3 Ways Integrating Your POS With Your CRM Will Transform Your Guest Experience
Improving the guest experience is a key priority for any hotel establishment. Most hoteliers know that happy customers mean more business, so finding new ways to upgrade your guest’s stay is always a rewarding process.
Most hotels employ two key pieces of software to improve the guest experience. First up is a point of sale system (POS), used to process check-in transactions; second is a CRM system, installed to help your team manage interactions with each guest and store their data for any future exchanges.
While a POS and CRM system are often used in tandem with each other to gather data on past and present guests, they actually work best when integrated together in one centralised approach.
With this in mind, let’s have a closer look at some of the ways POS/CRM integration could transform your guest experience.
What is CRM and POS Integration?
Integrating your CRM and POS is the process of connecting your POS hardware and software to your CRM system, allowing you to collect guest insights in one centralised location.
Instead of tracking sales separately using your POS system and then adding the data to your CRM network, integrating both systems together unifies your data collection and provides you with a comprehensive view of your guest purchases, customer behaviour, and any other preferences recorded during a check-in/checkout interaction.
Integrating a hospitality POS system with hotel management software is also a serious game-changer for hotelier efficiency. This synergy between your CRM and POS allows for a streamlined data flow between each system and reduces historical errors when transferring data.
Some of the key benefits associated with POS/CRM integration include:
Real-Time Reporting: Storing all data in one centralised location allows for quick reporting and makes it easier to identify guest booking and behaviour trends.
Personalised Guest Experiences: Integrating your POS and CRM system allows for a personalised check-in experience. With the ability to access customer profiles via your POS, you can acknowledge preferences such as dietary or room requirements before the stay even begins.
Centralised Management: Managing all operations in one centralised platform makes for a more efficient guest experience. Creating one consolidated platform to analyse performance metrics and manage reservations allows you to tweak your services in real time to enhance a guest’s stay.
A Deep Dive Into The Benefits Of POS/CRM Integration For Guest Satisfaction
Now that we’ve mentioned some of the key benefits associated with POS and CRM integration let’s take a deep dive into some of the ways unifying your data collection could transform your guest experience.
Improved Guest Loyalty
With the ability to view detailed insights into guest booking behaviour and any additional purchases all in one system, your hotel staff are able to personalise their guest interactions with ease.
Using the data collected by your POS system during a guest’s stay, your CRM software automatically updates a customer’s profile with their individual preferences and information about the services they regularly use during their stay.
This data can be used to personalise targeted offers and discounts to encourage guests to return in the future.
Better still, an integrated CRM/POS system bolsters loyalty program management. Loyalty points, rewards and offers can be applied seamlessly to a future booking, making it much easier to reward repeat bookers and encourage them to stay again.
Tailored Marketing Efforts
Integrating your CRM and POS systems provides you with a deeper insight into what your ideal guest persona looks like.
With the ability to capture customer data in real time, POS integrations reinforce your CRM system, allowing for on-demand reporting of consumer behaviour and spending trends.
Using this data to your advantage, you can boost your sales and marketing strategy and segment your guest personas based on their booking habits. This enables you to create targeted marketing campaigns tailored to resonate with each group of customers.
Centralised Operations
Last but not least, let’s talk about the benefits of taking a centralised approach to transforming the guest experience.
When you integrate your hotel software, you centralise your customer service. If all departments can access the same customer profiles and real-time analytics, you build a unified guest experience from all touchpoints.
For example, if a guest tells reception during check-in that they are intolerant to gluten, a centralised POS/CRM would seamlessly notify the restaurant department when they open up a customer’s profile.
This ensures that the guest enjoys a smooth stay at your hotel and is delivered a tailored experience based on their personal preferences.
Wrapping Up
From the check-in to the check-out, guests demand a luxury service tailored to their individual needs. In order to provide outstanding customer service, hotel businesses must take their customer relationship management one step further.
Integrating your POS software centralises your data collection and ensures that each and every guest enjoys a personalised experience when visiting your establishment.
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