Hilton Hotels – Brand Differentiation

through Customer Relationship

Management
 Introduction
• Hilton Hotels Corp.
• Customers satisfaction - problem is taken care of by
hotel staff and the flawless stay.
• Late 2003, Hilton spent a whooping $50 Million on a
customer information system.
• The customer information system – OnQ.
• Part of 2 year old customer relationship
management strategy.
• “Reason for being”, “100% percent customer satisfaction”
and “Customer really matter” – Hilton Hotels Corp
hospitality.
 QnQ
• 70% custom coded system.
• Custom components - Property management
system, CRM application and Hotel-owner reporting
module.
• 4 TB of customer profile info managed in IBM’s
Informix database.
• Pegasus Solutions central reservation system.
• Newmarket International’s Delphi sales force
automation tool.
• Modified Legacy revenue management system.
 Advantages of QnQ
•Online room reservation through Hilton’s
central reservation system.
•Extra attention to VIP customers – spending
increased from 40% to 61%.
•Tracking fraudulent customers – taking
advantage of “100% guest satisfaction”.
•Hhonors frequent guest program – building
customer loyalty.
•Customer get rooms based on their preferences,
meeting their needs and faster service.
 Future developments
• OnQ as a decision support tool.
• Reservations held for Diamond and gold customers.
• Guests can include what they want in their room –
water, extra pillows, treadmill etc.
• Additional services – golf, spa, theatre packages
etc.
• Building web based connections – corporate travel
departments to directly book rooms from its central
reservation system.
• Rolling out portals - booking employee
•travel, advantage of volume discounts etc.
 Benefits of QnQ
•Facilitates better service – employees having clearer
idea about customer and their previous Hilton
experiences.
•Build customer loyalty – Hhonors frequent guest
program.
•Establishes value of a customer – extra attention to VIP
customers increasing their percentage of spending.
•Identification of rare un-valuable customer –
reducing unnecessary cost to Hilton.
•Faster service times – in hand knowledge about the
customer preference enables faster allocation of rooms
with specific facilities.
 Things to do to gain competitive advantage

•The OnQ has to be more than just a customer information

system. It has to be developed into a decision support system.
•Hilton must record accurate customer data and be able to
have this data presented clearly enough so that it can be used
to help make decisions.
•Effective complaints management system - that helps to
resolve dissatisfactions faced by customers and ensuring it
wont occur in future stays.
•Providing new themes in their rooms and enabling guests to
experience new themes.
•Providing room reservations to non Hhonors
 Problems

• Hilton Hotels was lacking the technological

innovations that made other firms in the industry
maintaining and building relationships with their
valued customers.
• Lack of an IT infrastructure that would enable
employees to deliver great customer service.
• Hilton Hotel did not have an innovative way to
maintain and strengthen the relationship they had
maintaining and building relationships with their
valued customers.
 Causes of the Problems
• The pace of innovation, via technology,
in the hospitality industry was growing
tremendously and Hilton Hotels needed to
keep up to remain competitive in the
industry. The force from their competitors was
weighing in on them.
• Hilton also had no way of
 Solutions to Problems
• Hilton OnQ – this IT Infrastructure created by the Hilton gave
their firm a nervous system. This allowed customers to have a
one-stop shopping of an integrated solution, and also allowed
employees to provide excellent customer service on cue. The
system was able to support the property-level operations of
every Hilton Hotel, regardless of its size or segment. OnQis a
competitive advantage and, it helped Hilton to aggressively
expand at a quicker and more consistent pace.
• CRM – CRM was an addition made to the OnQ infrastructure.It
utilized technology to give Hilton a CRM – CRM was an addition
made to the OnQ infrastructure. It utilized technology to give
Hilton a solidified relationship with its premier customers. added
a holistic view to excellent service, and it allowed Hilton to
foster a closer relationship
 Recommendations
•I would recommend that Hilton expands their OnQ and
CRM technology to include all of the properties that
they own.Meaning, whether a customer stays at an
Hilton Hotel, a Homewood Suites, or a
Waldorf-Astoria, their preferences would still be
available at the various properties.
• With the growing need for technology for most
consumers even when they are away from their homes
and offices.Therefore, it would be beneficial to Hilton
Hotels to be the first hospitality firm to offer FREE
unlimited internet service to all hotel guests. It
can be up to the firm to decide whether the free
internet should be wireless or via Ethernet. By
adding this feature
• TO All of their hotels, Hilton Hotels willattract many
new customers that will become faithful