1. Account Coverage Plan

  • Create the strategic framework: methodology for selecting the accounts that will be focused on and framework of objectives and measures for the ABM programme
  • Planning workshop: joint marketing and sales session around each account to agree goals and explore understanding of the account and relevant propositions
  • Required research: marketing activity to build a more complete picture of the structure of the target organisation and its requirements
  • Create plan: bringing together existing corporate marketing activities with new account-specific communications to achieve account-specific goals
  • Execute: build a joint sales and marketing team to deliver on the plan
  • Review: apply measures such as the value of sales, amount of potential revenue in the sales pipeline, coverage of communications in the account, perception-shifts or appointments made

2.   Client Credit Approval

  • Credit is given on basis of the following terms and condition in general:
  • Legality of company operations in the local market
  • Type of ownership / local or abroad
  • Potentiality of the company
  • Scope of continuous business
  • Payment pattern with other suppliers of same fraternity
  • Approved payment guarantee if ownership is not local
  • Agreement on the credit period / duration
  • Agreed mode of payment (Cheque/Bank Transfer/e-payment)
  • Additional terms and condition to match hotel’s allowance of credit to the client

3.   Inactive Accounts

  • These are corporate accounts that have not used the hotel for quite some time, for following possible reasons:
  • Being unsatisfied with hotel service is amongst the top reasons why corporates discontinue hotel usage
  • Increase in hotel prices due to impractical approach in introducing the cost to the client
  • Unsatisfactory response from the sales personnel
  • Alternate option available that is preferred by the client

Always remember the Inactive accounts are more potential than the prospects, as you know that the business they have is consumable for the hotel and is confirmed addition to the revenue.

4.   Destiny Accounts

  • Accounts that holds the fate of the hotel’s financial performance and contribute to the majority of the the revenue of the hotel and therefore are our accounts of highest priority. There are special procedures that are followed for such accounts:
  • They are the first priority of returning calls by the sales personnel and the General Manager
  • Direct personal contact to the essential decision maker by the General Manager
  • Hotel sales person contact the decision maker no less than once every week (For tour operators who annually books a series of dates , contact would be less often)
  • We give special attention to the decision makers, subordinates, coworkers and supervisors
  • We give special promotional activities such as complimentary event tickets, gifts and breakfast delivered to his / her office
  • We provide occasional complimentary rooms for the clients special needs
  • Priority reservation, upgrades, welcome calls are given to the room request and guests staying with us.

5.   Incoming Reports

  • Reports generated by the PMS (Property Management System) and other tertiary organisations allows better understanding of the hotel status. Some of the key reports to be kept in mind are:
  • Flash Report (Micros)
  • Star Report (STR Report)
  • Business on Books (Micros opera)
  • Activity Management Report (Micros Opera/ S&C Module)
  • Sales Dash Board (Micros Opera/ S&C Module)
  • Lead Management (VIA Micros Opera/ S&C Module)

The above reports are to name some. Remember, Opera (well known PMS) is highly customizable and can be tweaked to generate the kind of report that you want to generate.

6.   Lost Business Report

  • It is very important for the hotel to understand; why a business was lost? and what needs to be arranged so that the business could be retained with the hotel.
    • This report could help us know if the business lost could have been acquired or lost dues to factors influencing:
  • Price
  • Facility
  • Service
  • Infrastructure
  • Quality
  • Incident etc.

Here are some more topics which I will update and explain further in brief for simple understanding.

  • 7.   Preferred-Account Agreements
  • 8.   Reader Boards
  • 9.   Requests for Proposals (RFPs)
  • 10. Sales Blitzes
  • 11.  Sales Reports
  • 12.  Time Management
  • 13.  Time-Management Priorities
  • 14.  Tracing Sales Leads, Prospects and Accounts