Improve sales performance via personal selling activities the case of hoang hai long hotel

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business --- TRUONG NGOC BAO CHAU IMPROVE SALES PERFORMANCE VIA PERSONAL SELLING ACTIVITIES: THE CASE OF HOANG HAI LONG

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

TRUONG NGOC BAO CHAU

IMPROVE SALES PERFORMANCE VIA PERSONAL SELLING ACTIVITIES: THE CASE OF HOANG HAI LONG

HOTEL

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2020

1

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-

TRUONG NGOC BAO CHAU

IMPROVE SALES PERFORMANCE VIA PERSONAL SELLING ACTIVITIES: THE CASE OF HOANG HAI LONG

Acknowledgement

With the enthusiastic guidance, support and encouragement as well as useful knowledge of Assoc Prof Dr Tran Ha Minh Quan, the thesis is possible done on time and greatly acceptable Besides, there are many helpful comments and feedbacks from the council member that contribute more to

my completion I want to give my best appreciation to my advisors in ISB It is my pleasure to study and research in this great school with good friends and great professors I would like to say thank you to all my family, my teachers and my friends that gave me more supporting in my thesis working

3

Table of Contents

Acknowledgement 2

List of Table 5

List of Figure 5

1 Introduction 6

2 Sales Analysis 7

2.1 Guest sources analysis 7

2.2 Revenue stream 11

2.3 Problem context 13

3 Problem Identification 15

3.1 Methods 15

3.2 Ineffective personal selling activities 16

3.3 Lack of advertisements activities 18

3.4 Unattractive sales promotion 19

3.5 Problem validation 20

4 Causes 23

4.1 Poor selling skills 24

4.2 Lack of target customers data 25

4.3 Weak customer’s relationship 26

4.4 Cause validation 27

5 Alternative Solutions 29

5.1 Develop tracking customer system: CRM software 29

5.2 Doing surveys on partners’ customer 31

5.3 Solution validation 33

6 Action plan of Organization 34

7 Conclusion 35

8 Appendix 36

References 49

5

List of Table

Table 1: The price of Hoang Hai Long Hotel

Table 2: The price of Hoang Hai Long Hotel

Table 3 Revenue stream from Y2017 to Q3.2019

Table 4: Action plan

Table 5: Revenue statement 2017 - 2019

List of Figure

Figure 1 The sources of Hoang Hai Long Guests from 2017 to Q3.2019

Figure 2 The purpose of staying of Guests Year 2018

Figure 3 The purpose of staying of Guests up to Q3.2019

Figure 4 Breakdown revenue on purpose of staying 2018

Figure 5 Breakdown revenue on purpose of staying 2019

Figure 6 The channels of booking in Year 2018

Figure 7 Revenue of each services from Y2017 to Q3.2019

Figure 8 Revenue quarterly from Y2017 to Q3.2019

Figure 10 Possible problems map

Figure 11 Cause – effect map

Figure 12 Possible causes map

IMPROVE SALES PERFORMANCE VIA PERSONAL SELLING

ACTIVITIES: THE CASE OF HOANG HAI LONG HOTEL

1 Introduction

Hoang Hai Long hotel is a three-starts hotel in central of Ho Chi Minh City which is located on Pham Hong Thai street, Ben Thanh Ward, District One There is one of the best locations in the center of Ho Chi Minh City as it is near Ben Thanh market, many famous destinations and crowded entertainment places The hotel does not only provide rooms services but also has other services such as restaurant & bar; gyms, spa & massage; conference room; laundry service 24/24, tour booking; air ticket/ train ticket booking; shuttle service Hotel – Airport; motors/cars for rent The capacity of Hoang Hai Long is 110 rooms which can provide service for about 400 guests The restaurant can accommodate more than 200 guests while the conference room can contain around

100 guests Hoang Hai Long hotel has nearly 50 staffs working in shift including fulltime and time in hotel room area and restaurant area

part-Table 1: The price of Hoang Hai Long Hotel

Types of Room Monday - Friday Saturday - Sunday

Double Superior 1.896.000 VNĐ 2.275.000 VNĐ Superior Twin 1.896.000 VNĐ 2.275.000 VNĐ

