Karen Stephens/Intro – 00:00:04: Welcome to the Hotel Moment Podcast presented by Revinate, the podcast where we discuss how hotel technology shapes every moment of the hotelier’s experience. Tune in as we explore the cutting-edge technology transforming the hospitality industry and hear from experts and visionaries shaping the future of guest experiences. Whether you’re a hotelier or a tech enthusiast, you’re in the right place. Let’s dive in and discover how we can elevate the art of hospitality together.

Brent Sanders – 00:00:33: My name is Brent Sanders. For those of you who haven’t met me, I work with Revinate on the education team. I’ve worked for up coming up on 12 years with Revinate and very, very excited to introduce a professional colleague, as well as a wonderful friend of mine, Miranda Cubillas. Miranda, we’re so happy to have you share insights, stories, success stories. Get us all inspired to do the right thing and move our companies in the right direction. We’re really excited to have you. Miranda, I’m going to turn it over to you and let you introduce yourself a little bit.

Miranda Cubillas – 00:01:16: Yes, happy to. And thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to have just celebrated 19 years with the resort. So I really have always leaned on that time in my development. I spent a lot of time answering the calls and representing the resort, both in a group perspective, as well as a leisure sales. And it’s always really aided me in my career. So I spent almost a decade actually working with our guests before I pursued leadership and have transitioned to be really passionate in that. So we’ve been partners at Revinate for 13 years. I am so excited that we helped develop the Luxe Team with Courtney Witherspoon. So it’s always gone far before, far beyond a soft relationship. We’ve really been able to develop that over the years and people in the meetings and the conferences as well. That’s what I’ve always appreciated going and meeting in Austin. So it’s nice to piggyback on all of that. So I’m excited to get in with it and see how we can leverage different reporting to really make the most of what we’re doing as a company beyond just answering the calls, right?

Brent Sanders – 00:02:35: Exactly. So you want to tell them a little bit about Ojai so that everyone can understand what kind of property you’re representing. And it kind of puts things, I think, into perspective a little bit.

Miranda Cubillas – 00:02:47: Love to. That’s great. So Ojai is nestled in the valley, just 45 minutes inland from Santa Barbara, about an hour and a half from Los Angeles. We are tucked in these really beautiful mountains. We’re 220 acres, primarily golf course. We’re PGA certified. It is a classic George C. Thomas golf course. You don’t have to be a member to play there, nor do you have to be a resort guest. So we really celebrate that. We also have a freestanding 3,200 square foot spa. It’s a beautiful single building and facility focused on wellness. We do have 307 keys on property and we sit at a healthy balance for both group and leisure. We’ve got fun farmhouse, different culinary offerings that we focus on for leisure. And we really try to celebrate in-town vendors. Ojai is really known for its kind of artistic, eclectic-driven, really mom-and-pop kind of community. So we really enhance what’s beyond just the resort to give our incoming guests a really healthy perspective. And as you can see in the photo, it sits on a valley. So it really cascades down a mountainside. I encourage any of you, my email is first initial last name. If we have a pleasure of welcoming you, I always love to celebrate. Fellow colleagues in the industry, do let me know. We’d love to host you in Ojai.

Brent Sanders – 00:04:23: Wonderful. Thank you for setting the stage there, Miranda. So Miranda mentioned the partnership, did you say 12 years with Revinate?

Miranda Cubillas – 00:04:31: Yes.

Brent Sanders – 00:04:32: It’s a deep partnership, and I love that. And I think as for everybody that’s on the phone who are working together and trying to do these new exciting things, I am sharing a recent send that came from Ojai that booked over 1,500 room nights. We want to celebrate this because there’s some information in here we’re looking at, they’re really celebrating the on-property experience. As Miranda said, it’s more than just the accommodations. It’s the experience that happens. We saw that beautiful, beautiful shot of your resort in the valley, but you’re really highlighting some, the experience that happens at Ojai.

Miranda Cubillas – 00:05:10: I’m curious, in our audience, do we have people more reservations or marketing? Andrea, what’s your role with your property?

Andrea La Rock – 00:05:20: Good morning. I’m the reservation manager.

