Please continue to hold..and don’t hang up and book with Expedia!

I often think that when hotels keep guests holding on the reservations line, it might as well be part of the marketing strategy of the OTAs. Who has time to hear the phone ring endlessly – or to wait on hold – when making a reservation?

Measuring how quickly your reservations team answers a call is vitally important – in fact, it’s almost as important to reaching your revenue goal as is measuring your reservations conversion percentage.

The usual target for acceptable customer service in this area is 80/20: eighty percent of your calls should be answered within twenty seconds.

Not reaching this goal may result in a spike in abandoned calls, and, if you’re lucky, the guest will hang up and the book a room through an OTA. If you’re very lucky, the guest will book through your website. But just as likely, the guest will call a competitor.

So, it makes a lot of sense to measure how your hotel is doing in this area. Shortening the time on hold or answering incoming calls more quickly will reveal an unexpected source of revenue, and will allow your team to personally connect with more of your guests.

And when a reservations call is answered correctly and quickly, it creates a personal relationship with the guest and sets the stage for a better TripAdvisor score. The first impression is that your property is efficient, properly staffed, and ready to welcome them for a wonderful, memorable experience.

The return on investment in this area can be substantial. It can pay very nicely to measure and monitor how quickly your team is answering incoming reservations calls.