Hilton’s Dar Yasseri Presents at ASMI’s CRM Excellence
2007 Summit
Dar Yasseri, Director of Customer Loyalty and CRM Strategy and Implementation of Hilton Hotels Corporation joined ASMI at the CRM Excellence 2007 Summit July 10th in Arlington to speak on integrating sales, marketing and customer service with customer relationship management. In his presentation, he addressed strategies like categorizing the role of each department in your CRM process and creating an applicable data warehouse with standard information accessible to all departments. Aside from the general information he provided to delegates, he provided statistics and news concerning the giant hotel corporation. He linked Hilton’s transformation over time with his interesting presentation.
In 1999, Hilton executed the Promus Acquisition acquiring over 1,400 hotel properties and brand names including Doubltree, Embassy Suites and Hotels and Hampton Suites. For Hilton’s CRM division, this increased their challenges but at the same time increase their opportunities. Dar explained the ease at which the Hilton Brand could now attract all hotel users. With options for every income level and desire, Hilton was now able to appeal to every type of customer. They could build a relationship, focusing solely on the customer. In fact, Dar spoke of a technologically advanced system for tracking repeat customers in order to tailor their hotel specifications to meet their needs and reward their brand loyalty.
To handle the array of brands under the Hilton Family, the CRM department placed focus on six strategic categories: unit growth, enthusiastic owners, market share gains, happy customers, passionate team members and strong brands. The path Hilton used to carry out these strategic goals involved creating barriers to switching or clearly separating themselves from the competition, fostering the brand name and retaining existing customers through personalization efforts.
Dar also touched on data analysis. At Hilton, they believe in ownership of relationships. They implemented a CRM scorecard that measures customer preferences, services, and the overall impression generated by real customers. This information is fed directly back into company growth and learning. Hilton actually keeps a full-time staff focused on CRM. These individuals are responsible for tracking customer satisfaction and working to improve the customer experience.
This presentation was only one of many interested sessions delivered at this year’s CRM Excellence 2007 Summit. Watch ASMI’s website for upcoming events covering topics such as the Balanced Scorecard and Lean Six Sigma for Sales and Marketing.