Deluxe Double 4.262.000 VNĐ 5.114.000 VNĐ

7

2 Sales Analysis

2.1 Guest Sources Analysis:

Table 2: The price of Hoang Hai Long Hotel

Figure 1 The sources of Hoang Hai Long Guests from 2017 to Q3.2019

Guest Sources From 2017 to Q3/2019

Ho Chi Minh City The North (excepted HCMC) The Central The South

Asia (excepted VN) Other countries

Figure 2 The purpose of staying of Guests Year 2018

Figure 3 The purpose of staying of Guests up to Q3.2019

According to the Report, most of guests come from The North and Asia area (mainly is Korean and Chinese) which account for nearly 60% However, this amount is decreasing from 2017 to 2019 in the structure of the guest sources This amount of year 2018 decreased lightly 1.3% compare to year

Independent tourist 15%

Group of tourist 27%

Business guest 21%

Conference guest 33%

Others 4%

Purpose of Staying 2018

Independent tourist 12%

Group of tourist 29%

Business guest 22%

Conference guest 33%

Others 4%

Purpose of Staying 2019

9

2017 (59.9% to 58.6%); forward to Q3/2019 this amount reduces 7% compare to year 2018 (58.6%

to 51.6%) The next large amount is accounted for around 30% - 35% which belongs to the sources

of Ho Chi Minh City and the Central

Besides, more than 50% of hotel guests come for joining in conferences/meeting and for business purposes Conference guests can come privately or in group of people made reservation by

companies or government entities/organizations These guest come for conference lead to the using

of conference room and restaurant service while the private guest come for their own business outside or meeting outside do not bring revenue for other service beside room service We will analysis the revenue stream to see the picture of all services of the hotel in the next section From year 2018 to third quarter of year 2019, almost different group of customers had the percentages unchanged or lightly fluctuated except the group of independent guests which decreases 3% in nearly a year

Figure 4 Breakdown revenue on Figure 5 Breakdown revenue on purpose of staying 2018 purpose of staying Q3/2019

Independent tourist 18%

Group of tourist 24%

Business guest 15%

Conference

guest

40%

Others 3%

BREAKDOWN REVENUE 2018

Independent tourist 14%

Group of tourist 25%

Business guest 17%

Conference guest 41%

Others 3%

BREAKDOWN REVENUE 2019

Learn deeper about the contribution of each groups classifief by staying purpose, the author can conclude based on the pie charts above that the revenue earned from group of independent guest dropped worst from 2018 to third quarter of 2019 while the other groups are constaint or growing The increasing of the other groups because of the decreasing of group of independent guest instead

of increasing in sale index The reason is the total revenue goes down from 2018 to Q3/2019 In conclusion, based on both the amount of staying purpose and revenue contribution, the number of independent guests and revenue earned from them are decreased

Figure 6 The channels of booking in Year 2018

Almost booking are made through outsources and agency which accounts for approximately 40% and directly with hotels which covers nearly 30% And more than half of them staying at hotels for conference and business purposes To sum up, for booking channels, the hotel has been focusing on group of people booking through both channels outsources and directly with hotel

11

2.2 Revenue Stream

Hoang Hai Long Hotel receives revenue from not only room service but also restaurant service and other activities such as tour booking, air ticket booking, motor hiring, etc.… The other revenue related to financial such as interest So we will put more effort on the revenue stream from rental room, restaurant and other activities/services Breakdown the revenue based on activities to see clearly their contribution for the total revenue of hotel Each line has different characteristic and tasks as well as working process

Other Activities Restaurant

Services

Figure 7 Revenue of each services from Y2017 to Q3.2019

Figure 8 Revenue quarterly from Y2017 to Q3.2019

According to the sales report, the revenue fluctuated from 2017 to Quarter 3 of 2019 Although it does not decrease continuously through these period, the total revenue of year 2018 is less than around 10% compares to the amount of year 2017 The revenue reaches to the highest level at every

2,000,000,000 4,000,000,000 6,000,000,000 8,000,000,000 10,000,000,000 12,000,000,000 14,000,000,000

ROOM SERVICES RESTAURANT SERVICES OTHER ACTIVITIES OTHER REVENUE

Revenue Stream from 2017 to Q3/2019

2017 2018 2019 (Up to Q3)

