Converting interest into sales is key to the success of all hospitality businesses, and BDRC Continental, the hospitality sector research specialists, have just concluded their annual assessment of conference sales enquiry handling in 2012, bestowing the Gold Award for Event Sales Enquiry Handling to the De Vere Venues chain.
Principal Hayley was narrowly pipped to the post, walking away with Silver, with last year’s winner QHotels picking up Bronze in a league table that, this year, included over 30 groups and brands. In the extremely close-run race fewer than 2 percentage points separated the top three groups’ average scores, all of which were in the mid-nineties.
Mystery shopping methodology
BDRC Continental’s MBT programme uses mystery shopping methodology to rate how well individual meeting venues and hotels handle enquiries for meetings and events. The assessment encompasses the entire end-to-end client enquiry experience, measuring telephone, email and web-submitted enquiries. Part of that includes measurement of the quality of the sales team, but just as important is the assessment of the infrastructure, connection and follow-up processes in place. MBT currently rates just over 400 properties in the UK and another 400 globally to the same minimum standard of performance.
Commenting on these brands’ success was James Bland, Client Services Director at BDRC Continental and head of the hotels division’s Customer Experience Management programmes:
“Successful enquiry handling is about adopting a customer-focused approach, and to triumph in this league table you have to be on top of your game at all times – the margins are so tight. It’s not just about ticking boxes, we look for enquiry handlers to go beyond the basics by establishing what the customer is actually hoping to achieve and tailoring their sales message accordingly. Of course, all of that could count for nothing if they subsequently neglect to follow-up appropriately, so MBT also factors that into its calculations. Across the UK we made in the region of 5,000 calls to venues over the year, and while 95% promised to give us a call back within a few days, only 81% actually did.”
About BDRC Continental
BDRC Continental is an award winning insight agency that helps its clients get closer to their customers by translating data into actionable business intelligence. This is done through their range of market-leading insight tools, a dedicated suite of advanced analytics and over two decades of experience working with leading service sector brands across the globe.
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