When it comes to delivering truly relevant experiences that appeal to today’s and tomorrow’s travelers, personalization at every turn is key. From sales & marketing touchpoints to every individual guest interaction in real life, data-driven insights are a vital ingredient in being able to forge emotional connections with consumers. SH Hotels & Resorts — which recently rebranded to Starwood Hotels — took this concept to the next level by transforming its approach to guest data management. The company overhauled its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy, earning them one of Hospitality Technology’s 2024 Hotel Visionary Awards in the Sales & Marketing category. The 2024 Hotel Visionary Awards were sponsored by Encora.
The Challenge: Disjointed Guest Data
Like many in the hospitality industry, SH Hotels struggled with managing multiple records of guest profile data across various brands/sites and systems. At times this resulted in duplicate profiles in our CRM database. This is a constant challenge for the hospitality industry leading to the corresponding bevy of projects and investments, all to unify, enrich and fully leverage guest data.
Knowing this, SH Hotels & Resorts set out to bridge this gap, ensuring that every guest-facing team member had the tools to deliver seamless, tailored interactions. The rollout envisioned that staff across departments, whether at the front desk, call center, or concierge, had a single, real-time view of guest profiles.
The Solution: A Unified Guest Journey
SH Hotels partnered with Salesforce/Hapi to unify and standardize guest profiles. Pivotal to this process is the Hapi Integrations & Guest Focus App, which seamlessly extended and presented the most relevant information to hotel operations.
The overall solution also provided SH with valuable insights, such as guest preferences, past stays, and other interactions that was often siloed, but once implemented enables frontline staff’s ability to create meaningful, personalized experiences.
The most impactful aspect of this deployment was the real-time, two-way profile synchronization across multiple systems. This ensures that restaurant teams and concierge staff etc. all have access to the same up-to-date guest data, ensuring a consistent experience across all touchpoints.
With this in place – SH is now able to pilot, AI-Powered personalization insights, providing staff additional, AI-driven guest summaries/insights.
The Impact: Measurable Results
Since launching the initiative, SH Hotels has achieved impressive results:
- Increased Data Accuracy: Duplicate records were significantly reduced, leading to cleaner CRM data and more effective marketing campaigns.
- Greater Visibility & Insights for Guests that Book In-Directly: The enhanced communication and guest interaction led to a measurable increase in guest email collection, paving the way for stronger experiences/relationships.
- Operational Efficiency Gains: Staff could resolve nearly all guest inquiries within the app, reducing the need to toggle between multiple systems and improving service response times.
- Higher Staff Satisfaction: Team members responded enthusiastically, reporting that the app eliminated inefficiencies and empowered them with real-time guest insights.
At this stage in the project journey, SH Hotels and Resorts successfully deployed its Salesforce CRM, mobile application and the Hapi Guest Focus App across key guest-facing roles, streamlining operations and delivering a level of personalization unmatched by many competitors.
Redefining Sales & Marketing in Hospitality
SH Hotels & Resorts did not just implement a new CRM system, they redefined the role of guest data in hospitality sales and marketing. By ensuring that guest insights were accessible and actionable, the company empowered its team to create experiences that drive loyalty, engagement and long-term revenue growth.
With the foundation now in place, SH Hotels is well-positioned to continue pushing the envelope, and the industry in guest-centric solutions and innovation. Beyond the technology, SH and its vendor partners seek continuous improvement, satisfaction, and innovation in delivering purpose-driven personalization and memorable experiences.
