how can a guest or reservation agent might understand the reservation process and respond to the guest needs

1. What a Booking Misunderstanding might caused to a guest
By Ahmed Mahmoud
Founder www.revenueyourhotel.com
This is a true story by one guest about a problem with a hotel honoring a room price.
Through the internet the guest tried to book three nights at XYZ hotel, but for some
reason the site wouldn’t accept his dates. So he phoned the hotel’s toll-free number,
and was offered a rate of 180 US$ per night. The case was, they never asked him
how many people were staying in the room.
The hotel e-mailed him a confirmation and he prepaid the entire three-night stay for
the room by credit card. Then he realized that he needed to add another night to his
stay for the night before the return flight, so he called back. He was told that he could
get an extra night at the same rate. They didn’t send an e-mail confirmation this time.
When his credit card statement arrived, he was surprised to see that the charges
from the hotel were more than $260 higher than what he had originally quoted. He
tried to call and e-mail the hotel, but the best explanation they could offer was that
there was a “different rate” for two people in the room. That didn’t make any sense
for him, because he had always known and planned to travel with his wife. There had
been no mention of a “double” rate, and his reservation indicates nothing about
number of people in the room.
At the end of the story the guest was asking, why are they not honoring his
confirmation and verbal agreement to the rate for his stay?
The answer could be of several reasons why the guest was charged more for his
room than he expected, that reasons I will leave it for your imagination.
But these for sure lead us for the story about 4 employees called Anybody,
Somebody, And Everybody? And Nobody?
There was a really important job to be taken care of for a customer. Everybody
thought somebody would take care of it. Anybody could have done it but nobody did
– leaving the customer very angry!!!
You as XYZ agent take a guest reservation how do you feel when talking to someone
who is not listening to you?
>Annoyed >Frustrated >Wasting your time.
Many individual travelers get confused of the hotel industry terminology, Ie, a guest
asking for single room, reservation agent book it for him as single person, when the
guest check in it was 2 person based on single bed type. Thus makes big difference
and revenue lost , if we did not have or gave the correct information from and to the
guest.

2. A few years ago, a reservations agent taking a guest’s call might simply ask, “May I
help you?” and then “when would you like to stay with us?” nowadays the approach
is different. Our reservations people called reservations sales agent , so our focus is
not simply taking a guest’s order, but on selling the property’s services to the guest.
The prominent in the mind of today’s reservations sales agent is “How can I convince
you to stay with us.
As it is said, The Reservations Department is where everything starts.
So It is strongly recommended that all hotel/resort should have hotel computer
software system installed. Most of reservation department tasks would involve
computer work which staff can be trained by suppliers as departmental trainers.
However, manual system provided where hotel computer software system for
reservation department tasks - and although this may not be applicable for computer
- run properties, the knowledge of this most “basic” manual system will be very
beneficial for the reservation staff to understand the basics.
Of course It has been developed a complete sales process for reservations agents
that
Includes such basic customer relations skills as listening, tone of voice, and phone
etiquette. The first steps in this process are greeting the customer, determining the
customer’s needs, and offering features and benefits that meet those needs. The
next steps involve making a recommendation, adjusting the recommendation, closing
the sale, and wrapping up the call.
That sales process should be from time to time to be refreshing to insure the prompt
service to our customer.
The key to the whole reservations process is determining the customer’s needs. Our
reservations sales agents must see each customer as unique. It’s very important for
reservations sales agents to quickly determine the type of traveler they’re talking to,
so they can relate features and benefits that best fit that particular customer. For
example, corporate travelers might want to hear more about club level rooms and
their amenities, whereas leisure travelers might want to hear more about recreational
features in and outside the property.
Order taking, per se, is still part of the business. There are customers who know
exactly what they want, when, and where. In these instances, the emphasis is on
providing quick, efficient, professional service. However, strict order-taking is done on
a small percentage of the calls our company receives anymore. That’s why sales and
sensitivity to the guest’s needs are SO important in today’s hospitality environment.