Miranda Cubillas – 00:05:23: Great. So I would love as reservations to piggyback on what Brent’s speaking of. So as you can see from these different marketing efforts, we try to partner with marketing so that they can understand what’s happening on the phones. How are these guests coming to us, right? What different channels? Because there’s so many different flows of communication to our team and being able to communicate that effectively with the people who are marketing your brand and ensuring that we’re getting ahead of our booking window. So I really encourage on-stay experiences. Brent, thank you for sharing these because they are recent and it really highlights us going in advance to really set up our guests prior to when they’re coming, right? Does your marketing team, do they understand when your guests are calling for their stay dates or different activities that you’re offering on property? Ensuring that this sort of information is in their hands in enough time to really build those itineraries for their stay prior to arrival, right?

Brent Sanders – 00:06:38: Right. So they can’t find out about all the great things that happen in your pre-arrival letter. You’re getting well ahead of that, looking at the lead time for your guests and getting this in their hands, getting them excited about the experience that they’re going to potentially have.

Miranda Cubillas – 00:06:55: Yes. And I think it’s important to really focus on that excellence. And in reservations, we have such an opportunity to educate our teams as well. It’s not just about preparing your guests, but in this first bullet point where you can see maintaining a culture of excellence that boosts the profitability. If it’s marketing is doing their job and highlighting what offerings are there based on your SMART planning, and this is when it’s going to be actionable for our guests, what do you have built internally to really support the agents that are on the phone representing the brand, taking those phone calls? Do they know about the campaigns before they’re sent? Do your team on property or off property understand what it feels like at these sort of experiences so they can speak confidently and really be empowered to be the first examples of what your guests should come to expect when they come on property. So I always love to coin what you’ve said in different conferences, Brent, but inspect what we expect, right? It’s so important that we’re not reactive to coaching opportunities, that we really make responsible decisions and culture that words mean things. And what does culture mean to you? And what does that mean to the people who support and work for you that are answering the phones? Do you have a culture of continued education, of exporting talent to cross departmentals on property, right? Do you have the culture of coaching so that it doesn’t feel like it’s reactive based, that will we coach all the time? And it’s coupled with goal setting and letting them know where their efforts lie.

Brent Sanders – 00:08:53: Perfect. So can we dive a little bit deeper? You mentioned, can your team speak confidently about the experience? And I’ve learned that having your team get out there and participate in these experiences is so crucial for them to feel like they’re a part of it. So they’re not speaking about a resort that they, we hear that language. I’m sure everybody on the phone has heard someone say, oh yeah, I’m sorry, they’ve decided this. And all of a sudden they’re not part of the family. When they participate in experiences, for example, did you have a feeling, Miranda, like people could win an opportunity to get a spot experience? Is that something that happened?

Miranda Cubillas – 00:09:34: Yes. And I will just say we used to be fully on property. We were 100% on-site reservation agents, leadership, revenue, etc. And thankfully, during the pandemic, we, with the support of Revinate and NAVIS, was able to retain all of our employees. And because of owners’ decisions, we, in fact, needed to double our personnel and so we effectively were able to do that in 100% now remote capacity. And we’ve also been able to establish what is a minimum level of expectation. And I think that allows you, if you’re confident in what you expect from your team and train accordingly, it certainly sets you as a director, manager, leader, the supervisors to be consistent in that. So we do have a healthy number of staff that are close enough to be able to frequent the resort. There are, though, people that live in different states, one that visits actually another country twice a year for over a month. So we do, the supervisors, they all live far. They actually can’t come to property. Ski and I are the only one that daily work on-site. But they have different spa services that you book the most in spa. You come and get a spa day. And our services are upwards of $3.50. And it’s coupled with an entire experience. We also have, when I hear guests coming or associates coming in, we do treat them like guests. I try to book rooms. We reach out to our food and beverage leaders so that they can experience different venues. You really have to equip your agents with what it means to feel like a guest on your property, because oftentimes they are that first representation. And yes, even if your team work on property, I used to say the horse blinders, right? If you’re in a horse race, they wear these blinder goggles that they look better, stronger, faster. You’re always moving as quick as you can, right? And it’s not about that. That’s not the luxury business that we all are assigned to. Our brand means so much more than that. So your agents have to know what it feels like. They have to feel like guests when they’re on property. You as a leader really should go out of your way when your remote team is here to welcome them personally. I often will ask them on your day’s offer when you can come in for a full rooms or property tour. Our owners, we are individually owned. We’re not part of a flagship. Our owners constantly invest in different guest amenities for the resort. So it’s important that we keep educating. And it’s one thing to onboard. You really have to protect the onboarding of new associates, that developmental. And it’s really a year. If we in reservations are honest with ourselves, it takes a year till I feel an agent is really confident in their role. And then what is your continued education program looks like? And I think it needs to have, Brent, as you’re speaking to those experiences so that it’s tangible. You sell what you talk about.

