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America's Best 'Techno' Foot Forward America's Best Franchising is going grass roots with its social media strategy to build guest loyalty. Friday, September 07, 2012 Glenn Haussman

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Americas Best Franchising is embracing the technological future. Executives at the 20 year old company are highly focused on how its customers want to interact with the brand and realize core customers have taken to the internet almost exclusively to investigate and interact with the company’s hotels.

With four brands and nearly 250 properties, CEO Doug Collins is taking a more grass roots approach to marketing. That is, instead of dumping millions in advertising they’re working on connecting personally with guests through social media and other techno-powered ways.

And he says that plan is boosting delivered reservations an amazing 39 percent in the last year – its largest single year increase ever--  to his family of brands which includes the upscale 3 Palms Hotels & Resorts and the upper economy segmented brands Budgetel Inns & Suites, Country Hearth Inns & Suites and America’s Best Inns & Suites.

“The marketplace is different and the industry has changed. Today’s marketplace brings tomorrow’s opportunities. We have to constantly review, rethink and recommit and embrace the future together,” said Collins in his welcome speech at the brands annual convention, which was held yesterday and today in Atlanta. “We are high tech and high touch. We bring state of the art technology along with old fashioned hands on customer service.”

Collins stressed the importance of local marketing declaring that this industry is really a “street corner business” and that one market may be completely different than any other. “We understand what drives business to your door and we can make needed changes,” he said.

Collins said in the past he personally visited every hotel in the system every year but since the company has grown in recent years it is not as practical. But he does make sure his team makes regular visits to handle property level challenges and suss out opportunity.

Collins also said the company is the only hotel franchisor to have dedicated multi page websites for each property that include elements such as blogging capabilities. The company is also highly focused on a social media strategy and has added a full time social media specialist to manage the process more effectively. He also said the company has done a “major technological redesign” for each brand’s website and launched an instant reservations system for mobile phones.

A cornerstone strategy for the company is reputation management and focus on monitoring all online comments and posting responses.

“You can have a great hotel with a great location and service but if someone gives you a bad review it can damage reputation. This is a new thing are we are trying to stay ahead of the curve. This is an area we can help our franchisees,” said Collins.

Since this effort started in January of this year Renee Walsh, Director of Brand Marketing said she has collected nearly 5,000 comments.

“You can influence consumer and that equals revenue for your hotel. It is imperative to interact with consumers because they are more likely to choose a hotel that actively engages its customers and reacts to online comments. This is another form of customer service,” said Walsh.

Walsh said the home office tracks all comments from the major travel related websites such as TripAdvisor, Yelp, Google Places, Orbitz, CitySearch, Yahoo Local Four Square and more. Then all comments are delivered to the hotel at 4pm every day. She encouraged hoteliers to publish the positive reviews on their own sites.

By organizing all comments for each hotel the company is able to simply for the process for owners and general managers who do not have the time or experience to do this on their own.

Walsh said this gives hoteliers the opportunity to respond quickly and effectively with thank yous for positive comments and address any negative issues that might crop up.

In regards to negative comments Walsh said: “People are not trying to be mean or sabotage your hotel, they typically they just want to be heard. Put yourself in their shoes and let them know you will use [their comments] as a suggestion for improvement if it is something [that is realistic.].”

She also suggests all responses be from a GM or the owner, show sincerity and to never reuse responses so it does not seem like a form letter.

“If we can do this together and thank people for positive reviews and placate those with negative reviews we will get repeat business. That is the homerun here,” said Collins.