The Importance of Client Success and Satisfaction: Optimising Your Hotel Tech

Do you have the right level of support you need to optimise your direct booking strategy?

Underestimating the importance of client satisfaction can be detrimental to a business’s success. Happy clients make your journey together a more positive, seamless experience, and they even pave the way for future leads.

Achieving client satisfaction is key to maintaining a successful business model - but how, exactly, can you ensure you’re maximising your opportunities to create strong, robust relationships?

At Profitroom, client satisfaction and success in the hotel tech industry is something we’re keen to highlight as we edge further into 2021. We have over 40 people offering pro-active support to our clients around the world, and in this article, we introduce two of our Customer Success Managers; Bernard and Karolina

The Importance of Client Satisfaction: Helping Our Clients Achieve Their Goals

Karolina and Bernard, two of our experienced client success managers, have made their mark on the hospitality industry by helping their clients achieve their goals. By proactively monitoring client success and business performance, they’re able to make recommendations and share best practices.

Combining his expertise as Client Success and Business Development Manager at Profitroom, Bernard’s primary goal is to look after our entire UK portfolio (making up 95% of his total portfolio) from an account management perspective, in addition to hotel clients from markets including South Africa, Turkey, and Cape Verde. 

Currently living in London with his family, and having resided there since graduating from University, Bernard’s most recent experience saw him work as Global Key Account and Partnerships Manager for Voyage Prive. Having gained experience in managing a global portfolio of hotel accounts, whilst also overseeing commercial strategies with major chain partners, such as Hilton and IHG, Bernard hosts a wealth of knowledge and expertise in the hospitality sector.

When he joined our team last year, Bernard took his first steps into the hotel tech world. Despite joining in the midst of a pandemic, he was able to develop his knowledge whilst working from home, and finally managed to visit our offices in October. 

Measuring Client Success: Conversion Rates, Booking Engine Optimisation and Assessing Client Revenue

Using his vast expertise in client success, on a typical day, Bernard tends to spend much of his time on update calls with clients, whilst constantly monitoring his clients’ performance. He can most typically be found looking at clients’ revenue in-depth, whilst measuring their conversion rates, exploring opportunities for better booking engine optimisation and looking at price comparisons with OTAs, with the ultimate goal of driving direct bookings.

On the flip side of the coin, Bernard’s day-to-day also involves promoting additional marketing services. He’ll look to inform clients about the benefits of meta search campaigns and any relevant digital marketing campaigns, with a current focus on encouraging hotels to activate metasearch. As a team, this allows us to share their success, in turn generating commission (only in cases where goals are met).

When asked what he most enjoys most about being part of the Profitroom team, Bernard said:

The thing I like is the autonomy, the influence we have on the wider business and the ability to actively help hotels to drive more revenue and improve their direct booking strategies. You have to be passionate about supporting hotels; so for me, it’s a great fit. I have a lot of passion for helping hotels, which I have held in each of my previous roles. That’s what we’re here to do, and we do it well.

In talking about the future of his contribution to hotel tech, Bernard said:

Over the next few months, from a job perspective, it will be nice to see my colleagues, and see our clients face-to-face. Having to do a role like this in an entirely remote environment is a bit of an art - so I’ve definitely been looking forward to seeing our clients face-to-face and to have that level of contact that we’ve been missing.

On the other side, Hotels will be reopening and it will give us a completely different dynamic; it’s been a very turbulent time. One of the core values at Profitroom that particularly piqued Bernard’s interest is our sole focus to help hotels to improve their direct booking strategies. 

In conversation about what makes Profitroom different, Bernard said:

All of our products (except the channel manager) are designed to help increase direct bookings. The majority of our key competitors don’t have that; it’s part of what they do, and this is the thing that differentiates us from our competitors. Our tech is there to help hotels increase their direct bookings.

When asked to describe Profitroom in just three words, Bernard said:

Innovative, ambitious and results-driven - words that are most certainly part of our core brand values

Having started her career in customer success in Poland, Karolina, our second client success manager, has always been focused on offering revenue support and driving positive results for her clients.

Karolina’s enthusiasm and thirst for learning saw her continue her career in the connectivity department, which served to further develop her knowledge in readiness to provide support at an international level.

In 2007, Karolina joined the hospitality sector, taking the next step in her career at one of the largest hotels in London (boasting 836 bedrooms!). Here, she gained experience in client-facing roles, specifically within the reservations and meeting & events departments - helping to give her a broad appreciation of hotel functions.

Speaking about her previous roles, Karolina said:

I love people, and all of my roles so far have focused on customer success.

The Importance of Client Satisfaction: Optimising Systems and Achieving Direct Bookings

At Profitroom HQ, Karolina’s typical day involves talking to clients, whilst looking at how she can best optimise their systems. This might include adjusting their settings, offers and website to their main target group. 

With the ultimate goal of helping her clients achieve direct bookings, Karolina often suggests the best marketing activities they can undertake in order to ensure they’re maximising potential, optimising their tech solutions and boosting revenue. She spends much of her time liaising with other departments, too, to ensure that she provides the best feedback possible, whilst enticing other prospective clients.

When asked what she enjoys most about being part of the Profitroom team, Karolina said:

I like meeting different clients and having the possibility to be able to work with different types of properties. I work with clients in lots of different countries - from Greece and Slovenia to Ireland and Zanzibar.

Discussing what she’s most looking forward to, Karolina said:

I would say that I’m looking forward to working with even more countries. We have recently entered South America, and I’m excited to look at new trends and markets there.

Hopefully, we’ll have a normal life soon and we’ll be able to visit the properties and meet clients face-to-face again.

Boosting Client Success: Improving Direct Sales Strategies to Increase Direct Bookings

When speaking about what makes Profitroom different, Karolina said: “We are a developing team, and none of our competitors offer the support that we do. We regularly work with our clients to improve their direct sales strategy and ultimately increase their direct bookings. We’re looking at trends from their area/market, and we can show them different trends/packages and share best practice. 

In terms of tech, what most hotels need is to have a good marketing strategy to help them be more visible on the internet. We can deliver all of this for them - from website support, to providing them with a booking engine, channel manager, guest connect system (CRM), newsletters to support in retargeting their guests, and customer success and marketing services.”

When asked to describe Profitroom in just three words, Karolina said:

Open, friendly and fresh. We’re always open to new suggestions to develop the systems, and are always up to date with the trends.

At Profitroom, we’re dedicated to working closely with our hospitality clients, with the help of our client success managers, to monitor success and business performance for positive results. If you’d like to find out about how we can help you, take a few minutes to browse our website or contact a member of our team.