Most of my clients asked me this question before, “What differentiates a good event management platform from an average one?”. Then I told them about data management. If you have an one-off event and decide that you will never have another similar event in the future, then you need not read further. However, if you are keen on event marketing and want to leverage events for generating business, you must not miss this article. An event management platform with integrated CRM will be key to your success. CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management. A CRM software, therefore, helps you manage relationships and interactions with your current and future customers. In most cases, your event attendees are your potential customers. Hence, it’s vital to integrate a CRM with the event software so that the sales team can take control and take action in time. Here are a few suggestions on how you can leverage an event CRM software to drive sales revenue. #1 Engage with your attendees as a pre-sales activity Pre-sales is very important as it’s about prospecting, qualifying and nurturing leads. Every time you spark a conversation, be it an email, a message, a Facebook comment, etc., you will want to record it and evaluate the sales-readiness of the attendee. #2 Easy access to information for Sales The marketing team’s effort in attendee nurturing shouldn’t be in conflict with the sales team’s lead nurturing. Your sales people need to know what events their clients or their leads have attended. Events could be about informing customers of a new product or keeping customers updated of the latest technological happening. Keeping a list of all the events that each of your client has attended will help Sales engage in an intelligent conversation with their client. That’s why there should be a data center that sales people and marketing people can access. With cloud-based CRM platforms, information is always available. #3 Store data for future use It doesn’t make sense to me if I use a separate platform for managing my event data. The data don’t only hold value to the event per se but also to customer analytics and remarketing. An integrated CRM allows you to look at a list of potential invitees and then select them as targets for event registration forms, so they are always aware of upcoming events and feel valued to be contacted. This may make them more likely to feel loyal to your brand and register. At the same time, your Sales team would have a better view of the customer and predict their behaviors. #4 Everyone is on the same page Not only marketing or sales need to nurture the relationships with customers. Customer success definitely needs to know what events their clients are attending. Human resources sometimes want to check if a candidate’s ever been to a company event. You want to make sure the people that need information to drive productivity and business get it easily.   In Conclusion… You as an event marketing professional must look for an event management software with integrated CRM now. Keep in mind that it must be a single platform that allows both your sales and marketing teams work effectively together. Email campaign reports or attendance reports are not CRM. If you want to find out more about this, send your questions to us by clicking the “Ask us a question” button below!

3. Enable location-based services and information. A 2014 Ipsos study commissioned by Google showed that 88% of people make local searches on smartphones, while 61% want mobile search results customized to their immediate location. Location-specific offers, driving directions and maps, and localized search results all play a role here. For example, if a person searches “Olive Garden” on mobile, chances are excellent that they are looking for a local restaurant. The brand can win more sales when it ensures that its local stores are in the mobile search results. The quickest way to do this is to buy search terms including location, i.e. “Olive Garden Birmingham AL.” Over the long run, you can boost your local SEO by claiming each location in Google and Bing, and then driving citations and ratings from users. 4. Help people avoid lines. Mobile check-in helps hotels, airlines and car services improve guest satisfaction. The Center for Generational Kinetics conducted a study that found that 40% of millennials prefer purely online customer service, supporting the overall trend that they prefer self-service experiences offered via mobile instead of in person. I recently had a four-day hotel experience in which I checked in, checked out, made requests and ordered room service, all via mobile and without speaking to anyone. It was simply an experiment for me, but self-service is the preferred way of doing business for many. 5. Offer local insight and options. Innovative travel companies now replicate concierge services through their apps. Hotel and airline apps sometimes offer local area guides and activity booking tools. These tools make travel experiences richer and boost loyalty. For example, my team and I recently stayed in a hotel in Philadelphia. We arrived after 10 p.m. and wanted a good nearby restaurant that was serving at that hour. After a few clicks, we had a reservation and walking directions.

