Three ways the hospitality, leisure and tourism industries can better engage customers and meet their needs

The hospitality and leisure sectors were undoubtedly two of the hardest hit during the pandemic. Closures due to lockdown restrictions, social distancing measures forcing lower capacity and a reluctance from patrons pushed down revenues for hotels, B&Bs, leisure centres, holiday providers and restaurants. Then turbulence due to global economic factors have brought inflated supply chain costs and spiralling energy prices.

Nevertheless, the March 2023 Lloyds Bank UK Sector Tracker reports the tourism & recreation – which includes pubs, hotels and restaurants – sector saw the second largest slowdown in input cost inflation in February. The industry tracking score is now 80.4 compared to 47.7 in December 2022, so hospitality is bouncing back and it has never been more important to engage potential and existing patrons and communicate the right information at the right time.

Identifying evolving customer considerations

With challenges ever evolving, operators need to identify these so they can adapt and react accordingly. Customers were concerned with and scrutinising hygiene practices and social distancing measures. Now it’s more likely to be prices, where food items are sourced from or how the company prioritises sustainability efforts.

Using intuitive solutions that provide sophisticated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) capabilities, such as Microsoft Dynamics 365, enable organisations to easily execute multi-channel campaigns. This can help communicate about the areas that are important to visitors. Campaigns and communications can be seamlessly executed across email, web and social platforms. And with the capability to obtain deep, real-time insights on customer sentiment, marketing campaigns can be developed to hit exactly the right note.

The solution’s powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities can help provide better customer experiences by filling in data gaps and determining a next best action based on real-time insights. Maximise upselling and cross-selling opportunities in a competitive market with intuitive data analysis that provides insights from which personal, multi-channel campaigns can be developed.

Investing in technology that improves customer experience

Customer experience is king, especially in industries focusing on travel and leisure activities. Even before the pandemic, patrons of hospitality venues were becoming used to easy and contactless interactions when it comes to booking of hotels or restaurants, ordering and paying for food and drinks, and checking in and out of accommodation. With more people now keen to minimise touch points and social interaction, this has become a more important feature.

Investing in technology solutions that can facilitate mobile app-based functions to achieve the above tasks is crucial in this evolving landscape. Having contactless processes such as this that can automatically populate the CRM system with behaviour and buying habits data, can be used to inform business decisions – and this is a feature of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 solution, which facilitates a 360-degree view of the customer. Not only does having such capability improve customer experience but helps with an understanding of customer behaviour.

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Maximising revenues in a competitive landscape

Consumer finances are being squeezed more than ever, with rising energy, fuel and food prices meaning necessity is in many cases winning out over luxury. This means that any funds consumers divert to treats and nice-to-haves such as eating out, holidays, days out or memberships will be spent more considerately and carefully. There is a more discerning customer to cater for as a result.

A good experience is a major driver for decision-making among many customers, cost and value holds the trump card for others, and loyalty is a huge aspect for some. Therefore, hospitality operators need to understand each customer type and preference and react with schemes and offers accordingly. Loyalty schemes have been a firm fixture in the industry for a long time, but incentives may hold more weight and become more important to consumers as costs rise, their disposable income dwindles and people make more careful decisions on spend.

Having a customer loyalty system that operates in one silo, email marketing campaigns that sit in another and social media being executed separately will reduce opportunities for upselling and cross-selling. Furthermore, executing disjointed communications won’t offer the customer the seamless experience and service they are seeking.

Using a solution that enables the organisation to execute all activities from one platform, where cross-channel data can be used to unlock deeper insights, is vital to success in this industry. Microsoft D365 provides out-of-the-box custom interactive reports, which allow businesses to optimise the all-important customer journey.

The hospitality, travel and leisure sectors have experienced unprecedented disruption and turbulence as a result of the pandemic and the UK’s cost of living squeeze. While this has created a challenging landscape for industry operators, choosing the right technology solutions will be key to adapting and evolving to meet the fluctuating demands of patrons in this ‘new normal’ and next year’s!

From identifying and analysing sentiment and engagement from marketing campaigns, through to managing loyalty schemes and offers, the 360-degree view of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that Microsoft Dynamics 365 provides gives one version of the truth, which will help in the quest to attract, engage and retain customers.

Want to learn more about how your hospitality operation can benefit from Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM? Why not complete our call back form and one of our expert team will be in touch to learn more about your challenges and goals.

Updated: June 2023