Ginger Hotel CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
- 1. Submitted by: Akash Bhadra (006) Anand Kumar Chaudhari (009) Moumon Bhar (038) Nigam Prasad Panda (043) Anish Ganguly (085) U Anirban Mandal (086) CRM IN GINGER HOTELS
- 2. INTRODUCTION CRM IN HOTEL INDUSTRY Majorly in the hotel industry, most similar products and services are offered to the customer whereas the quality and the degree of service that differentiates one hotel from another. The intangible and soft factors of a hotel attract customer’s focus and give them the experience to remember. Due to a lack of internal strategy within the organization, most of the organization's failures to achieve CRM benefits such as focusing not only on the existing customers but also to increase repeat business from the same customers and based on word of mouth these existing customers are the source of new customers. Hence, for a hotel, its necessary to manage all the customers very effectively and efficiently. BRIEF ABOUT GINGER HOTELS As a part of the Tata Group under a new brand category called "Smart Basics Hotels", Ginger hotels were established by Roots Corporation Limited. In June 2004, as an Indian hotel chain, Ginger opened in Whitefield, Bangalore. The Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL) fully owned subsidiary company was Roots Corporation Limited. As a part of the Tata Group one of India’s largest hotel chains, in India’s hospitality sector IHCL has more than 67 properties across 50 locations in India and abroad and over 100 years' presence. Initially in 2004 Ginger charged Rs 999 per night but today it charges range from Rs 2999-3499 plus taxes per night. Ginger hotel focused on its value as signifies simplicity, informality, warmth, style, modernity and affordability. Based on the model of convenience and ease of doing business through awareness, booking channels, payment gateways whereas informality, style, warmth and modernity relate Ginger approach towards product & service design with an affordable range of pricing per night. The target segment of Ginger is as follows: • Business Travelers: “Why work from home when you can work from ginger” • Families and Couples: “Who says you can’t spend some quality time with your loved ones?” • Solo Travelers: “We have cozy rooms just for our adventures single ladies who like traveling solo”
- 3. REASONS FOR IMPLEMENTING CRM The hospitality industry is known as a highly customer-centric industry. To generate a lot of information about customers and benefits to the organizations possible only if CRM has been implemented on it. For a successful and effective implementation of CRM into account, any hotels receive a lot of data about customers. These generated data has transferred into a useful resource for providing customer satisfaction. An appropriate working environment needs to create for the service industry and Its employee's engagement towards customer-oriented behaviors, a CRM system is necessary. It could provide its staff with modern tools, and technology, customer-satisfaction tracking and complaints management systems. In addition to that, a CRM could build inspirational leadership for an organization with appropriate rewards systems or loyalty programs for its customer. As a result of the previous supportive working conditions, organizations can ensure the requirement of modification and changes necessary in each touchpoint. In other words, all the organization resources and segments such as marketing capabilities, culture, norms and regulation of organization structure could be integrated based on CRM successfully implementation as well as in returns improve its performance. CRM was always an integral part of the function from the very inception of Ginger hotels with a combination of manual processes and online processes. However, the manual process was prone to more errors and misplace as compare with the online process of implementation. CRM software implemented on Ginger Hotel timeline as follows • Ginger adopted IDS during the period 2004. IDS is known as the Intellectual Data system was used in all the departments for their respective operations. As IDS offered very limited options it was not a very user-friendly application and it also took time to process a particular action or command hence it did not give very precise information. For these disadvantages, Ginger switched to other software that was specially designed for the hotel industry. • Based on the disadvantages of IDS in 2008 they switched to a new application called the SIM Hotels which was specially designed for all the Ginger across India. The primary advantage of this application was that it was brand specific and not used by any other hotel chain in the country before. • Ginger hotel switched to TMS during 2012 which is an application of SAP. Uniformity of all traveler and market data into one single window based system for the hospitality industry
- 4. was done by SAP solutions. In addition to that, across all channels SAP helps hospitality companies, gaining hidden insights, anticipating customer behaviors, and making timely, intelligent decisions help firms engage travelers. All main front-office processes and operational needs of hotel chains are solved by SAP technology that creates this application user friendly very fast. Enterprise Infrastructure at Ginger Keeping on mind for not compromising customer service, IT plays a crucial role at Ginger Hotels. The infrastructure of Ginger consists of computing and storage in a hosted datacentre. Individual hotels of Ginger across India are connected with the applications through VPN on desktops. Besides SAP application, PMS (Property Management System) and other applications like accounting are used tightly integrated on each hotel for support. Auto- provisioning of Wi-Fi upon check-in like automated processes revolving around guest servicing. CRM IMPLEMENTATION PROCESS Based on the IDIC model, Ginger hotel's CRM system is explained below in the following steps. Peppers and Rogers developed this model for implementing CRM in a variety of situations. This model consists of 4 stages such as identity, differentiate, interact, and customize.
