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January 18th, 2012NOPA!
Bill Schlosser
Vice President – Marketing
Last Minute Holiday Bookings…
December 29th, 2011It never fails, a steady flow of last minute callers wanting to secure a reservation the week before a busy holiday weekend. It would seem appropriate to liken these callers to fish in a barrel. However, after listening to reservation calls I find this often isn’t the case. These vacationers are savvy shoppers who are quickly comparing all their options before booking that last-minute stay. I would recommend you ask the following of your teams’ process for handling these calls:
1. Did we determine the one BIG expectation they have for this vacation?
- Hot tub
- Deck
- BBQ
- Proximity to the beach/ski hill
- Family friendly activities
If you didn’t get the one BIG expectation, you are setting yourself up to compete on price alone. I would rather sell on value and that one BIG expectation that’s going to make their vacation unforgettable and more enjoyable.
2. Did we set the expectation to follow-up with them as a value added – concierge level – service?
These guests may not book on the first call. Differentiate yourself by offering the value-added service of a follow-up call. “Since this is last minute, I would be more than happy to give you a quick call this afternoon and help check one more item off your to-do-list.”
Here’s to capturing more of those last minute bookings.
Brise Carpenter
Client Advocate
Is Your Reservations Manager Coaching Effectively or Costing You Money?
November 29th, 2011It’s funny really. So often when we observe a reservations agent struggling, we assume the agent is ineffective or “just not getting it.” In reality, it’s just as likely that their manager is an ineffective coach. We’ve all seen it before. Just because someone was good at sales doesn’t mean they’ll be a successful coach, or vice versa.
With that in mind, I have two considerations to aid in effective coaching:
- Highlight your top performers and use them for peer-to-peer coaching or role playing. This method tends to be successful because the advice is coming from their peers – not just the boss. If you don’t have a top performer, go outside the building and find a credible third party.
- Limit your coaching session to 2 areas to work on. Overloading people with change is a sure fire way to paralyze them. Focus on the 2 most important areas that you want to see change and understand that great sales skills/habits don’t happen overnight.
Here’s to a great reservations season.
Brise Carpenter
Client Advocate
A New Category Is Born
October 26th, 2011Today is a special day at NAVIS – sort of a birthday. For quite awhile, NAVIS has struggled with the fact that no category sufficiently defined what we do. We are sometimes referred to as a software company, but that’s only partially accurate. Sometimes we’re a call center company, which is certainly true for part of our business but not all. I’ve heard marketing tracking company, which is only a piece of what Narrowcast does. And there are probably a dozen others – CRM, ACD, lead management, etc.
We got so tired of searching for the right category that we have decided to create a new one. So after a lot of discussion, we came up with:
Reservation Sales System
It’s simple, concise and accurate. Everything we do, whether it’s NAVIS Narrowcast or RezForce is designed to increase reservation sales. It’s easy to understand and easy to remember.
So…help us spread the word. When you are asked, “What does NAVIS do?”, you can now reply that NAVIS makes an amazing Reservation Sales System. I threw in the “amazing” part ‘cause I’m a marketing guy. It’s what I do.
Bill Schlosser
Vice President – Marketing
NAVIS Leaders Conference Brought Together The Best of The Best In Hospitality
September 19th, 2011I don’t often like to toot our horn in this blog, but I have to give a big shout out to the entire NAVIS team and the many hospitality leaders in attendance for helping to produce such a fabulous Conference last week. Nearly 60 people from 16 states, representing more than 15 thousand rental properties attended our Leaders Conference here in Bend. They were treated to 25 sessions in 6 different tracks over the 2 days of the Conference – all of which was designed to help them be more successful.
I was reviewing the surveys this morning, and they are overwhelmingly positive. Many thanks to all who helped to make it a success.
Now…it’s on to planning for our next Leaders Conference to be held at the Reunion Resort, Orlando, Jan 30-31, 2012.
See you there.
Bill Schlosser
Vice President – Marketing
Silence On Vacation Rental Reservation Calls: A Double-Edged Sword
August 25th, 2011Silence may be golden in some situations. Phone sales, however, is not traditionally considered one of those. Certainly silence is powerful over the phone but only when used with intent and precision.
Let’s first explore some pitfalls of silence, to better understand its appropriate use. We’ve all been on the phone with someone who goes silent as they type away, in search of the answer to our question. This silence tends to carry nervous energy and in turn can hinder your opportunity to secure a reservation. Too much silence on a call can make us uneasy because there’s no non-verbal communication over the phone, therefore making it difficult to read the situation. Furthermore, long pauses and silence seem to almost encourage objections and doubt on the calls I listen to. If—as a guest—I feel that you don’t have a firm grasp on your properties or my needs, you are likely to hear “Well, I need to talk this over with my wife.”
The correct and proper use of silence comes after a question is posed; particularly after an agent asks for the reservation. Silence used in this scenario gives the potential guest the opportunity to say “yes.” There is, however, a caveat to this technique. Know that if the agent has not successfully sold the experience that the guest desires, they are likely to receive a “no” in response to their silence. As with any sales technique, setup and delivery are crucial.