Brent Sanders – 00:12:59: That’s exactly right. Thank you so much. Also, some of the things I already know about Ojai and some of the changes that you’ve made along the way, because I’m sure it looks different now. And how many different roles since you’ve been in the partnership have you had Miranda?

Miranda Cubillas – 00:13:13: Sure. So when I first started, I was a group reservation agent. And within six months, as soon as I could transfer into leisure sales, I did. And I was in that role until, well, I did a lot of training and onboarding because I love to teach people how to use the various programs and the resort. So I was a res agent for about seven years and then became a supervisor, drank the Kool-Aid, really understood the universal pulled back perspective and how one thing can trigger another. And I was a supervisor for about three years, manager, then became director. In 2021, 20, I became a director of reservations and took on recreations. And that I really tried a lot of the ability to Revinate. And it’s because we have such an incredible opportunity to listen to what our guests are saying, listen to our agents. And if you as a leader of a reservations office can put together a really good formula to encourage education, continued development, it will encourage retention. And that breeds a real sense of confidence. In our last role, we had a supervisor newly promoted. We had seven of 25 reservation agents apply for that role. So create a mindset of growth and investment. Be what you want, not the current position you’re in. And so I was able to take that knowledge and then amplify that on on-property activities. And so taking over recreation, what are your guests wanting before they get here? And how is you as a property can really pivot to make more things they’re asking for available and achievable? At one time, at one time, we were really couples, older centric. And we’ve switched into millennials have traveled. And it is about experiences. It’s about getting in there and taking those pictures and being on the ground. It’s not about quiet retreat. And in reservations, we know that. So if you can continue to have conversations and open up those cross-departmental conversations with front office, with food and beverage, with different departments, you can capitalize on that profitability, get people to stay on property, book activities. I always bring them to the conference, but I laugh. I always have honey sticks. What is your property known for? How can you leverage that and educate your res agents to really know and be able to sell accordingly? What seasonal things do you offer? And how are you pivoting to support when we are slower on groups? What are we offering to support maybe the food and beverage banquet servers? There’s things that we can do and maybe partner with locals, have talent. That’s another thing. I think if you sit back and watch your agents and see where they really play, you have to hire right. And I think it’s important to take your time. Don’t hire because you have a position open. Hire because you see potential and a work ethic. And you can teach them the programs, but you can’t teach them. Dependability and care and a real hospitality mindset. You can continue to develop that. And I always have my coaching sessions. Coach the coach. As managers, are you checking in with your supervisors? And even for them, did you know if they want your job? And how are you supporting them to get there? So I always use the SMART, are your goals specific? Are they measurable? Are they achievable? Are they relevant to what is going on, be it with the guests or your agents? And what’s the timeframe that we’re putting on it? And if you stay consistent with that, people will start to come prepared to different coaching sessions. And you’ll see it to be able to move your mark a lot easier.

Brent Sanders – 00:17:34: I love that. What I also love that you just mentioned, Miranda, is that you have a secondary education plan. I mean, we have it dialed in so many times as leaders of the departments. We know exactly what onboarding looks like. But once that’s done, we don’t have anything else mapped out. And I think it’s really, really important to keep people engaged and to have a path. Res agent one, res agent two, whatever that path is, let people grow into. And then maybe ultimately you and I both have shared the pride that we feel when people are working at other departments, that they’ve gone beyond us and moved on to the next place. But you’re driving that. And there’s a place for that. And I think continued education, specifically around what it’s like to be a guest and really diving into that day in the life. So then share that easily. And it just comes off like second nature is really important. And I think that’s a really important thing that you said. So I appreciate that, not just because I’m a trainer, but because it really is keeping your people engaged and where’s everything next.

