needs. (YES, okay, I know... this CRM isn't intended for direct sales, but I wasn't going to leave you hanging and remember the saying "knowledge takes up no space".

As you know, I don't like long posts, so we'll leave it here for today. Next week, we'll talk about web design, loyalty programs, email marketing campaigns, booking engines, price comparison widgets, price match widgets, and call me widgets.

See you in the next post?

I remind you that at HotelSAAS we can help you choose the best product and provider based on your hotel type, needs, strategies, ecosystem, digital expertise, budget ... Don't hesitate to call us and we'll advise you free of charge.