Why study hotel upselling?

As we take it as a given fact that as soon as the restrictions allow, travel will return and hotels will start reopening, upselling can be seen as an important thing to bring back better. The question on your mind: How can I improve on this aspect, smoothly and efficiently, across the whole team? The answer: outsource upselling expertise, go digital implementing hospitality software and keep it fun!

The Oaky Upselling Courses have been devised with busy hotel teams in mind, who may be aware there are better ways to approach upselling, but don’t have the time or resources to improve current processes.

The courses feature:

• Expert tutors
• Easy to digest video lessons followed by short quizzes to review learnings
• Hands-on examples and handy templates for hotel teams to implement upselling
• Certificates to mark students' achievements per level

Above all, the course is designed to offer comprehensive training in effective upselling, doing so in a format that is flexible and easy to engage in, individually or together.

Sound interesting, but not sure if you want to commit? Don’t forget, the first level of the course The Fundamentals of Upselling, is permanently free!

As more hotels approach upselling in new and creative ways, it’s important to stay on top of what is popular in the industry at the minute and what has become old news. News spreads fast in the hospitality industry, so in order to avoid being the last one to jump onto a fizzling trend, make sure you’re up to date with the latest thinking on upselling.

Johan Månsson, Hotel Manager at Elite Hotels described the course as relevant and up-to-date:

"The course captures the way revenue management has evolved. From an approach that just takes rooms into account, modern hoteliers have progressed to a more all-encompassing perspective, where everyone is trying to apply the same principles and formats across all hotel departments, including restaurants, spas and so on.”

The shift towards total revenue management, and the role of upselling in this practice, is a core focus of the course. Although conditions are slowly returning to normal, if this pandemic has taught us anything, it’s to not put all our eggs in one basket!

Upselling is a niche skill, usually seen as part of an overall front desk training. When the pressure comes on your hotel, as it did with the recent drop in demand, effective upselling can become an important asset to survival.

“It was a great experience completing the course. It really helps to highlight the importance of upselling and cross-selling for both staff and management.”

While management may not be the ones carrying out the upselling, members at this level of the organisation nonetheless benefit from having an overview of what goes into an effective upselling programme.

According to Johan, an in-depth upselling course ‘helps employees to understand that, in the business that we’re in, every penny counts and will contribute to greater total revenue. It also proves a point to management that both a technological and educational system around upselling is important to be able to get the most out of it.’

Elite Hotels plan to use the course materials in pre- and onboarding of hotel staff. They want to promote the mentality that whenever an opportunity arises to improve guest satisfaction or increase revenue, it should be taken. They believe that to involve staff in the endeavour of upselling early in their journey will create good habits and encourage ownership over both their own performance and that of complementary tech.

Especially for hotels that were forced to cut down on their staff, a course that can be taken independently reduces overall onboarding time and makes it possible for hotels to get new team members up to speed quickly and efficiently.

Here are a couple example scenarios that might arise from teams with an undeveloped approach to upselling, employing both traditional front desk upselling and digital upselling.

Example scenario at hotel front desk

1. Hotelier takes the time to train staff on upselling, but misses key info i.e. how to personalise to certain guests.
   
   
2. Front desk suggests Tennis Lessons, one of the more popular deals, to an arriving guest, without taking key details of the guest’s stay into consideration. The guest is actually here for one evening on business, so isn’t interested in leisure activities.
   
   
3. The potential benefit of the upsell opportunity is wasted because of these missed details. More awareness on front desk’s part could have resulted in incremental revenue from an Early Bird Breakfast or Airport Transfer.

1. Hotelier spends money on Oaky, but never explores the segmentation section because he is not aware of the associated benefits.
   
2. Consequently, the whole team doesn’t take full advantage of the automation that upsell tool provides and the workload is not lightened. Guests also see irrelevant deals that might make it harder to notice the right ones.

Knowing how to upsell in person, or how to use a digital platform is one thing - but knowing why will make all the difference. Knowing the background information, including the behavioural science and psychology that goes into effective upselling, empowers you and your staff to make informed decisions.

This extra knowledge is tangible whether your staff are using a digital upselling tool or following front desk protocol. Perhaps most importantly, it allows you and your staff the ability to diverge from the norm when the situation calls for it and bring home those results!

Whether you're a manager or employee, there's no better time than the present to study hotel upselling! Get started with your free certification or deepen your knowledge with course Level 2. P.S. newsletter subscribers get 25% off the Upselling in Depth (Subscribe below 👇).