Miranda Cubillas – 00:18:44: And the supervisors specifically, they’re the ones that are growing your res agents on the phone. And we use, I will say, a company called Camtasia. And we have screen recording abilities. And we create group coaching sessions. Our supervisors each have an assigned res agent. And they have, yes, the inspect what you expect, the housekeeping, are you dotting your I’s, crossing T’s. But then we have a growth mindset, which is a group coaching session. It allows for seven agents with one supervisor to get together and have an open forum conversation like this. Targeted to specifics. As a team, this is what we’re seeing on our key performance indicators or our Revinate post guest surveys on our phone volume. So we have different open communication. If one person’s asking something, we’ve multiplied it by six. We then share it on our drive so it’s accessible. You don’t have to come in on your days off. You can have each of the different leaders. It’s the same subject. But they have different ways of coaching and kind of dropping the mic. So use your supervisors. Really exhaust their talents as well. Have them work together. And we also have calibration meetings, which I think are really important. We, as a group, listen to a call with our scoring template and we grade it. And then we come together. What did you say? Yes, no. Yes, no. That way, when you’re moving your agents from supervisor to supervisor, you know they may have a different take on how to deliver a standard or an expectation. But they still do it. And they hear it. And they’re still having the same standard. That is what creates that culture. And you’re able then to audit those calls, score the calls. But your minimum level, again, we talk about that, is 93% on an average. And I think it’s important to, as soon as you get the calls that show that opportunity where an agent may be slipping or off their game, that you create a transparent conversation, even if it is remote, to have those conversations. Because, they check in with guests. We talk about emotional intelligence. We want them to understand and read below the right, I want to come to property. Okay, well, what does that mean to you? We need to know, are you as invested in your agents?

Brent Sanders – 00:21:26: So true. And I think now that we’ve jumped to this idea of coaching and effective coaching, I, as anybody who’s ever been to a pre-training, we spend a lot of time talking about coaching because I think it’s the place where a lot of reservation managers feel a little less comfortable. Obviously, I want to encourage people and obviously I want to help. But am I really, beyond being a cheerleader, am I an effective coach? And I think we don’t believe in ourselves enough. So can you talk to me a little bit about what those coaching sessions look like? You mentioned even using a third party, something that allows you to now record these coaching sessions.

Miranda Cubillas – 00:22:11: So it’s a website and all it does is do a screen record and it makes us download it and we’re able to save it to our Google Drive. Because we do have a 100% remote team now, we do leverage our recording to make sure that we’re onboarding consistently. I think it’s important that in order to drive certain sales, guest loyalty and ensure your brand is being achieved, that there is consistent onboarding. So maintaining that and what your operations expects as well. So we have 10 calls every month that the supervisors have to listen to. There’s two coaching sessions and it’s based on those goals. I think we talk about emotional intelligence. You have to look individually when you’re scoring and coaching someone, what’s going to drive them. You can take tests and you have to know who you’re talking to. Are they a winner? Are they needing to be right? Do they need to feel comfortable with what’s going on? And in a normal state of mind, we’re a little bit of all of that. But naturally, when someone goes into a coaching session, oftentimes you can feel very defensive. And I think it’s how you as a leader approach it and ensuring that you are consistent with it. And use the same language. I don’t come in with goals on a coaching session. That’s a corrective conversation. That’s a very specific, you did this. This is what I need to have a conversation. But coaching is about growth. And what can I partner with you to create opportunities for you to feel more comfortable or confident in said area? That’s where I learned I needed to do rooms tours because we are remote and our owners do continuously invest in the FF&E, find things in the room they needed to come and be on property. So coaching can be where you’re learning, too. And I think it’s important that we ask questions.

