In the hospitality industry, customer loyalty is a key to success for a hotel of any type. There are several ways to lure and win new customers, but it is important to give importance to loyal guests who always choose your hotel over other brands and speak your name to people they know. They impact your hotel’s growth in a new way and help you have more guests.
To make travelers come back to your hotel, they should be given something extra than your competitors. Even if they aren’t frequent visitors, they must be provided a memorable stay experience so that they prefer your hotel in future. Plus, they can recommend your hotel to their friends who are planning their trip to your city.
To avail all these benefits of pleasing guests through hospitality services, it is important for you to figure out what extra or unique you can offer your guests to turn them into your loyal customers. You can start loyalty program.
A few days ago, I met with an independent hotel’s owner in a wedding. According to him, hotels should stick to basics of hospitality as it is easy for hotel staff to cater all basic needs of the guests. When I asked him about starting loyalty programs, he called them risky and time-consuming. Many may have a hunch about loyalty programs that they aren’t much effective, but they work really well if applied in the right way. Here’re some points on designing loyalty program trends that I shared with the hotelier:
Easy To Avail Reward Programs
Reward program is an effective technique to grab attention of many potential travelers and make them use your hotel’s services. But a reward program with plenty of conditions or a long time to avail advantages can result in lost interest of guests, especially the infrequent travelers. To lure many potential travelers, a hotel’s loyalty program should include reward programs where all types of travelers can take part in.
Short term reward program can be an innovative method to gain attention of those guests who couldn’t make use of previous reward program started by the hotel.
Variety In Accommodation
In addition to rewards and discount in stay services, additional benefits can be offered on other independent hotels in different locations. By joining hands with other independent hotels, guests can be allowed to use their points while booking accommodation in them. For example, an independent hotel in city A can work with an independent hotel in city B to allow its guests to use their rewards while booking accommodation in city B’s independent hotel.
Instant Reward Benefits
A hotel’s loyalty program should be designed in a manner that loyal guests can avail the benefits whenever they want, or as soon as possible. Apart from that, extra benefits can be provided with reward benefits. They could be free drink or off on a dish.
Make Loyalty Program Interesting And Addictive
It doesn’t matter how much time or funds a hotel has been spending on its customer loyalty program, it is considered successful only when many guests are actively engaged in it. The best technique to make guests take part in the loyalty program is by presenting the program as a game. It can be made more interesting by offering bonus points to guests. It will not just motivate guests to participate in your hotel’s loyalty program but can gain attention of more potential guests.
Easy Access To Loyalty Programs
Various kinds of technologies can be used to notify guests about their participation in loyalty programs and rewards. For example, guests can be told about their balance points via email. This method can be combined with other marketing campaigns of your hotel to promote its services.
After a detailed conversation on right way to design customer loyalty programs, the hotelier was convinced with their benefits and showed interest in using such program to promote his hotel.
While applying customer loyalty program trends, make sure they are available online. In today’s digital era, a hotel of any size can compete with big brands when it is making the most of digital marketing.