- 5. Identify In Ginger hotel as the first step to implementing CRM, they identify their customers such to gather information regarding the customer’s name, address, booking history, traveling, number of night stay and investment on each check out at each point of contact across the hotel. All the touchpoints of Ginger hotel to collect data are such as front desk executive, pre- booking online or calling, customer service department, etc. The primary objective behind this is to collect as much information or data as you can on each customer to better understand their needs, wants and preferences so that Ginger could give better service. Differentiate As we Know customer is King that includes both angel and devil customer but each organization prime objective should find out the angel customer those creates value to the organization. In Ginger, It differentiates or segments its customers based on their current and projected lifetime value. Based on filtering, Ginger tailored its interaction and prioritize its customer relationship efforts on the most valuable clients so that to obtain maximum profitability. On the basis of differentiating by value, Ginger identifies its loyal customer and could focus more, take their feedback to increase its efficacy, performance, revenue generation and market share inside the hotel industry. After that Ginger differentiates by the need of its customer so that it could strategize its promotion. Interact According to the 80-20 rule, 20% of the customer gives 80% revenue to the organization. Ginger hotel in this stage applies various plans for interacting with its customers. Once customers are analyzed and categorized, Ginger hotel customized interactions with valued customers to offer loyalty benefits, discount bonus so that to retain them and continue spending. Customize After documented customer interactions, Ginger hotel analyze them to develop more customized one-to-one service. Customize prime objective is to ensure that customers’ needs and expectations are met so here Ginger hotel pointed these out individually and precise manner. Sometimes customize helps Ginger to bring new strategies implementation and service customization.
- 6. Ginger hotels have an integration of operational, analytical strategy and strategic CRM. The customer interaction started from the reservation and when the customer arrives at the hotel for check-in process then the relationship is strengthened and nurtured for repeat business. The flow of CRM is: Step I: Reservation During the reservation of the room, the preference of the room types is asked and finally the reservation can be done through online mode or through walk-in. Step II: Post Arrival After the guest arrives, the guests are continuously tracked and interacted at various touch points like at the front desk, restaurants and housekeeping. Right after check-in, a welcome message is sent to the guests on their phones informing them about their room number and their stay details after check-in. Ginger takes integration one step further – to the mobile, for customer experience and business benefit. They tie up with ngpay (a mobile based shopping / booking service), where a customer can view room availability and rates and make a booking, using just SMSs without needing a PC or Internet connectivity. The hotel manager or the assistant hotel manager interacts with the guest during the guest’s stay. The front of the house employees including the restaurant manager, or the restaurant stewards continuously interact with the guest and takes their feedback whenever they get the opportunity. The preferences are captured and recorded accordingly in the system. In case there are guest complaints, they are handled very seriously. Any negative comment is sincerely monitored by hotel manager & asst. hotel manager. The guest is personally met to understand the issues they faced during the stay. Guests are apologized and all comments and suggestions are well noted post which they share the comments to the department head and accordingly the rectifications and correction are done. The process doesn’t end there itself, the same is shared and discussed in the morning meetings with the departmental heads and the departmental heads in turn brief their respective teams about the same. The respective departments record the complaints as well as the preferences into the system so that all the hotel employees are aware about the details of each and every guest who is staying with Ginger. The individual departmental system is integrated in such a manner that all the departments are aware of the negative as well the positive feedback of the guests.
- 7. The transactions or all the point of sale (POS) of the hotel are integrated with the front office so that at any point the guest has a query regarding their bill, the same can be informed to the guest. Step III: Check-out and Post check-out Upon check-out, the guest is again met by the Managers to know his/her feedback and the scope of improvement. To know the customers feedback, a message is sent to the guests after check-out. A mail is also sent on the guest’s email id called the GSTS which helps the guest rate their experience against certain parameters within a scale of poor to excellent. If the hotel receives any negative feedback, the guest is immediately replied through mail asking about the inconvenience and what could have made his stay better. No feedback less than excellent is acceptable. The GSTS form of all the Ginger properties across India are received by the corporate office in Mumbai. Therefore, the managers can see and assess the performance of all the Ginger properties depending upon their right to accessibility. MEASURABLE CRM OUTPUTS BENEFITS OF IMPLEMENTING CRM CRM has helped knowing the necessities and desires for the visitors better. When they comprehend, it is simpler not exclusively to meet yet in addition to surpass the desires for the visitor. This has helped them hold their visitors, increment their recurrent visitors which at long last prompts gainfulness. Ginger has segmented the guest as OTA (Online Travel Agent), FIT (Free Individual Traveler) and Corporate. CRM has helped identifying the top accounts from the segments mentioned depending upon the amount of business that they are generating through them like Priority account (below 300 room nights per year), Gold account (300 to 1200 room nights per year), Platinum account (above 1200 room per year). In this way they serve the guests better. Besides the internal source of information, The Ginger hotels also have an understanding with an external market research agency called Survidor. It collects the feedback posted on various social platforms such as TripAdvisor, MakeMyTrip and provides the same to the hotel. This information is shared over all the properties in India.