What should hotels look for in their financial management system then?Handling currency complexityRapid globalisation means that hotels are likely to report in more than one currency. Thus it would be a tremendous help if hotel accounting software can handle multiple currencies. However, it is worth noting that currency translation is not as simple as it looks. Complexity arises when different categories of exchange rates are required depending on circumstances. This is especially problematic when hotels have to follow more than one set of accounting and business rules. Handling multiple languagesEven though English is the default business language globally, it is not necessarily the case that everyone in an organisation grasps all English terminology and statutory reports, especially those that handle day-to-day operations. They are more likely to do the work in their own language. Moreover, different countries have different units of measurements and formats, which need to be reported as well. Hence, it is vital that hotels’ financial management software can handle all of these. Handling multiple entitiesA hotel chain with various branches in different countries or jurisdictions has the extra workload that entails complexity. As a helping tool, a hotel financial management system should be capable of consolidating results from discrete entities for statutory reporting and tax purposes. In other words, it should help the mother company and its subsidiaries keeping track of one another’s financials without interfering with their various legal structures.Supporting multiple charts of accountsAccording to Ventana Research 2011, “maintaining multiple charts of accounts may prove to be both simpler in the long run and more productive” despite some saying that it is best to have one chart of accounts only. The rigid approach of a single chart of accounts is especially unsuitable for companies with different lines of businesses, those in joint-venture arrangements or those acquiring businesses in different countries. Thus, accounting software for hotels should be able to handle simultaneous charts of accounts.Handling multiple calendarsIt is a fact that businesses around the world do not operate on the same fiscal year. To save time from having to recast figures into different calendars, hotels with multinational operations should implement a financial management system that can create local, regional and consolidated reports as needed for management or statutory purposes.Handling tax complexitiesFor hotels operating in various countries, their accounting software should be able to handle the complexities associated with different tax regulations and help defending tax audits. Apart from addressing issues such as multiple entities, charts of accounts, calendars and depreciation schedules, their system should be configured to be tax-aware. In other words, it should provide hotels with automated maintenance of rules and rates.Reporting using multiple accounting standardsGAAP, IFRS and local accounting standards require different accounting treatments. Thus, accounting software for hotels should allow different books for recording transactions under these various accounting rules. Automating the process from closing these books to creating financial statements and reports using multiple accounting standards also helps hotels save time and effort without risks of errors.Supporting different levels of corporate reportingA multinational hotel’s accounting system should be able to create a consolidated headquarters view as well a consolidated statement of several subsidiaries at an intermediate level. Management should be able to view and analyse these reports right at the source.Supporting global accessFinancial management software that allows web-based access can help hotels avoid incurring costs from installing the system individually at all branches or at branches with limited on-premise support. Having a system that can be installed locally, deployed centrally and accessed globally gives hotels a competitive advantage without compromising security and reliability.

Ask anyone — from the front desk clerk to the GM — property management systems (PMS) are old, antiquated, and haven’t seen much innovation over the last 20 years. This is because they are one of the stickiest solutions a hotel can have. Switching costs are high due to licensing, hardware and training. This is all about to change though. Here is why:Licensing prices will come down to earth as the market becomes more competitive and Software as a Service (SaaS) will become more acceptable.PCs will continue to disappear since the next generation PMS will run off tablets or even smartphones. Welcome to the “post-PC world,” as Steve Jobs would say.As consumerized enterprise software becomes more prevalent, the PMS will become as intuitive as the iPhone. Training costs will take a deep dive if not disappear at all. Gesture, touch and voice will replace the keyboard and mouse.ATRIO by PAR Springer-Miller, InnRoad, and RoomKey are some of the companies leading the way. It’s only a matter of time before others jump in.

