Kenya's leading upmarket hotel group, Sarova Hotels, has used GoldMine, the customer relationship management application from FrontRange Solutions, to close more sales and make its marketing and sales campaigns more attractive to its target markets.
Sarova Hotels' information technology (IT) manager, Benjamin Muatha, says: "GoldMine has been a great product for us, in terms of helping us realise the full potential of the business from a sales perspective. Our sales people consistently achieve the best volumes in the Kenyan hotel industry.
"GoldMine has also been a key competitive advantage, because it ensures we get the kinds of business we want from the markets we target. And, because of the insights it gives us through the data we collect about our customers as well as about the activities, priorities and capabilities of our sales staff, it helps us close more sales than anyone in the local industry."
Looking for a solution that would allow Sarova management to understand, monitor and refine the activities and schedules of sales staff covering the company's six luxury hotels in the bush, at the beach and in the main centre of Nairobi, Sarova researched products on the Internet.
"Price was not a factor, because we always go for the best," Muatha said. "What made GoldMine stand out for us was the fact that support was available on demand and FrontRange Solutions gave its full backing always.
"In addition, GoldMine is easy to use, which would enable us to train our 20 sales staff in the shortest possible time. Also, the implementation period was remarkably short. We were able to get up and running in three months.
"And, GoldMine gave us the means of keeping our customer database in-house instead of having to outsource it. That enables us to ensure our sales activity is qualitative and highly targeted. We can see who our sales people are going to meet and how those meetings go - which, in turn, enables us not only to ensure follow-up but that follow-ups are relevant and appropriately structured so as to deliver a sale."
In addition, GoldMine facilitates regular, accurately segmented communication with Sarova's client base, automating mailshots and other forms of communication to airlines, corporate and diplomatic markets, and travel and other trade agencies. "And it helps us exploit seasonality better by creating and marketing, for instance, the most appealing Valentine's Day or Christmas or Easter packages," Muatha says.
FrontRange Solutions (SA) product manager for Africa, Paul Bornhutter, says GoldMine tightens sales discipline without in any way reducing the warmth of relationships built by sales people with customers. "If anything, it actually enhances the human relationships because the focus and structure it imposes on sales people enables them to keep promises and, therefore, build the credibility they have with customers.
"Also, many sales people who would otherwise resist the idea of what they see as being managed by software and, therefore, restricted to a formula that threatens to diminish their personal relationships with customers become GoldMine converts very quickly when they see how the customer database automatically links customer behaviour patterns - giving them insights into how best to approach the customer that would otherwise be lost in the ongoing whirl of appointments, quotations, and bookings."
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