- 8. In this way Ginger has not restricted them to the inner arrangement of input yet has additionally extended their mindset to the outer sources through which it can get the criticism on different stages. This has broadened their compass to the clients they serve and simultaneously it has helped them serve the clients better by developing themselves dependent on the input got. Social CRM Ginger hotels have covered all the social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TripAdvisor to avoid missing feedback from its customers. Client inputs have high need and are important for Ginger lodgings. The inputs got are continually observed, which incorporates positive just as negative criticism, which permits them to continually develop themselves and offer better types of assistance. The inn chiefs promptly answer to the remarks given by the visitors. The site of Ginger likewise specifies the email id on which a visitor can legitimately leave their input.
- 10. Smart Basics facilities and services include- • The Square Meal • Smart prices • Smart planet • Smart sleep • Smart space • Safe zone 1. The Square Meal: For breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks there is a Multi-cuisine restaurant available; there is a Meeting room that has a sitting capacity of 10 people and that is Cybercafé on-site, there is a Laundry facility also available which features same-day delivery. The gymnasium facility is also available, which is equipped with all the equipment like dual action poles with stepper, treadmill, exercycle, airpower bike, weights, dumbbells, wrist curler, doorway chinning bar, and punching bag. Other facilities like On-site ATM and Secure parking, Doctor on call also available. 2. Smart prices- They provide transparent pricing policy with no hidden cost and levies. They also emphasize delivering true value for money to its guests. 3. Smart planet- The company deliberate attempts to provide facilities in its operations to the guests without compromising on the environmental and ecological issues. All the Ginger hotels have already taken eco measures like energy conservation by using CFL lighting systems, In each of the rooms there is energy saver key tag system, they use natural light maximum, as well as the thermal insulation, and apart from that they use gas fired water boiler system and many more. By using ground water recharging system Water conservation measures they do rainwater harvesting, there is auto-flush in public urinals. For Waste management there is a proper sewage treatment available by which sewage treatment is being done. They use acoustically sealed noiseless diesel generators for Noise pollution and also they use vacuum sealed windows to maintain external noise level up to 50 decibels.
- 11. 4. Smart sleep- Expressing understanding to a good night’s sleep of its guests, for that they offer state- of-the-art Posturepedic mattresses which can sense body motion and respond with increased support (only in Pune now). 5. Smart space- All the rooms have been designed with practicality and comfort for the guests. The types of rooms like • Single • Twin • Double • family • special room for physically challenged There are Amenities are provided like electronic door locks, Mini fridge, cable TV with major channels and Wi-fi internet connectivity. There are Tea / coffee maker provided in each of the rooms, apart from these there are Direct dial STD / Local telephone in room available. For Voice mail, self-programmed alarm on phone also available. Other facilities like Ergonomic work area, Full length mirror, Ward robe and luggage rack, remote controlled A/C are also available here. The attached bathroom has facilities of 24 hours hot and cold water, shower area, branded toiletries for body, hair and hand wash, supply of hand / bath towels. 6. Safe zone- With close circuit TV in all the areas keeping record of visitors for Safety and security of the hotel as well as its guests are ensured because of it. Digital safes is also provided for safe keeping of valuables at the lobby counter as well electronic key cards for maximum safety of rooms. Opportunity for Up-selling and Cross-Selling The CRM application which is used at Ginger hotel can offer the guest some requests which will enable the Ginger hotel to customize their own services for such a repeat customer. The same CRM which is there can allow cross selling and upselling or target promotions which will be based on customer profiles.
- 12. Executing analytical and strategic CRM The information which is obtained from various primary and secondary sources are analysed at the back of the office, so that the guest who are currently have a booking or staying can be served better in their next visit and uniform services can be maintained across all the Ginger hotels in India. When there is a negative feedback about the hotel they often do a “Why-why” analysis and gap analysis of the feedbacks, analyses each step of a particular action so that the service experience will be far better than the previous one. CONCLUSION As Ginger hotel is a part of the Tata Group, they have never compromised on the quality of the technology they are offering and keeps up the legacy and culture of TATA. The information which is provide here they have gradually switched to better software. This helped them immensely to keep up the customer’s feedback. They tried to improve on the negative feedback which they got from the customers and enhanced on the feedbacks. Currently, Ginger do not have any kind of loyalty program. However, they are working upon that too. One thing they can do is they can focus on the middle class tourist and corporate tie ups which can increase the room occupancy throughout the year as they have much more time to travel and they also like to travel. Also, they can offer hop-on-hop-off services which can potentially become the point of attraction for the guests. So, by implementing all these recommendations they can easily increase their market share in the target segment and also can make the existing customer loyal towards the brand.