Based on the conviction that employee engagement and customer satisfaction could play a key role in RevPAR,* InterContinental Hotels Group wanted to develop a program with a primary goal of transforming the way the company sold to corporate accounts. Charged with energizing a change in the culture, Planet Studio introduced selling strategies for four distinct customer personality types, which became the foundation of the new corporate sales structure. (*RevPAR: Revenue per available room: a performance metric in the hotel industry, which is calculated by multiplying a hotel’s room rate by its occupancy rate.)
A revolution in account management
We established branding and iconography to create engagement among a global sales team and ultimately rolled out an associate development program that helped generate measurable results in revenue growth. In order to meet the various needs of the program, several deliverables were required. These included a central web portal for employees, avatar training videos that introduced the team to various situations, customer management strategy and process, dynamic value propositions, training tools for each individual initiative, and real-time presentation and proposal development.
Measurable results
The Way of Sales program was applied to all seven brands within Intercontinental Hotels Group, reaching two audience segments and four types of purchasers. IHG’s studies before and after the initiative showed IHG attributing a 4% increase in revenue.