Brent Sanders – 00:24:17: I always say coaching is a two-way conversation. There are two people involved and they both have to be actively involved for this to be a successful coaching session. So it’s so important to listen, to understand we come into these, you hit the nail on the head. Try not to come in with your own agenda, ready to hear how you can assist your agent and be prepared to repeat yourself. Be prepared to listen and be prepared to explain it in another way. Trust me, I’m not here just saying this is a whiteboard and agents can just show up. Both of you have to show up with an open mind. But if an agent is what I found most of the time, if you really show up open and ready, they are a bit more open and ready as well. And you’re stuck with the same energy, right?

Miranda Cubillas – 00:25:07: That’s right. You get what you put out. And I think if you’re nervous because you know they’re nervous, it’s going to perpetuate that feeling. And I think being honest about it, this is new and we are going to try as a leadership team something new and it’s going to feel a little uncomfortable for everyone at first. And I hope to grow and invest in you as much as I hope to learn and be invested in by you. And I think if we stop talking so much about positions and where you are and really come at it from how can we just all learn, support and empower one another, a lot more healthy things can come from that. I’ve noticed that in our meetings with our CSM is when you come into it with an I wonder why they’re talking about this or encouraging this, ask them questions because I’ll say Jennifer, she’s my RCSM in Ojai. And we’re blessed in that we do use Revinate in the sales, the phone. We also use it in post-guest surveys and marketing. So we have a nice little stack deck of portfolio items and we’ve been able to really leverage that and help with guest loyalty programs and recognizing return guests. And I think if you know how to get different players from your company at the table, you can really talk about programs that are set in reservations and how they can make a difference with on-property spend, with guest retention. We can develop and invest in the res agents and I’m happy to partner with people on developing and how to have really effective coaching conversations. It is something that I’m personally very passionate about. And I think if we can use what we do in reservations and the different reporting to show important people from on-property departments how it works. And it is about reports, right? It’s facts, not feelings. And I think that has helped tremendously with driving sales and comfortabilities. Our front office team in Ojai is so much more invested in Revinate and what it means for us as a hotel and brand. It’s incredible.

Brent Sanders – 00:27:37: That’s awesome. I just want to open this up real quickly to the group. Does anybody who’s on the call have any questions about coaching or about any of the topics that we’ve discussed thus far? I want to make sure that we have this ability to unmute yourself and speak. So please, I want to give it to somebody a chance. Does anyone have any questions for Miranda?

Melissa McMullin: I have one while everybody else is thinking about maybe they want to ask. Miranda, do you have like any specific examples? You know, you’re just talking about how the reservation team can work with all the other departments on property to create like the spend, you know, increase on site spend. Have you found anything that was like, oh, this really worked well for us? Or is it more just kind of a general, a lot of things that you do?

Miranda Cubillas – 00:28:25: Honestly, it’s helped with employee recognition programs and using your post-stay surveys when there are different associates named. What are you doing with that? How is a resort? Are you getting behind? Is it celebrated? That really creates an entire property morale boost. And it also normalizes the language behind Revinate and post-stay surveys. It allows us, when we do go to different departments, acknowledge associates who are recognized. Our human resources department has four parking spots that have spaces. So they’re real-life things that you can hit print and then put up on a wall that will speak to different departments. And unless they’re in there and feel comfortable knowing, they don’t really know how to get there. You can also teach them how to set up certain reports so they can see in advance what their arrivals look like, what their VIPs look like. On your arrival report, how many guests have been here before and how many times have they been here? What sort of things do they ask for and expect? So we can use flag reports to really set your operational team up for success and not feeling overwhelmed by some, we call them GSOs or guest service opportunities, right? Those guests that are consistently show us how they’re going to act. And really think about how you’re coaching your team to it. Be positive and role play. I’m a huge, huge celebrator of role play. Well, let’s talk about it. And be the agent. Be the one that feels what they’re going through so that you can give them your tips. You’re in your position for a reason. And if you flip it and are that vulnerable and role play for them, I really think it has helped in effectiveness.

Brent Sanders – 00:30:25: Absolutely. Thank you. I also just want to take a moment and clarify that Miranda did mention she uses reservation sales. They have marketing, Revinate Marketing, and also Revinate Guest Feedback where they’re sending the post-stay survey. The Marketing Arrivals Report is what she’s referencing that pulls in what score they gave you on their post-stay survey if they did that before. You can have that as a column. You can have their lifetime spend as a column, how many room nights they’ve stayed previously.

