Sage CRM success story - Hotel Grand Chancellor

Sage CRM Customer Success

Hotel Grand Chancellor becomes transparent and accountable with Sage CRM Customer Hotel Grand Chancellor Industry Hotels Location Australia Solution Sage CRM

‘Our investment in Sage CRM gives us a tremendous tool to better service our customers, and to maximise our sales opportunities’ David Hancock , Group Marketing Manager Hotel Grand Chancellor

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Grand Hotels International owns and operates Hotel Grand Chancellor properties throughout Australia and New Zealand. The group is known for great customer service and for offering excellent hotels in convenient locations with extensive meeting and event facilities.

of new opportunities in terms of managing sales and promoting cross sell opportunities throughout the organization.

To better manage and grow their existing business in Australia and New Zealand, Hotel Grand Chancellor implemented a Sage CRM solution from award-winning local firm Adexio, to streamline and enhance its sales and marketing activities.

The business The founding hotel in Singapore (Hotel Grand Central) was built in 1968, and listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange ten years later. Hotel Grand Central Limited rapidly expanded its hotel and commercial property interest into Australia and New Zealand during the 1990’s, purchasing commercial property across Australia and New Zealand.

By implementing a world class CRM application into its business, Hotel Grand Chancellor can now measure the effectiveness of their sales and marketing teams, identifying the activities and processes that result in opportunities and revenue. The new system has opened its eyes to a range

The Group now manages ten prestige properties under the Hotel Grand Chancellor brand in the Australia / New Zealand region, including properties in Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Launceston, Hobart, Christchurch, Wellington, Auckland city and Auckland Airport.

Challenge The group recognized the need to implement a more efficient system to manage sales activities and communication with existing and prospective customers. Communication and consistent processes were essential in order to maximize each sales opportunity.

teams, identifying the activities and processes that result in opportunities and revenue.

Solution By implementing a world class CRM application into their business, Hotel Grand Chancellor can now measure the effectiveness of its sales and marketing

Results Utilizing Sage CRM and mapping workflow and business processes has given management a better understanding of how sales are driven within the organization. This has allowed the group to identify new opportunities, target areas for improvement, and to better manage resources, improve customer service, and enhance sales performance.

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‘All sales people can see the activity of all other sales people, making everything very transparent. The system has encouraged communication and collaboration between sales people, and the transparency has promoted collective cross-selling to achieve improved results’ David Hancock , Group Marketing Manager Hotel Grand Chancellor

The business need With such a strong history and substantial investment in place, the group has a vested interest in maintaining a long term strategy in Australia and New Zealand, and to further develop its expertise in these burgeoning tourism markets.

As part of fulfilling this strategy, the group recognised the need to implement a more efficient system to manage sales activities and communication with existing and prospective customers. With a number of sales teams operating in each state of Australia and throughout New Zealand, the potential customer base included: government and corporate bodies; corporate travel managers; conference organizers; tour organizers; and travel agents; meaning that communication and consistent processes were essential in order to maximise each sales opportunity.

Historically, each local sales team operated in almost complete isolation, with little communication between the teams or sharing of customer or sales opportunity information. This limited interaction lead to a lack of collaboration between the teams, created an administrative burden, and unnecessarily hindered the sales process.

Without a central system for managing sales processes and customer information, senior management were also unable to effectively manage or measure sales activity.

Recognizing a strategic opportunity to improve sales performance, the group went to tender, inviting competitive bids from a number of solution providers.

The group chose Sage CRM as the new platform for managing sales and marketing applications, due mostly to its extensive sales support functionality, ease of development and the group’s own familiarity with web-based applications.

Knowing that it needed a strong partner to ensure project success, Hotel Grand Chancellor also selected Adexio to manage the project, provide training and install the solution.

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“Being an international firm ourselves, we understood immediately the unique needs of a firm with cross-regional sales and operations,” said Victoria Allen, Technical Account Manager for Adexio, and lead representative on the project. “We knew from experience that the Group would see immediate benefits in its sales and operational efficiency by using Sage CRM, and this is exactly what happened.”

The key objectives the new system had to meet were: • Operate a consolidated system for managing sales activity from leads to business received • Measure sales activity in terms of actual sales processes and generated business The solution The project took just six weeks from beginning the installation to going live.

After an initial two week period of internal training and development the new system was implemented state by state in Australia, then incorporated into the New Zealand operation.

Initially, Hotel Grand Chancellor purchased 20 Sage CRM licences, a figure that has since doubled, demonstrating the way in which the solution has assisted sales growth and performance. “The biggest challenge,” according to Group Marketing Manager, David Hancock, “was not knowing what we didn’t know. We knew what we needed but with this technology, there’s almost limitless potential for measurement and sales control. Our sales activities and CRM have evolved with the technology available to us. Our current version of CRM looks totally different to the original launch version and the way we use it has changed dramatically”.

To make this transition and manage the group’s changing expectations and understanding of the new system required the services of a partner that offered and could demonstrate substantial support and insight into the product itself.

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“Adexio demonstrated a genuine interest in our business, passion for the product, and strong expertise in the CRM arena. They fully understood our objectives and took the time to learn more about our industry and the unique challenges we face in terms of our sales process and distribution channels.”

The benefits Utilizing Sage CRM and mapping workflow and business processes has given management a better understanding of how sales are driven within the organization. This understanding has allowed the group to identify new opportunities, target areas for improvement, and to better manage resources, improve customer service, and enhance sales performance.

“Our general managers now have a much better understanding of sales performance due to the ease of reporting on sales activity and outcomes,” said Hancock.

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The key benefit delivered by the new system is that it allows Hotel Grand Chancellor to measure the effectiveness of its sales team and bring a greater transparency and accountability across all of the sales teams.

“All sales people can see the activity of all other sales people, making everything very transparent. The system has encouraged communication and collaboration between sales people, and the transparency has promoted collective cross-selling to achieve improved results”.

“We’re more focussed than ever on results, and our investment in Sage CRM gives us a tremendous tool to better service our customers, and to maximise our sales opportunities right across the region.”

About Sage CRM Over 15,000 small and medium sized companies across the globe use Sage CRM every day to accelerate sales, drive business productivity and make every customer interaction count. It is used by enterprising, growing companies seeking new ways to interact with customers, leverage the power of social media and take advantage of the latest mobile developments to further grow their business. When combined with Sage ERP, our customers enjoy better business insight, increased efficiencies and productivity, and gain a single, customer-centric view across their entire business. So whether you’re just starting out or have already grown to several hundred employees, Sage CRM can help accelerate your business success.

Accelerate your business success with a free 30-day trial at www.sagecrm.com

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