Standard Procedure for Lost Business or Turnaways
When it comes to sales and marketingA system of interrelated activities formulated to plan; price; promote and make available the servic..., it’s important to not only focus on the deals you close, but also the ones that slip away. Lost business or turnaways can reveal important information about your sales and marketing strategies, such as areas that need improvement or potential customers that were not properly targeted.
By analyzing the reasons why a deal was not closed, you can make adjustments to your approach and increase your chances of success in the future.
Keeping track of lost business and turnaways, and use them as opportunities to learn and grow your sales and marketing efforts.
Lost Business and Turnaway Standard procedure:
- This procedure helps to track lost opportunities and to be referred to for sales strategy evaluation, revision, and new product development.
- A business that is lost due to the inability of the hotel to accommodate the customer’s needs should be documented on a Lost Business Report.
- The lost business report and turn away report/form should be filed and reviewed at the weekly Sales Meeting.
- Lost inquiries or bookings are also tracked by the reservation department using ‘Turnaway Codes’.
- Turnaway Codes are used to assist in recording the number of reservations or possible reservations that were “turned away” or could not be made by the property.
- Each Turnaway done by the hotel sales or reservations agent should be tagged to the respective Turnaway codes.
- Turnaways can be ideally classified as denials or regrets.
- Denials are reasons for turning away customer business on the property side (e.g.: Sold out, Room Type not available, etc.).
- Regrets are reasons why a guest does not book the reservation (e.g., price sensitivity, location, facilities, etc.).
- Some examples of turn-away codes are:
- Requested Room Type Not Available
- Higher Price
- Facilities
- Rate too High
- Other Regret
- Price Sensitivity
- Location
- Shopping
- It is useful to know for what reasons people cannot or do not make reservations and from which market segments they come.
- The sales team members should use a lost business form to track all instances of lost business for both groups, transient rooms, events, conferences, etc.
- The director of Sales and Marketing should monitor all turn-away reasons by code by printing appropriate reports from the property management system.
- If certain turnaway types habitually reoccur, it is advisable to re-evaluate the current Revenue Strategies and make necessary revisions to avoid missed opportunities in the future.
- In the event availability of space is the reason for lost business, refer back to the client in case the space in question opens up due to a cancellation.
- Sales team should refer back to the past report to solicit customers for future business over the same period.
Training Summary Questions:
Q1. Does anyone know why the lost business should be tracked?
Q2. Turnaway reasons are classified into two types what are they?
Q3. Who is responsible for reviewing the turn away and lost business forms?
Q4. Give a few examples of turn away codes.
Q5. What action needs to be taken if certain turnaway types reoccur?
SOP Number: Sales and Marketing SOP – 09 Department: Sales and Marketing – Sales Date Issued: 20-Jun-2017 Time to Train: 30 Minutes
