Business sales tips: David Meerman Scott on buyer personas

Monday, October 17th, 2011

Top business sales tips fromDavid Meerman Scott, bestselling author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. Join him in this show as he talks about why you need to identify your customers. See more business news television shows featuring these experts, as they give their top expert business advice at www.yourbusinesschannel.com David Meerman Scott Sure. So if I were advising small business people, a small business person I would say the first thing and the most important thing before you even try to create any kind of content at all is to step back and understand who are your buyer personas, I call them buyer personas. Who are the people that you are trying to reach and I want to know who they are in detail. So for example if you are running a small hotel I dont want you to create information about your hotel online until you can tell me who the specific buyer personas of the people who are coming to your hotel are. Perhaps theres the independent business person who is trying to make their own decision about what hotel they stay at. Perhaps theres a corporate travel department that books 100 of room nights a year because their corporate headquarters is right near the hotel. Or a young couple planning on getting married might be a third buyer persona and they are looking for a hotel ballroom to have their wedding reception. Another buyer persona might be people who want to have a corporate event in the hotel ballroom. All of those or a family on a vacation is a fifth buyer
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Tips to Improve Sales and Customer Satisfaction for Hospitality Business

Saturday, October 15th, 2011

Tips to Improve Sales and Customer Satisfaction for Hospitality Business

Like all other businesses, hospitality industry is also facing many challenges today.  The challenges to retain the existing customers by keeping them come back and off course, attracting new customers. In a fiercely competitive market, a guest’s experience can affect brand loyalty in both positive and negative way. Obviously, by hiring right people, hospitality businesses can offer superior customer satisfaction. However, providing those people the right technology can create a competitive edge for these businesses. This is why; hospitality industry is also looking to go mobile following the footsteps of other industries. This is the reason why there has been a massive requirement for mobile hospitality and apps such as hotel applications, hotel management application, hotel reservation application, restaurant applications for iPhone, restaurant management application and more.

With secure and reliable mobile applications in mobile devices, staff can easily perform client transactions such as checking hotel guests in, expediting valet parking, placing food orders and much more. It also allows locating equipment or staffing members, communicating with one another and in the process, enhancing the customer experience for stronger brand loyalty. Restaurants, hotels, resorts, travel agencies etc. are now setting up mobile strategies and infrastructure to stay in the competition and grow their business. For this purpose, most of them are searching for custom mobile hospitality app development services to create the right solutions that fit in their specific requirements. One can find numerous mobile development companies specializing in mobile hospitality solutions.  They look to offer great benefits to hospitality businesses by developing apps that integrate Wi-Fi networks with hand held devices, VoIP, RFID, bar code scanning technology etc. They have the team of expert developers, efficient in developing solutions ranging from guest applications to VoIP apps to hotel productivity applications for front desk staff and more.  Many hospitality businesses today are starting with mobile version of their business website to reach a new segment of on-the-go customers. These professional mobile app developers can create best of mobile sites with easy navigation, excellent look and great functionalities. These companies can integrate GPS capabilities into an app also, which allows a customer to find the route to the hotel or restaurant and see street view images of the hotel with mobile booking capabilities and the ability to amend or cancel reservations. They are also capable of developing point-of-sale (POS) systems and mobile customer relationship management (CRM) apps that allows staff to manage sales and access valuable business data anywhere and at any time. Especially for hotels, resorts or restaurant chains, these companies can create apps that allow their users to check out the complete list of all hotels, resorts or restaurants available in their chain. These apps can also let a customer to check out the videos and pictures of the interiors and exteriors with menu details and booking features. If required, they can integrate social networking technology into the app that will allow a customer to share their booking information with their friends on Facebook, Twitter etc. spreading the name of the hotel they have booked.

A certified professional mobile development can deliver the best solutions only. Any hospitality company can increase its sales by custom developing a perfect mobile hospitality solution for them through an experienced and proficient mobile development company.

Ryan Smith www.genxm.com/

A veteran online marketing expert and consultant deeply focused in driving revenues, escalating market exposure, and carefully constructing customer bases for brands and organizations. Has extensive experience in marketing analysis and finding out new avenues of revenue generation.

Are Flash Sales Really Good For Your Hotel Business?

Saturday, September 17th, 2011

Are Flash Sales Really Good For Your Hotel Business?

Article by Deceriz Valmadrid









We’ve all seen websites selling designer stuff for a lot less online. And this sales channel has been very effective in catering to women who love designer goods but do not necessarily have the means to pay for them for full price. And for a few years now, the same concept is also introduced in the travel industry. Flights have been offered for really low fares and the same applies to hotels now too. The question is whether this is good for the industry in general.

Perceived Value Is Getting Lower And Lower

If you just bought a designer bag for the full price at the store and find that the same one is sold online with a thirty percent discount, obviously you’d feel bad about it. But at least you can be sure that what you bought is authentic. This is not exactly the same when you are booking a hotel. If you are able to get it for a lot cheaper online, the hotel room is just going to be the same. For hoteliers, this is a problem. There really is no difference in the value proposition when booking a hotel directly versus booking it from a third party website. Third party websites offer instant guarantee anyway so the customer is assured that their bookings are confirmed. Yes, the hotel benefits from more guests booking rooms due to the reduced rate but over time, this also changes the perceived value of hotels. If all the hotels are offered on discounted rates on a website in a particular area, this cancels out and customers remember the discounted rates to be the standard rates. If in the past you can get bookings for full price for most of the time, you would see a decline when you start offering them on these third party websites. This is because your customers no longer accept that your standard nightly rate is 150 dollars but just 120 dollars because it is discounted anyway the whole year round when booked on a third party website.

High Commission Rates

These third party websites charge a high percentage for commission. It is true that in the short term, you get more guests coming in but you need to look at the long term picture. If these websites will hike up their already high commission rates and you are already heavily dependent on them for bookings, your average room rate will continue to go down.

Since the industry players are becoming even more competitive, don?t get left behind from the newest trends through a hotel management software. Listen to the experts? advice at Frontdesk Anywhere.



About the Author

Deceriz Valmadrid is an independent hotel consultant who advises Frontdesk Anywhere about innovative hotel software. Visit www.frontdeskanywhere.com to learn more.

For seo writing services, you may reach Deceriz at dvalmadrid@thinkbpo.net