How to build long-term relationships between hotels and guests

The long-term relationship between a hotel and its customers is the core concept of relationship marketing. Short-term sales (transaction marketing) can sometimes make companies profitable, but generally speaking, companies pursue long-term profits. The main purpose of marketing efforts is to maintain and develop long-term relationships between companies and customers. In the current fiercely competitive market environment, if companies want to maintain long-term profitability, the relationship between buyers and sellers should not be a relationship between warring parties, but a long-term cooperative relationship. Relationship marketing refers to the activities of identifying, establishing, maintaining and consolidating enterprises and customers and other stakeholders. It enables the goals of all parties involved in the activity to be achieved in marketing activities through the efforts of the enterprise, through mutually beneficial exchanges and the fulfillment of commitments. Customers are the most valuable assets of an enterprise. Any enterprise should establish a mutually beneficial partnership with customers on an equal basis, maintain close contact with customers, listen carefully to their various suggestions, care about their destiny, and understand their existence. problems and opportunities faced by customers, by increasing the product value, service value, personnel value and image value obtained by customers during purchase and consumption, and reducing customers' monetary cost, time cost, energy cost and physical cost, thereby achieving greater success. Satisfy customers' value needs, allow customers to get more enjoyment and satisfaction from purchasing and consumption, and make customers loyal to the company. Only in this way can the company gain a lasting competitive advantage. So, how does a hotel carry out relationship marketing and establish a long-term relationship between the hotel and its customers? We specifically give the following five suggestions: 1. Strengthen personal contact. Personal contact refers to enhancing friendship and strengthening the relationship between enterprises and customers through close communication between marketers and customers. For example, invite the client's manager to participate in various entertainment activities; remember the birthdays of major customers, their wives, and children, and send flowers or gifts to congratulate them on their birthdays; use their social relationships to help customers solve problems, etc. The disadvantage of developing relationship marketing through personal contacts is that it easily causes hotels to be overly dependent on marketers who have been in contact with customers for a long time, making management more difficult. Therefore, when using this strategy, attention should be paid to establishing hotel connections on top of personal connections in a timely manner, enhancing the intimacy between customers and hotels through long-term personal connections, and ultimately establishing a strategic partnership between customers and hotels. 2. Loyal customer reward plan Loyal customer reward plan refers to a plan designed to provide rewards to customers who purchase frequently or in large quantities. Rewards come in the form of discounts, free goods, price concessions, free consumption, etc. Hotels were one of the earlier industries to implement loyalty reward programs. For example, InterContinental Hotel has been running a points program for more than 10 years and has teamed up with more than 30 national airlines. Once guests become members of its "Preferred Club", they can obtain hotel points or airline mileage points and receive corresponding rewards. . The shortcomings of the loyal customer reward program are: first, it is easy for competitors to imitate. Loyal customer reward programs only have a first-mover advantage, and if most competitors follow suit, it will become a burden for all implementers. Second, customers are easy to transfer. Because they are simply attracted by price discounts, customers are easily influenced by similar promotions from competitors and divert their purchases. Third, service levels may be reduced. Therefore, rewards programs can win back some customer loyalty, but they cannot actually create loyal customers. 3. Establish a customer club and attract customers who purchase a certain number of products or pay membership fees to become members. Since customer clubs are relatively rare in China, invited customers often feel satisfied with their reputation and status, so they are very attractive. Moreover, the customer club creates a sense of belonging by gathering customers with similar life background, status, and cultural accomplishment into a specific circle, which makes it different from reward programs that only attract customers with price discounts, thus It can also cultivate customers' sense of loyalty. At the same time, customer clubs often have detailed information about their members, which makes it possible for hotels to provide customized products and services to club members. For example, the Six Continents Club at the InterContinental Hotel knows exactly which guests spend more, dine in cozy restaurants instead of coffee shops, stay in suites, use doormen, laundry and valet services, and more. Target guests are invited to arrive at the hotel a night early, or are encouraged to stay and take advantage of the weekend family package. We also provide other customized services such as giving birthday cards or waiving check-in procedures.

4. Establish a customer database to meet the personalized needs of customers. The customer database refers to various data related to customers. With the help of customer database, hotels are expected to provide personalized products and services that suit customer needs based on each customer's special situation, thereby achieving true one-to-one marketing. In management practice, hotels should make full use of the achievements of modern information technology to establish a complete database file for each customer. Through the customer's personal file, the customer's consumption preferences, taboos, purchasing behavior, hotel behavior and other characteristics are recorded. . In this way, when guests return again, the hotel can provide more targeted and personalized services, thereby further strengthening customer satisfaction and loyalty. Marriott Hotel attaches great importance to the management of its customer database. Its operators believe that understanding guests is the blood that maintains the life of the hotel. Through the computer system, the hotel's front desk staff knows when the guest checks in: whether he needs an iron in the room; whether she needs a non-smoking room on the first floor. The Ritz Hotel Group has established nearly 1 million customer personal files. When a guest stays at any member hotel of the group again, the hotel can quickly retrieve his information from the information center to provide the services the guest needs. . You can imagine how happy a guest will be when he walks into a room that is decorated exactly according to his own special needs. 5. Set up a free service hotline to provide a smooth way for the hotel to listen to the voices of customers. To provide customers with satisfactory products and services, the hotel must listen to the voices of customers and understand what problems and aspects customers encounter during their consumption in the hotel. Satisfy customers, what aspects make them dissatisfied, and what unmet needs do customers have? In this way, hotels can take necessary measures to improve their products and services, thereby improving consumer satisfaction and realizing customer benefits. Setting up a toll-free customer service hotline is a great way to listen to your customers. At present, in our country, many hotels have also set up toll-free customer service hotlines, but often no one answers the calls made by customers, or no one handles customer complaints at all, and the suggestions made by customers are not given due consideration by hotel management personnel. These have greatly hindered timely communication between customers and hotels. Moreover, a large part of the customers who are willing to call the hotel are loyal customers of the hotel. If the hotel does not pay attention to their ideas, it will cause the loss of these loyal customers. According to the theory of American marketing scholars Reichhead and Souther, if a company reduces the loss rate of its loyal customers by 5%, its profits can increase by 25% to 85%. At this stage when hotel competition is very fierce, it is of great practical significance for hotel management personnel to do a good job in relationship marketing and cultivate loyal customers for the development of the hotel.