The relationship you have with your customers is built on mutual trust. It’s the foundation for a healthy, lasting and profitable relationship – as long as you play your customer nurturing cards right.

Naturally, we value all guests and customers, but we cant ignore just how important it is to keep them coming back. Whilst customer acquisition is crucial to maintain a healthy sales funnel, the real profit comes from keeping them with you year after year. That’s why we’ve put together the top reasons for why your hotel should be investing in a stellar customer nurturing strategy and how you can start implementing this.

New customers are more expensive. In fact, acquiring new b2b customers can be anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing customer. The costs of acquiring new business in the hotel industry is rising rapidly thanks to technological advancements, the need for sophisticated, consistent and branded marketing efforts as well as associated commissions to agents. So now, more than ever, you need your customers returning again and again.

On top of this, your existing customers already know your hotel. They know what to expect from your facilities and service. And fewer questions means less time spent converting and more time in focusing efforts in other areas of the sales process.

Repeat customers spend more. Think about it. An excellent experience at your hotel is confirmation for a customer that you can deliver on their needs. Their trust in you and your promises will increase so much so that they’ll be willing to spend more on the additional facilities and services you have to offer. 

You’ll find that returning customers will want to upgrade and purchase your more expensive products, rooms and services because you’ve created that all-important climate of trust. 

Not to mention that loyal guests are likely to stay for longer at your hotel because they feel comfortable. Acquiring new customers is just the start of bringing in long-term revenue.

Returning customers are your best promoters. There’s nothing quite like word-of-mouth recommendations from repeat customers. A loyal customer is much more likely to share a wide variety of valued experiences with your brand online, letting the world know that your hotel is consistently excellent!

In the hospitality industry, veteran b2b customers often show partnership-like activity. Offering strong recommendations, making business referrals and providing frequent publicity.

And the guests who show up on the back of a strong personal recommendation tend to go on to be highly profitable and long-lasting themselves.

Clearly, there is every reason to invest in a winning customer retention strategy. But how do you go about nurturing these existing relationships? Nurturing existing customers requires a slightly different tact from lead nurturing. After all, at different stages of the buying process, customers have very different needs and intentions. Here are a couple of ways you can kickstart your strategy.

Keep up the valuable email communication. But don’t keep customers in the same email sequence as your prospects. You never know when your guests will plan their next event or business trip, so don’t miss out on potential opportunities due to a lack of communication.

Think informative and valuable content – will my customer actually find this useful? Be it insights on their industry, letting them know of business trade shows in the area, or simply something that you feel will add value to the relationship between your customer and you – the salesperson.  It’s positioning yourself as a trusted source and building on that climate of trust.

Offer a personalised touch. We’re talking special business packages and value adds. Reminding customers about the success of their previous events, asking whether they have started planning for future events and encouraging them to book by making attractive offers is an easy win for your hotel.  But just remember to have a measured and timely approach to help your sales team achieve this.

Although it’s true that your b2b customer base is much more brand loyal than in the non-b2b sector, you don’t want to allow for competitors to reach your customer first. So ensure your business customers know you’re thinking of them and willing to reward their loyalty.

Personalised touches can be offered outside of an email too – think handwritten thank you cards or exclusive invitations to special events!  After all, we are in hospitality – service is all about being sincere and it is how we are remembered.

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Based in London, UK, UpMail is an email tool for hotel sales people to increase one-to-one email communications productivity and sales conversion rates. UpMail clients include Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, MINOR Hotels, Radisson Hotel Group, Virgin Limited Edition, Iberostar, CitizenM, and many more.To learn more or book a demo let us know your availability.