Founded in 2009, Oliver Hospitality was built on the idea that old and new properties alike could be reworked into engaging, thoughtful and original spaces for their communities. Recently, the hospitality brand launched a new loyalty program called Invited by Oliver with resounding success as the brand had 9,200 signups in the first three months. To learn more about what made this loyalty program a success and how Oliver Hospitality plans to leverage it in the near future, HT spoke with Rocky Khamken, Marketing and Creative Director for Oliver Hospitality.
How did the idea for Oliver Hospitality’s loyalty program, Invited by Oliver, come about, and how do you see it enhancing the guest experience across your properties?
Invited by Oliver was born out of feedback from our guests and our vision for the company’s future. We have a strong base of brand enthusiasts and loyalists who regularly stay with us across our properties in the Southeast and California, and we wanted to reward them while also engaging and converting new guests to become more familiar with Oliver Hospitality—encouraging repeat visits. At Oliver Hospitality, we always strive to deliver handcrafted experiences, and that process continues to improve as we learn more about our guests. We love saying “welcome back” while delivering a guest’s favorite cocktail, or tailoring their arrival experience to their preferences. In addition to the perks and promotions offered through Invited by Oliver, we now have a centralized database of brand loyalists, enabling us to provide an even more personalized experience.
Did you develop the tech for Invited by Oliver in-house or with a vendor, and what advantages came from that decision?
We worked with Amadeus, and they added loyalty to our existing suite of tools. They supported the setup and created dashboards on the back end. Our team manages the guest touchpoints and customer support. So, customer service and engagement still lives with our team. We like to keep that aspect in-house to enable our internal team to deliver the level of service associated with our brand.
How are you measuring the success of Invited by Oliver so far, and what are your future membership goals for the program?
We are still gathering data on our membership goals, as the loyalty program is fairly new. We’re working to understand how it truly impacts our business. Our focus is twofold: engaging with guests in more meaningful ways and improving our bottom line. We aim to provide the best experience across our hotels, encouraging every guest to become a loyalty member, so that would be the ideal goal. What we do know is that there’s interest, and we see consistent weekly growth in new member sign-ups, which shows the program is working.
What metrics are you using to measure its success?
We are using number of signups and the ratio of number of signups to guests that actualize their bookings. We’re working on gathering the data to consider who are returning loyalty members and new guests walking through our doors. We’re after that conversion and ambassador growth.
What kind of integrations does Invited by Oliver have within your tech stack? Why are those integrations important?
Right now, we integrate with our PMS (property management system). Our PMS provider is Infor HMS. This integration allows our front desk team members to have constant access to basically any information they need to know i.e. if that guest is a member, how many points they have, etc. This integration is important for personalized service and setting the correct tone at the start of each guest’s visit. This knowledge prompts the front desk to say “welcome back” and allows them to have the guest profile at their fingertips.
What lessons have you learned from deploying this new loyalty program?
My first piece of advice, and I know this adds its own challenges and lengthens the process, but it’s really important: involve all departments from the start of the conceptualization and build. Loyalty programs affect multiple divisions beyond IT. There may be opportunities to enhance the guest experience, whether through awarding loyalty points via specific channels or determining which tier a guest belongs to. When all departments collaborate, there’s more ability to customize and personalize the overall guest experience. Additionally, accounting needs to be involved to accurately measure ROI and understand how to account for the loyalty program in billing procedures.
A second piece of advice: give yourself a long runway. You will always find issues, areas for improvement, and bumps in the system. By giving yourself time to fully understand the technical workings of the loyalty program, you’ll launch a better product and implement the software more effectively.
