Hotel sector scores top marks in customer relations

The hotel sector has scored top marks in the delivery of customer value, in a survey by Connection.

Connection, a customer value management consortium, found consumers rated the ability to talk to informed and friendly staff at a time convenient to them as very important and representative of true value.

Customers also valued the ability of businesses to recognise them personally.

Although hotels are seldom cited as leading examples of customer relationship management, Connection found the sector outperformed banking and retail in most areas in the survey, scoring 18% above the average in delivering customer value.

This placed hotels second only to independent financial advisers in the list.

And according to Connection getting customer value right can really help the hotels sector's bottom lines, as customers are four times more likely to book repeat stays at properties that deliver good customer value.

Graham Ede, Connection chief executive, said: “The real process of enhancing anyone’s hotel experience is to capture enough information at booking to really understand the nature of that person’s visit and then deliver added value to someone’s stay.”

By Kerstin Kühn

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