When a global crisis like COVID-19 and other market downturns hit, the Cendyn Hospitality Cloud can be an invaluable tool to quickly navigate these situations.
We’ve put together some tips and tricks for using Cendyn products to deal with the effects and help you confidentially make it through to the other side.
Revenue Cloud
Tools like our Rainmaker guestrev & grouprev RMS solutions and revintel business intelligence platform monitor your hotel’s performance, the market conditions and adjusts forecasts and rates strategically and automatically.
Rainmaker guestrev
Cendyn’s rainmaker RMS intelligently updates your hotel forecasts, rate recommendations, and reports based on the best data available to ensure you’re pricing competitively while maintaining pricing integrity. AKA not selling a room for less than it costs to turn it!
- Gauge impact: Use the RES+LB tab to see all your cancellations and expected ancillary revenue value quickly, so you can gauge the impact in a flash. Need guidance? Go to Help Topics inside guestrev and review the section on the Analysis tab to see how the functionality works.
- Kalman algorithm: Here’s a little science break down of the “Kalman” algorithm that is working in the background. If there’s a “shock to the system,” that causes a sudden change in business, Cendyn’s rainmaker RMS automatically recognizes the need to place the most weight on the most recent observations that reflect the change. For example, say we’re placing weight on the most recent four weeks at 40%, 30%, 20%, and 10% respectively. If business levels change suddenly, perhaps you’d want to put 80% of the weight on your most recent observation. Our sophisticated Kalman algorithm recognizes when to do this automatically.
- Trend adjustment: Your forecasts can be configured to react to the very most recent trends, including bookings, cancellations, final counts of arrivals/room nights and competitor rates. So as soon as things take a turn for the worse, guestrev can rely almost entirely on the new trend. When things rebound, guestrev also adjusts accordingly.
- Forecast cancellations with confidence: Cendyn’s rainmaker RMS has the industry’s most advanced technology to forecast cancellations, which synthesizes and reports on multiple factors.
- Short- and long-term forecasts: Cendyn’s rainmaker RMS short- and long-term forecasts are powered by machine learning, so in situations where the ST forecast is more meaningful, it automatically captures that. Cendyn also puts measures in place to avoid “bad data” during the downturn from adversely affecting the accuracy of future forecasts.
- Spot recovery faster: Being ready for the recovery is just as, or perhaps more important, than having a strategy for the dip. Cendyn’s rainmaker RMS forecasting tools help a hotel recognize as soon as possible when that recovery is happening so that they can return to a position of pricing power in their market.
- Utilize Cendyn’s rainmaker RMS to isolate the impact of the crisis, review booking curves and pickup trends to recognize when a turnaround is on the way. You can monitor and act upon competitor rate changes while continuing to focus on opportunities for future periods where you are open and accepting new bookings.
- Isolate the crisis effect easily: Cendyn’s rainmaker RMS ensures that future forecasts are not adversely affected by anomalous data during a downturn, so you can remain as accurate as possible when things return to “normal.”
revintel
During times of crisis, it is important to understand where your business is coming from, both for the operational side of taking care of your clients, but also to know where to focus efforts to capture more business.
- The Pickup by day detailed report shows you net pickup down to the rate code level!
- The Pace Trend report in Cendyn’s revintel solution shows a booking curve for the current year and the last two years. This graph helps to show the trends as they are happening so when the tides turn, you can see the growth and prepare!
- Understanding your booking window during this crisis will help prepare you for changes coming your way. Hopefully, only for when the crisis is turning, and the hotel starts seeing demand return! Use the Rooms Lead Time report to see how far in advance are people booking by day of the week, major market category, major channel category and room product. This is great to make sure you see the growth returning in time to react!
- The Rate Code Pace Report helps to show who is booking at the hotel. The more you know about your guests the better you can focus on targeting those who are traveling. Remember, different markets require different amenities at the hotel, understanding this may also help control operational expenses.
Marketing Cloud
eInsight CRM
- Track impact: Utilize eInsight CRM reports to gauge and assess the impact of the crisis at your hotel. Track cancellation impact with the Cancellation Report and track reservations still on the books with the Future Reservation Report.
- Marketing campaigns: Reach out to your Customer Experience Manager to discuss strategy and tactics for campaigns and communications during a crisis. Also, view our recent crisis management guide which offers strategy and tactics.
- Communicate with guests: Set up and adjust dynamic content and trigger campaigns to address the crisis in your messaging and tactics.
Guestfolio CRM
Communicate with guests: Update your automated emails and mobile concierge to address the crisis in your messaging.
Track impact: Assess how the crisis has impacted hotel bookings and revenue. View number of nights booked, reservations and cancellations over any given time period.
Sales Cloud
eProposal and eMenus
We know group/event business is at a standstill right now, but winners see the light at the end of the tunnel! Keeping in contact with your prospects is key to be the one they remember when things improve, and people start booking groups and events again. Step one? Adjust your communications and be proactive.
Log onto our Help Centers for tips and tricks for adjusting your templates and individual proposals to address the crisis and rescheduling needs.
Both platforms allow you to easily update proposal templates and online menus addressing inventory, pricing changes and to include messaging related to the crisis. A smart move would be to do this to address our current state of affairs and plan for recovery with “we’re back” messaging addressing points like sanitation, lifting of curfews, etc.
The Cendyn Sales Cloud team is always here to support, so feel free to reach us at productsuccess@cendyn.com for advice on how to navigate stalled proposals that were in play and plan for recovery. We should all get ready for the moment this lifts!
Resources for all customers:
All Cendyn tools are Web-based and can be accessed anywhere you might be working.
