Hoteliers, find out who your real guest are! part 2

What if segmentation was simple again?

What do you mean, if it was simple again?

When did it get complicated?

Well, fellow hoteliers, the subject of segmentation became complex when we wanted to build loyalty !

Yes, in 1970 it was simple. You needed a clean, well-located hotel, good staff and boom! Your customers came back for every trip of the same type to your hotel.

But like everything else, the race to consume did us a disservice on this one.

Clean hotels? They’re everywhere.

Well-placed hotels? They’re a dime a dozen.

Good staff? It’s always a challenge, but the true hotelier knows exactly how to go about it.

So how do you keep a customer coming back? It’s this very question that has given rise to all the new professions now revolving around the hotel industry. And this is precisely the core business of CRM software.

This article is written by Experience! We know a thing or two about CRM, don’t we 😉

Do you know how Experience CRM started?

It was 2014. A few former employees of a hotel web agency got together to survey the Parisian hoteliers they knew well. And the same thing kept coming up:

How do you get a customer to come back? And come back directly! (Because a guest who comes to you ten times via Booking.com is like 10 different guests… and that’s expensive!)

After intensive brainstorming, we came up with a simple truth: if the service is personalised to the customer, then they’ll never leave you!

And a new concept was born: hotel CRM.

In 2014, contacting a guest before they checked in to find out what they wanted was already revolutionary. This alone made it possible to personalise their stay and show them off!

And we were already seeing a much higher level of guest loyalty in hotels equipped with Experience.

Then, of course, there was the urge to take things to the next level! Faced with thousands of new bookings to analyse, some obvious questions arose:

• Who is this guest?
  A man, a woman, what age group, what nationality…

• Why do they come?
  Business, family holidays, solo holidays, tourism…

• What are their expectations ?
  Peace and quiet, activities, staff present or more discreet…

• What do they need ?
  Early check-in, concierge service, room service…

• What rate will attract them?
  Very attractive rates but sometimes more demanding expectations; premium or luxury positioning with an irreproachable level of service; a highly competitive environment in a region where the hotel offer is particularly dense…

And now… segmentation has become an “ugly word”!

There were so many specific features that it was impossible to create categories. Each guest had its own category and with all these new subtleties, knowing how to ‘market’ each customer became a real headache.

Just goes to show that “happy ignorant people” isn’t just an empty phrase!

In recent years, the hotel industry has been overwhelmed by segmentation categories.

And all for what? To see the OTAs do the same and grab your market share.

But what then? Should we take a step back and stop categorising guests?

It’s an option if your hotel is a hyper-select jewel that has no more marketing to do to fill up. But for the rest of us, it’s unthinkable. Constant, targeted marketing communication has become the sinews of war!

The OTA platforms send 1 to 5 emails a week to YOUR customers. Who do you think they’ll think of when the time comes to book? Hint: not you!

But don’t panic! The cavalry has arrived and you’re just one step away from enjoying it.

The real solution is not to abandon segmentation, but to tame it! The Americans use the verb ” harness “: the idea is to “harness a crazy horse” until it understands who’s in charge.

So ladies and gentlemen, put on your spurs, the rodeo starts TODAY!

What we need is hyper-segmentation.

Gone are the days when customers were filed away in a single box, at the bottom of an Excel file listing your corporate guests! From now on, they’ll be in ALL the categories that correspond to them.

Example: Mr Dupont, aged 45, arrives at the 4-star hotel near the beach in Deauville. He is attending a seminar organised by his company and is staying an extra two days to spend the weekend with his wife, whom he brought along once he had fulfilled his obligations.

Category 1: Men aged between 40 and 60

Category 2: Couple

Category 3: Business

So here are the marketing campaigns he should receive →

• Mailings (4 to 6 a year) suggesting activities for adults depending on the season. A relevant offer, since he obviously liked Deauville so much that he stayed on after his business trip!
  
• An automatically personalised birthday email . Who doesn’t like to be remembered?
  
• Mailings for special offers for couples: Valentine’s Day, renovation of the presidential suite, the hotel’s romantic restaurant menu , etc.
  
• Business campaign emails offering discounts for business trips, presenting the hotel conference room or listing corporate activities in the region.
  
• And finally, your standard loyalty program campaign with a loyalty code to encourage your guests to return. You can configure it so that customers receive 1 email after one week, 1 month, 3 months and then 6 months. That’s 4 emails in a year.

And that’s a customer who will receive regular communications targeted to his interests, far more personal than any campaign sent out by an OTA.

You have a hyper-segmented customer, which means you can meet all their expectations. It’s the ultimate care.

And that’s just one example of how ultra-precise segmentation (rather than broad, general segmentation) can help you on a daily basis.

But who has the time to do that?

That’s the magic of the story! This is the job of your hotel CRM. It will enable you to segment your customers as precisely as possible so that they are included in all your loyalty-building initiatives.

Like all advances in the hotel industry, the aim is to relieve you of management time so that you can concentrate on your real job: the personal touch and the warmth of a genuine human welcome. As you know better than anyone, there’s no substitute for the soul you breathe into your hotel. It’s the X factor that no software can ever replace.

At Experience, our sole aim is to take the rest off your hands, so that you can concentrate solely on that.

So take the time! Take the time to be with your customers and let your CRM build loyalty thanks to precise segmentation!

The world in 2026 is all about personalisation, and that’s just as well!

See you soon!