Miranda Cubillas – 00:30:55: Right.

Brent Sanders – 00:30:55: A column. This won’t replace the property management system arrivals report that the desk is using, but it certainly would enhance it and help them organize themselves for the day. I also love getting everyone involved in this feedback because even a front desk clerk will recognize that if I don’t get an email address for this person, they may not get the survey and they may not say how wonderful I was. So now everyone is focused on getting an email address. And so this becomes a driver for the whole company to be aligned on for future marketing, for the feedback that’s coming to pat them on the back. And obviously for the agent who’s getting it at the time of booking for confirmations, this email address becomes something that is gold all around the resort and not just in marketing.

Miranda Cubillas – 00:31:47: You’ve really nailed it. And do they understand that? And what does it mean? Even a group guest, if they’re coming on a wedding. Are your front desk capturing that email for Opera and getting into lead sheets? And well, why? Because that’s a leisure guest. That is someone who is coming, even if it’s an incentive trip. So you really nailed it with the email. And we, in our leadership, we actually inspect and audit calls specifically for capturing email addresses. We have quantified for our reservation agents and our front desk operators and your CSM. I encourage all of you to ask your CSM about this. They are able to drill down how much money each email address in Revinate allows you. And I encourage you to create an incentive program around that for front desk agents. And that’s something for you to encourage on another department. And that’s you showing front office. Listen, we care about your agents. And I think it’s a good idea for you to tie something to how many emails they’re able to capture in a shift. Maybe you use resort money. Maybe you’ve got a little stockpile of at the end of the month, the person who captures the most emails at time of arrival gets to go to an on-property activity. And I think it’s a way for us to collaborate and kind of bridge those gaps between a pre-arrival, which is reservation sales, and being able to really be able to impact operations. Because at the end of the day, our reservation agents are selling the dream and talking about what it feels like to be on property. How are we supporting as a department and a mentality those on-property departments?

Melissa McMullin – 00:33:53: We did have a question in the chat. This is from Barbara. So how are reservation agents like me updated about upcoming campaigns before they are released? So when we showed your example earlier, Miranda, you know, how do you work with your marketing team so that your team feels prepared for all these upcoming campaigns?

Miranda Cubillas – 00:34:10: Yes, and I can absolutely speak to when that wasn’t the case. And oftentimes I would answer a phone and our caller was educating us about a golf now, maybe that they read in the plane. So it takes leadership and taking initiative and going over to our marketing team and showing them how many calls that campaign generated based on that special phone number, how many room nights were generated from this special phone number. And it shows return on investment for an email send. And you’re able then to use that to advocate for information in advance for your team. I just want to show you on a normal day, for example, I have this many res agents scheduled. Had I known your email was going to go on a Tuesday at 9 a.m., maybe I would have bulked up that day a little bit more in advance to be able to answer those calls so that our service still maintains its expectation. So speak to marketing and saying, even if it is, I understand getting approval and needing to run through many people before you say, yes, that’s it. You’re approved to send it on this day. But even if it’s the day before, you know you’re going to send it the next day at 9 o’clock. Forward it to your reservations team so that they can at least let their agents know, FYI, and they attach it in your email. This is the campaign that is set to go out at this time. Our marketing team also says this is how many email address it’s sent to go out to so that we know and prepare. We look at it, make sure we are able to speak to what the offerings are. So, Barbara, I really encourage you to speak with your leader on how they can continue to get that communication to you all in advance. And I also encourage them to include them on the lead sheets. So we use dynamic phone numbers in our marketing efforts so that we can really see the fruits of our labor. Did this send work? How many calls? How much revenue? How many new guests, etc.? That dynamic phone number can have a campaign set embedded in it. So when a lead sheet promotes on your computer, you can click on the campaign on the top right and you’re seeing what your guests see. So there’s ways that you can kind of show them how it would be worth their time to educate the reservation team in advance. The more you equip them with, the better they can really represent what’s going on on property.

