May 31 |
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The Personal Touch
Source: Hospitality Technology Magazine
Customer Relationship Management Tools Help Every Guest Feel Like the Queen of England
The Queen of England makes specific demands of the hotels where she stays. One request she had when staying at the Fairmount Waterfront in Vancouver and the Royal York in Toronto last October during her visit to Canada, was maintaining contact with home news and news overseas.
While in the past, hotels may have sent someone scurrying to the closest international newsstand, now they have a faster and easier option. With NewspaperDirect (www.newspaperdirect.com) NDprintstation software the Fairmont and Royal York hotels could offer its royal patron freshly released copies of newspapers from New Zealand, London and India. Hotel employees were able to print out the news on 11-by-17 inch paper, staple it, and then hand it to the Queen five minutes after the request.
Ronald Hoogerbrugge, director of rooms for the Intercontinental The Barclay New York, says the ND system is installed in its business center, check-in (via both the front desk and guest relations) and as an extra amenity for VIP clientele in its Six Continents Club.
Not only does the service enhance the guests' experience, it's also extremely useful, Hoogerbrugge says. "The big advantage with the service is customers receive today's news, not an old edition of their usual newspaper as you so often find on the newsstands," he explains. "International guests especially are delighted that they can stay in touch with news from home."
A custom printed newspaper is just one of several new customer-relationship management (CRM) technologies that allow hotels to cater to the exact wants and needs of guests—making every guest feel like the Queen of England. More and more, hotels are seeking ways to create a customized and unique experience for their guests and increasingly powerful CRM applications are paving the way.
Debbi Gardiner
Contributing Editor
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