Background
Apulia Hotel is a chain of luxury hotels located in central and southern Italy, with 16 properties including villages, residences and premium hotels, distributed between Rome and Palermo. With annual sales of about 30 million euros and more than 950 seasonal employees, Apulia Hotel welcomes about 30,000 guests each year. The chain has set a goal to improve communication with customers and optimize the conversion rate of quote requests, harnessing the power of digital channels such as WhatsApp.
Case Study
Apulia Hotel's main challenge was to automate actions performed manually by the sales team, particularly follow-up with customers who had requested a quote but had not completed a reservation. Afterwards, sales workers would manually re-contact customers who had not booked, trying to understand the reasons and stimulate a new reservation.
This manual process was time-consuming and resource intensive. Prior to adopting Spoki, Apulia Hotel had tested various nurturing systems such as WhatsApp Business for some actions and other tools such as SMS, email and Manychat, but these had high costs and suboptimal results.
Strategy
The strategy adopted by Apulia Hotel involved the use of Spoki integrated with ActiveCampaign. This approach made it possible to automate the follow-up process with customers who had requested a quote but had not booked within four days. The process involved sending a WhatsApp message via Spoki to prompt customers to contact the hotel again or complete the reservation.
Currently, Apulia Hotel's audience is accustomed to concluding negotiations over the phone, so sending WhatsApp messages proved to be an essential touchpoint for reconnection.
Approximately 200,000 annual leads are handled with this system, with the sales team maintaining contact and responding to customer objections to finalize the booking.
Implementation and Integration
Apulia Hotel has used several tools to implement this strategy:
- CRM ActiveCampaign: To manage and segment contacts.
- Zapier: To automate the workflow and integration between Spoki and ActiveCampaign.
- Spoki: To send automated WhatsApp messages to customers.
1. Initial Segmentation
Contacts were initially segmented based on certain conditions, such as the type of facility requested and the status of the quote. This segmentation allowed contacts to be differentiated based on their potential interest and current status in their customer journey.
2. Customization of Communications
Once segmented, contacts were assigned different tags that further qualified them. This allowed Apulia Hotel to customize messages and offers based on each contact's specific situation and preferences.
3. Customized Automations
Based on the responses provided by customers, various automations were triggered. For example, if a customer did not respond within four days, a WhatsApp message was automatically sent via Spoki to stimulate them to complete the booking.
4. Monitoring and Adaptation
Each step of the workflow was monitored to make sure there were no funnels or obstacles in the automations. This allowed for continuous process optimization and improved communication efficiency.
Results Achieved
- Improved Conversion Rate: Thanks to the use of Spoki, the conversion rate on submitted quotes increased by 4.5 percent , contributing to the achievement of 30 million in sales.
- Number of Leads Managed: Approximately 200,000 leads annually.
- WhatsApp Messages Sent.: 11,726 messages sent through Spoki.
- Message Reading Rate.: 99% of messages sent were read.
- Message Response Rate.: 3,617 customers responded to messages sent through Spoki.
- Reduced Operational Costs.: Automation of follow-up processes has reduced the operational costs associated with manual re-contact actions.
Customer Feedback
Customers perceived WhatsApp messages as a very natural and preferable form of communication compared to email. The simplicity and effectiveness of Spoki were rated very highly, with high scores for ease of use and overall satisfaction. WhatsApp was perceived as a direct and personal channel, increasing customer engagement and satisfaction.
Conclusion
The innovative synergy between Apulia Hotel and Spoki, with the strategic use of WhatsApp and integration with ActiveCampaign, has led to remarkable results in terms of increased conversion rates, communication efficiency and reduced operational costs. This success case demonstrates the effectiveness of adopting advanced technologies and a customer-centric approach to meet the needs of an ever-changing market such as the hospitality industry.
CREDITS
Company: Apulia Hotel
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