Scaling upselling through automation

How to use automation to scale upselling at your hotel 

In recent years, the adoption of automation has picked up speed in the hospitality industry. This trend further accelerated in the past year. 

Social distancing measures made contactless, automated services necessary. Hotels and accommodation providers with drastically reduced teams had to find ways to still provide great experiences and adapt to last-minute demand surges. Luckily, new solutions for every department make this possible. 

Upselling is a prime example: automation makes it easier and more effective. That’s good news since data shows that upselling revenue remained constant even as demand plummeted last year. 

Still, many hotels only upsell manually during check-in. Embracing automation tools, however, hoteliers can unleash a new stream of ancillary revenue while putting guests in control of their personal experience.  

Let’s look at the five steps of upselling and which areas most benefit from automation. 

Sourcing: Putting together your offers

The first step of your upselling journey is coming up with offers and putting together the deals you want to pitch to your guests. Your goal here is to create something guests desire and sell it at a competitive price

First, brainstorm: 

  • What do your guests want or need? This will be different for each of your guest segments. Create a separate list for each one and collect suitable ideas. 
  • What could make their trip better or more fun? Look through your reviews or ask your guests to find out which problems you solved for them or which extras made their stay better. That could be an airport transfer, a private trainer session, an in-room dining meal package, or something else. 

Once you’ve gathered all your ideas, it’s time to put your upsell offers together. 

Here are some questions to ask yourself when designing your deals:

  • Which services or products are included in each deal? 
  • How much do all these elements cost?
  • Which physical items do you need to procure?
  • Which services do you need your team to render?

You’ll need to manually do most of this work since you know best what you can offer to make your guests’ stay even better. If you want some extra inspiration, check the deal library to help you get started. 

Maintaining: Keeping track of your stock

Have an eye on your stock to avoid problems when it’s time to deliver the add-on your guest booked. This goes for both your physical products and services.

Here are some examples of finite products and services you may be promoting:

  • Higher category rooms 
  • Parking spots
  • Tables at your restaurant
  • Spa appointments
  • Butler service
  • Projectors for in-room movie nights
  • Deluxe wellness amenity sets

Keep count of them so you know when to stop offering something because you’ve sold out. This lets you do two things. First, you can create a sense of urgency by letting guests know that only one more suite is available, and they might miss out if they don’t upgrade now. Second, you’ll avoid disappointing travellers by telling them their chosen deal is no longer available. 

Automation can help here. If your upselling platform has a two-way connection with your Property Management System (PMS) and other relevant systems, your inventory gets updated in real-time. This takes the burden of counting your stock off your shoulders and ensures you only sell what’s available.

Selling: Offering your deals to guests

Selling your deals is a crucial step. Make this process as smooth as possible to give your guests a good experience and boost your conversion rates. Avoid making them feel like they’re being sold something but instead focus on how each deal is meant to make their stay better. 

Manual, in-personal upselling during check-in is the most widely established approach. It yields excellent results for many properties and has its place in your strategy. However, it shouldn’t be your only approach since it takes a lot of time and limits how many services you can pitch. It can also cause delays for your guests. For example, if they go for a higher room category during check-in, they often have to wait for the room to be prepared. 

Hotels achieve the best outcomes when they upsell across several channels, including at the front desk, via pre-arrival emails, and direct messaging in-house guests. An automated upselling platform can handle the entire sales process pre-arrival and in-stay. This approach gives guests time to browse your offers and book things when it suits them best. Your team benefits as well. The platform automatically notifies all departments involved (e.g. front office, housekeeping, and room service get pinged when a guest books an early check-in), and information gets to the right place on time. 

Delivering: Providing your add-on services.

Now we come to the most important part: delighting guests with the add-ons they booked. Offering a smooth experience will ensure travellers have such a great time, they’ll leave raving reviews. 

Setting yourself up for success starts during your sourcing stage. Think of possible areas of friction for each deal and how to avoid them. 

These three steps are an excellent place to begin:

  1. Ensure every department involved is informed and knows what to do. 
  2. Set timelines and monitor which tasks have been completed.
  3. Keep communicating new developments in real-time, so everyone can react. 

Automation can make all this a lot easier. Use an upselling platform to notify all departments of required steps when a guest books a deal. Then, leverage an internal communication and task management tool to create one central space where you can track your progress. This slashes the time you spend on calls and reduces human error. The results? Your team becomes more efficient, always delivers on time, and wows your guests with amazing service. 

Payment: Offering flexible options

Keep your guest’s overall experience in mind when you decide on payment options for your upselling offers. Someone might want to surprise their partner with a treat that shouldn’t appear on the invoice. Give them a chance to pay upfront. You may even require this option for some services by default, e.g. if you offer guests to pre-book a museum visit or a guided tour with an external partner. In either case, make it easy to pay in advance. This also reduces your risk and is good for your cash flow.

If you offer guests the chance to pay at the end of their stay, ensure all extras are added to the guest folio. Doing this manually takes unnecessary time and opens the door to errors. The most straightforward approach is to connect your upselling platform and PMS, so all data gets transferred automatically

Automated upselling gives your team more time to perfectly deliver the extra services and products your guests booked. At the same time, it reduces manual work and the risk of errors. 

It’s also a chance to scale your upselling, leverage different communication channels, reach more guests with your offers, and do so at the optimal time. Check all these boxes, and you’ll see both guest satisfaction and your ancillary revenue increase. 

If you want to see these results at your hotel but aren’t sure where to start, expert guidance can help put you on the right track to automating upselling at your hotel. Oaky’s Upselling in Depth online course and many other valuable resources on this topic will ensure you hit the ground running and start seeing results in no time. 


About the Author

Mattia Zanella, Account Executive for South Europe, UK & Ireland at Oaky

Passionate about travel, mountains, and sport, Mattia has completed his studies in Venice before moving to Amsterdam and landing in the software industry. He loves helping hotel owners and managers to find new revenue flows for their properties by improving their Upsell efforts. While reading business books or cooking Italian, you might hear him saying the slogan: “There is always an opportunity“.

Connect with Mattia on Linkedin.

Oaky is a Contributing Member of techtalk.travel


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