Brent Sanders – 00:36:58: Great question, Barbara. Thank you so much for asking. Well, then moving on to these strategies that impact the bottom line, people want to know that their team is putting in effort. So do you guys do any sort of loyalty calling to guests who maybe have stayed with you before but haven’t booked yet? Do you have any kind of ongoing outbound sort of types, things that somebody could sort of grasp a hold of and take this with them and make it their own, Miranda?

Miranda Cubillas – 00:37:31: I love that. Yes, we do have an outbound effort. And it’s more about, like you said, reminding our guests who maybe haven’t been in a little while. There is in marketing a way to send automatic leads to guests who haven’t stayed. And we use those. They’re very effective anniversary stays. I encourage everyone to speak with their CSM about what that is and what low line fruit you can have. But we do have specific reservation agents. They’re actually called experience planners. And they are outreach centric. It’s really about furthering the guest’s experience, developing their itinerary prior to arrival, educating them. And we go out of our way with certain guests. So run your reports on your suites that are spending, those return guests, people who are maybe coming in with a handicap or specific room requests, making sure that we’re proactive about that and making those outbound calls. And we do run reports out of our booking system as well as Revinate. And it’s either they’ve booked and haven’t tailored their itinerary or they haven’t been here for a while. Our reservations have their own little short lists, so to speak. And when new programs or offerings, new farmhouse culinary options are available, we do have really great senior agents that will go out of their way to call those guests and really make it a tailored, personalized experience. And you can find all of that digging into the lead sheets. I really encourage to teach your agents how to link them so that your data is clean, that you are really giving to that marketing team healthy information. Junk in is not effective. You’ve got to really work on your bounce back rate. Do the reservation agents know what that means? A thousand emails are sent and 250 of them are undeliverable. That’s a dead lead. That’s 25% of dead information. And I encourage you to work with your CSMs to really get into the different options available to tailor your outreach. Outreach is very important.

Brent Sanders – 00:39:49: That’s brilliant. And we know the guests who have gotten a personal call who helped them get into something that may not have been available once they arrived to sort of set that up. That used to happen at Hawks Cay all the time. I really want to do that, but I didn’t do it in advance. By helping people, you ensure that they have the best experience possible. And so you’re setting up your entire operations team to do their job the right way and with people who are prepared and have wonderful expectations from your team. And it really also is that one extra touch that someone’s going to remember that maybe the name or that they didn’t remember from the time that they booked. Again, just getting your team celebrated for all the hard work that they’re doing. I think we’re sort of coming to close. I do want to just reach out and give anybody a chance to ask a question of Miranda while we have her. Also give Miranda, if you have any last minute thoughts, I’d love for you to share them.

Miranda Cubillas – 00:40:50: I just really hope to see everybody at next year’s conference. I always love the conversations that we have at breakfast and dinner. And I really think that it allows us to be able to continue to work together to help us best leverage the systems and programs that we have in place and continue to grow ourselves and our understanding so that we can start speaking confidently to the different teams, to the marketing, to the revenue, to the sales. How many group calls are you taking? So yes, thank you, Brent. The Wigwam, it’s beautiful in Arizona. It’s a gorgeous historical property. They’ve been partners with you all for quite a number of years.

Brent Sanders – 00:41:35: I was lucky enough to be at The Wigwam for implementation and I haven’t been back. So I’m very, very excited to be back and to see everybody. And let’s keep the conversations going.

Miranda Cubillas – 00:41:46: Yes.

Brent Sanders – 00:41:47: A lot of people on this call, our familiar names, reach out to each other. Let’s keep inspiring each other. We’re all doing these amazing things and we can learn from each other and we have learned from each other and we’ll continue to do that. Miranda, thank you so much for sharing with us and for taking your time today. Thank everybody for joining us and thank you for our marketing team for helping this happen. We appreciate it.

Miranda Cubillas – 00:42:13: Absolutely. So good. Have a good day, everyone.

Karen Stephens/Outro – 00:42:20: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Hotel Moment by Revinate. Our community of hoteliers is growing every week, and each guest we speak to is tackling industry challenges with the innovation and flexibility that our industry demands. If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. And if you’re listening on YouTube, please like the video and subscribe for more content. For more information, head to revinate.com/hotelmomentpodcast. Until next time, keep innovating.