For a hotel chain to build an effective upselling programme across several hotels, it needs to not only invest time in collaboration, planning and testing but make smart choices in regards to upselling technology. Digital upselling tool Oaky provides three key ways to achieve this.

Like many hotel chains across the globe, you have likely taken the time to overhaul your procedures to address changing needs around contact-free yet personalised service.

This audit may or may not have included reviewing your upselling initiatives. Upselling has always been a part of any hotel’s operations, but has recently gained more recognition as an effective way to delight guests, drive extra revenue and consequently rebuild your business.

Rolling out an effective upselling programme across several hotels requires a good deal of collaboration, planning and testing. What works at one of your hotels may not work for another, so how do you devise an effective upsell strategy that is not only scalable, but on-brand, useful to guests and profitable?

Communicate the importance of interdepartmental collaboration at every hotel

A successful upselling initiative requires the same level of attention as other products and services at your hotels. Developing a consistent, yet effective upselling programme starts with briefing your hotel managers on how to make the most of the talent in every department.

Encourage hotel managers to work closely with their marketing team to guarantee a solid brand experience, ie that upsell deals, sales copy and visuals are consistent with the hotel and chain’s overall marketing strategy and messaging.

Each hotel’s operations team is crucial to your upselling scheme. Emphasise the importance of a steadily successful upselling programme during periods of low demand and use their in-depth knowledge to capitalise on each hotel’s opportunities.

Each hotel’s guest relations team is in close contact with their guests. Encourage each hotel to tap into their knowledge to get ideas on how to create more relevant offers for your guests.

Housekeeping teams also have deep insight into guests’ preferences and routines. Encourage hotel managers to ask for their input, including what they notice during their workday, which items make a guest’s stay extra comfortable.

Once that’s done, task your hotels with creating a formal, productive setting to discuss upselling. Request that your managers bring representatives of all of the aforementioned departments together for a dedicated upselling meeting. Brainstorm deal ideas and strategise on how to implement and promote them.

Automate operations across your organisation, using a unified tool

Delivering the services and products associated with your upsells is the most difficult part of upselling. Encourage hotel managers to prepare for some of the challenges they’ll encounter by considering:

• How to manage their inventory and ensure punctual delivery
• How to deliver upsells in the most quick and easy fashion
• How to ensure communication around upselling is effective amongst hotel staff
• How to guarantee that there is enough time for staff to prepare and execute both ‘normal’ and upselling-related tasks
• How to ensure payments for upsells are streamlined

Luckily, there’s a straightforward way to address all these challenges: automation! On top of trimming down to-do lists, automation will allow your teams to manage information, facilitate internal communication and reduce mistakes. Using the same digital upselling tool across your portfolio will help to keep your offering, segmentation and branding consistent across the board.

Maintain an overview of multiple upselling schemes at once

Managing the upsell activities of several hotels from afar has its challenges. The more granular directives outlined above will set your teams on the right track to optimising their individual upselling schemes, but checking in and monitoring progress is an entirely different matter.

With all the concerns hotel chains must attend to on a daily basis, there is little to no time left to manually check in on incremental revenue generation in individual hotels. In order to properly manage profitability and maintain consistency across multiple hotels, there needs to be a place to see the progress of each hotel in one place.

Digital upselling platform Oaky has created a one-stop solution for hotel chain head offices. Its Chain Dashboard feature allows chain managers to view and edit the upsell offering of all hotels from a single dashboard. New upselling deals and content can be added from the Chain Dashboard to all hotels across your chain, or to selected hotels.

With Oaky’s Chain Dashboard, hotel chains can:

• Scale upselling with their portfolio by applying a pre-existing upsell strategy to new hotels
• Maintain full control over their hotels’ upsell content and ensure they meet brand standards
• Standardise upselling across hotels by creating a chain-specific Deal Library
• Optimise revenue generation by experimenting with upselling strategies across different property types or brands to determine the best course of action for each