Fortunately, new technology lets restaurants adopt some of ecommerce’s best practices. From an IT perspective, this requires four key elements:   A system to close the loop at the guest level on promotional offers. It’s not enough to have a POS discount key for “Father’s Day promo” anymore. You need to know which dad (or mom!) responded to that offer, what they bought, and who they brought in with them.   The ability (either directly or through your credit card processor) to access payment data in order to identify individual guests when they return. This data set is essential – it’s the lifeblood of ecommerce. Fortunately, the ecommerce players have pioneered safe, secure ways to get at data without compromising PCI safeguards.   A guest-centric data warehouse to store all the key data sets — check level POS data, payment data, marketing data, loyalty program data if available, reservations, online ordering, guest responses, and third party data such as Prizm or Mosaic.   An analytics layer. The requirements here go way beyond static or standardized reporting. Marketing needs to be able to cut data in an ever-changing variety of ways to identify key patterns and segments.   Marketing, in turn, must partner with IT on determining goals. What is the restaurant trying to accomplish and what can be left out? Take joint meetings with IT to look at vendors to help give a sense of what’s possible. But then let IT do their job. Next, build the business case. Moving to a data driven marketing strategy will require shifting budget from other media, or finding new budget dollars. Determine appropriate metrics and the desired payoff. Setting up high level, high visibility “report cards” is critical. For example, “Our 2015 goal is to grow the annual spend of our top three customer groups by 4%, thereby delivering $17.5M of incremental sales.” That will get the CFO’s attention and the goal is doable. Finally, design and execute the marketing plan. That will likely require a trained data and analytics expert, and/or a close partnership with a company that analyzes data 24/7. Either way, it’s important to not over-reach in the beginning. Year one is about becoming familiar with the data, drawing insights, and learning a new language—segments, deciles, annual spend, customer acquisition costs, and lifetime value. The good news is there is usually a great deal of quick wins, such as offer optimization.     Introducing data-driven marketing may seem like a daunting task, but the ability to predictably drive sales should incent even the most cautious. The benefits of bringing an early mover are huge. These restaurants will have more data to work with two to three years out. More data, gathered over a longer period of time, becomes its own competitive advantage. Just ask Amazon.

By adding INNCOM’s Integrated Room Automation Systems (IRAS) to Intelity ICE (Interactive Customer Experience) Touch on iPads, guests can now control room temperature, lighting, drapes and alarm clock directly from their iPad tablet computers—even when they are not in their rooms. INNCOM is an industry leader in advanced guestroom automation systems for hotels and resorts. IRAS is INNCOM’s customizable multi-purpose platform for in-room guest controls. Intelity is the hospitality software developer of ICE, the award-winning integrated, customizable, branded interface that enables hotel guests to request all services instantly via in-room tablet, TV, laptop or mobile device. “By placing the INNCOM IRAS on our ICE guest interface, Intelity is giving travelers real-time fingertip control over their hotel experience,” said David Adelson, Intelity founder, president and CEO. “Once a guest has registered with the hotel, downloaded its app and received password authentication, they can begin interacting with the property via ICE from virtually anywhere.”

A property management system can help you maximize revenue by making your hotel’s operations more efficient. Here are just a few of the pain points that an up-to-date hotel PMS can alleviate: The expense of legacy systems and multiple technology partners: Many of the technology platforms that promise to solve one or another of these problems come with a host of fees for setup and ongoing operations. Very quickly, these individual solutions can add up to large costs, especially when upgrades and continued support are considered. Expensive on-site IT hardware and staff: The opposite end of the spectrum from relying on many partners is to try supporting all of your operations on-site. In addition to hiring and retaining the staff who know these systems, there’s always a danger of a system failure, resulting in lost data or downtime that can cost your hotel a large amount of money. But even when the hardware is running perfectly, there’s another danger that your IT department can’t anticipate… Loss of connectivity leading to lost data – and lost bookings: If your hotel’s internet connection goes down, will you lose reservations or other data? A PMS that cannot operate in a disconnected state is a problem waiting to happen. Time and money spent on training: With high churn rates among guest-facing staff, the amount of time and resources spent on training front desk personnel on your systems can add up quickly. A quality PMS will make training simple, not only by being intuitive and easy to use but by including self-help resources and guidance so that new employee onboarding is as painless as possible.

A hotel PMS should not only integrate well when it comes to reservation delivery, it should help hoteliers streamline their operations throughout the guest’s journey – from booking to check-out. Without this seamless integration, hoteliers can find themselves lacking both the time to deliver on the promise of excellent guest service and the revenue to keep those operations running.