30 Things to Think About Sales Analytics

Data analytics has become so important to hospitality sales so quickly that sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. To provide some guidance, HSMAI’s Sales Advisory Board convened a first-ever Analytics Think Tank at its 2018 Revenue Optimization Conference that was built around a five-step hotel sales process: lead generation, business qualification, benchmarking, reporting, and performance analysis. 

As part of the program, participants discussed blind spots in the five stages — what’s missing, what remains unsolved, and what gaps need to be filled when it comes to mastering data analytics for hospitality sales and revenue management. Here are their top challenges for each stage:

  1. LEAD GENERATION
  • Lack of alignment between revenue-management, sales, and marketing departments
  • Lack of prospecting and true selling vs. rates and dates
  • Not enough sales personalization by segment
  • Sales competencies lacking — skills not available to generate new business
  • Predict which group best meets our needs
  • How to combine and manage many lead sources
  1. BUSINESS QUALIFICATION
  • Trouble with sales leaders — good sellers are not good analyzers
  • Need better camaraderie/communication between sales and revenue management
  • Shared accountability between revenue management and sales
  • Lack of tools to qualify business
  • Speed of response
  • Beyond group profit, what is impact on hotel profit?
  1. BENCHMARKING
  • Too many KPIs with poor value
  • Nowhere to find bottom-line profit
  • Gap in forward-looking indicators
  • Business acumen
  • Hard to get good comp set for many areas due to consolidation
  • Move away from top-line revenue as benchmark
  1. REPORTING
  • Need to give insight, not just data
  • Need to set line between what we can vs. should report
  • Common understanding of platforms
  • Single point of truth
  • Not enough forward looking
  • Not visual enough
  1. PERFORMANCE ANALYSIS
  • Lack of talent for advance analytics
  • Common vernacular, integrity of data
  • Lack of revenue-management awareness by analytical people in marketplace
  • Revenue-management skills gap in logic — can’t connect the dots
  • Automation for performance
  • Better documentation of institutional knowledge

Look for future HSMAI resources about data analytics based on conversation at the Analytics Think Tank.

Categories: Sales
Insight Type: Articles