Hotel brand increases referral rate to exclusive vacation ownership program by 18%
A global timeshare program provides exclusive exchange, leisure travel and reservation services for more than 320,000 club members. itel receives calls from thousands of guests of a leading hotel brand every day, inquiring about new and existing bookings. For those who are not already members, itel refers guests to the vacation ownership program for enrollment.
The Goal
- To increase transfers to vacation ownership program
The Approach
- Hired New Senior Operations Managers with competitive experience in vacation ownership referral programs
- Dedicated Head of Department roles at each site
- Encouraged agents to adhere to the script to sell the benefits of the program
- Development Coaching to identify all opportunities for transfers on every call
- Upskilled agents with new Rescue Techniques to overcome objections to make the sale
- Examined and learned from low performance incidents via focus groups
- Introduced stretch goals of 2-3% for individual targets at the supervisor and agent levels
- Tracked transfers hourly per team and issued random spot prizes for top performers
The Results
- Increased vacation ownership program transfers by 18% over two-year period
- Consistently transferring 25% of all calls to vacation ownership program
itel is a leading nearshore partner for the largest and fastest growing hospitality brand in the world. We help to create memorable experiences for guests through Customer Care and Reservations inbound voice calls and chat. Working with this hospitality brand, we saw an opportunity to increase the number of guests transferred to the vacation ownership program for enrollment.
Our Customer Care and Reservations teams increased transfers by leveraging more referral opportunities on the calls. We tracked the number of transfers per team hourly and awarded spontaneous prizes for top performers. Artificial intelligence and hourly report trends were leveraged by Development Coaches to create action plans and determine which agents should receive live monitoring and real-time feedback. Focus groups were used to examine and learn from all bottom performing teams and incidents.
Overall, our agents’ exceptional ability to empathize and connect with guests contributes to our successful results in the guest referral program. We are proud to consistently transfer 25% of all calls to the vacation ownership program.