Here’s to your success.
Brise Carpenter
Client Advocate
SEO Trumps PPC
August 15th, 2011I realize a lot of attention is being paid to PPC and rightly so. You need to stay on top of it to make sure your hard-earned marketing dollars are being spent on ads that bring in the revenue.
But given that paid links account for about 25% of clicks and organic links for the other 75%, it makes sense that you should focus even greater attention to your SEO.
One of the best things you can do is make sure you are using your primary keywords in the text of your home page and your secondary pages. Don’t overdo it. Just write your copy in such a way that the words are used at least three times.
No need to worry about the keyword meta tags since Google ignores them. But you should make sure to use your primary keywords in your title and description tags.
Lastly, develop rich content that includes photos and videos since Google ranks those sites higher.
Above all, stay on your SEO. Change your copy frequently, measure the results and try again. It will pay off big time.
Bill Schlosser
Vice President – Marketing
Ignoring Not Booked Is Not Right
July 22nd, 2011Most of our resort lodging clients start out with an inbound reservation conversion rate of about 25%. As they engage the technologies and processes of The NAVIS Way, that conversion climbs rapidly. It’s not unusual to see it hit 50% and higher, which is certainly an achievement to celebrate.
But wait, that means the “not-booked” represents 50% to 75% of the inbound calls. If you’re looking at roughly 10,000 bookable calls a year, that’s 5,000 to 7,500 not booked calls. What are you doing with those? Unfortunately, way too many lodging providers ignore them and go buy a list from somewhere else when they want to do some direct marketing. When you have a large group of qualified potential guests who have taken the time to contact you, why would you use a list of unknown names?
If you could convert just 5% of those not-booked leads through direct marketing, you’re looking at roughly $600K in additional revenue (assuming $1,600 stay value). Add an outbound sales strategy and you’ll convert even more.
Don’t forget about those not booked calls.
Bill Schlosser
Vice President – Marketing
The Lodging Revenue Game of Poker
July 22nd, 2011Usually you wouldn’t think “poker” in relation to your reservation team, however, there are many parallels that can be drawn between the two. Here’s the executive summary:
- “I’m all in”. A scary but frequent approach I notice reservation agents using. Basically, this can be defined as immediately fading on rate, or offering that 10% discount within the first 2 minutes of the call. Agents often fall back on this technique when they don’t understand the real value added of your property(s). If your agents are doing this it’s highly likely that they will run into price related objections and guess what? Now they have no wiggle room on rate. What mindset do you want agents setting right off the bat?
- “Reading their tells”. Your agents need to quickly identify what’s important to the guest. Not to be confused with what YOU think is important to the guest. Sell the experience.
- “Hold your cards”. Don’t lay all your cards on the table or feature flood. The guest doesn’t need to know every little detail about the garbage disposal and locking doors. In fact, feature flooding confuses the guest and delays the buying decision. Share only what relates to what’s important to the guest.
It’s your bet.
Brise Carpenter
Client Advocate
The Hidden Cost of Pursuing Higher Occupancy
July 5th, 2011Understanding how to gain and maintain consistent occupancy throughout the year is always a hot topic. It doesn’t really matter if I am speaking with the director of revenue for a 5 diamond hotel or the owner of a vacation rental management company – occupancy always comes up.
On a recent new client visit I observed something that has occurred at many different locations and property types:
Agent: Hello Mr. Smith how may I help you?
Mr. Smith: I’d like to make a reservation for a one bedroom unit.
Agent: Perfect, well I do have several available and I’m running a special so I can give you a 15% discount on that reservation.
Wait wait wait, do I need to have my hearing checked? Are agents leading with a discount? You bet, and not just every once in a while but on almost every call. Why? Their manager has placed all the focus on occupancy. They were even incented on occupancy.
So, why would it be scary to incent your agent on occupancy and give them the power to offer discounts? Anyone? Occupancy incentives can work but only in correlation with revenue and conversion goals for your team. It’s putting the cart before the horse by asking them to focus on occupancy instead of asking them to focus on the skills and behaviors that will help them convert more calls and raise occupancy. Focusing on occupancy is not inherently bad. However, what I find is that it almost always leads to fading on rate.
My advice: be smart about how you get to an acceptable level of occupancy. When tempted to fade on rate just remember, the choice to discount your rate today affects perceived value for 5 years on average. Basically, you’re going to have a difficult time ever convincing them to pay more. You’ve effectively reduced your product to a price-based commodity.
So, instead of fading on rate try value-add or packaging. In other words, give them something with a high perceived value that doesn’t reduce perceived value of your product. They get a free fishing trip or Swedish massage or round of golf. Use the relationships you have with other businesses. If I’m sending you a client Mr. Fishing Charter, will you sell me the trip at half price? Even giving something like the 6th night free is better than fading on rate because the perception is different. It’s a special and can actually add value since the consumer knows how much rack rate is and it hasn’t been diluted.
Let me know how this works for you.
Brise Carpenter
Client Advocate
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