13

third quarter and drops to the least at first quarter each year As the third quarter includes the

summer holiday so it affects to the amount of tourists while the first quarter includes the Lunar new year without meeting or conferences during this time Beside the difference among these quarters,

in general, the revenue from 2017 to 2019 seems to decrease The revenue earns from room

services and restaurant decreased while the revenue of other service not change a lot lead to the changing in the structure of revenue stream The percentage in the structure of rental room and restaurant decreased The percentage of room service drops around 12% in 2019 compares to 2017 while the restaurant service reduced about 11% in 2019 compares to 2017 In year 2017, although the meeting room or conference room were not to be hired, the group of guest who joined the meeting/conference outside the hotel still use the room service or restaurant or party at Hoang Hai Long area In 2018 and 2019, the rental of meeting room or conference room still not reach many bookings but the number of group of guests are decreasing Hoang Hai Long not focus on

marketing strategy to attract more customers They pay more commission for the outsourcing The outsources of Hoang Hai Long are including personal and companies, agencies The commission rate is agreed between two parties depending on number of guests or rooms and the regularly schedules or other agreements The target customers of the hotel is group of guests They use the relationship with the person that has right to booking or relationship among outsourcing with

companies or entities to make the reservations and sales There are many inviters of conferences and meeting staying at Hoang Hai Long hotel come from government entities such as People of Committee, Department of Justice and other Departments, Institutions, etc.…

2.3 Problem Context

All the customer groups’ revenue decreased from year 2017 to Q3/2019 while the main groups of hotel are still conference guests and business guests, which accounts for more than 50% of total guests of Hoang Hai Long However, with the development of digital marketing and technologies,

the performance of group of independent tourist of Hoang Hai Long hotel is quite poor This

development not only creates strong competition market but also bring a huge change for the

companies Nowadays, tourists can make booking themselves in many choices of channels such as Traveloka, Agoda, Skyscanner or Wego… The tourists, special teenagers like backpacking tourism

so they use these channels quite more often That is the reason why we want to improve the number

of this group of guests which just accounts for 12 - 15% of the structure And this group is the only one group that its percentage in total structure decreased in year 2019 The reasons of this reduction

in the structure are rare loyal customers and the number of new customers in this group

of independent guests

Unattractive sales promotion Lack of advertisements activities Ineffective personal selling activites

15

3 Problem Identification

Lack of target

customers data

Lack of Less budget for

selling skills advertisements activities

Weak customer’s Unconcern of digital &

relationships online performance

Lack of marketing team

Uncompetitive discount

Less budget for tangible gifts

Figure 10 Cause – effect map

3.1 Methods

Data collected were from in-depth interviews with seven people, both insiders and outsiders of the

Hoang Hai Long hotel In order to get real customer feedback and assessment of customer

satisfaction about hotel services, their customer interviews are essential The author has interviewed four customers who were staying at the hotel at the time and belonged to different segments

Besides, the author chose the interviewers were the insiders such as sales director – Mr Dong, the

supervisor of sales team – Mrs Trang and the director of Hoang Hai Long – Mrs Chi as they all

have the main roles of hotel work that know clearly the processes and strategies as well as have an

overview of Hoang Hai Long's picture Moreover, they are the ones who make decisions and

directly control the whole process to achieve the goals that the company has targeted The

Ineffective

personal selling

activities

Unattractive sales promotion

Lack of advertisements activities

Poor sale performance of group of independent guests

interviews with outsiders just take about 15 minutes per one while the time to spend on insiders’ interviews are around 30 - 40 minutes for each

3.2 Ineffective personal selling activities

Mrs Trang – the supervisor of sales team of Hoang Hai Long hotel has mentioned:

“ All people in sales team has experience from 1 to 3 years but they come from different fields They

have very different backgrounds Some of them graduated from restaurant and hotel university and maybe less knowledge and skills in persuading and selling although they understand more about hotel operating However, it depends on personality, sensitive and acumen of each person, they can have different attitudes and behaviors to their valued customers They was trained when they join to our team but just in a short class They should learn themselves and earn more experience to have good performance in their own ways.”

The salespeople are the one who communicate and contact directly to the customers so their

performance has strong effects to customers’ decision and decides a part of the loyalty of the

customers As Mr Dong – the sales manager of Hoang Hai Long hotel has admitted:

“We always told our sales team working following the sentences “Customer is god” and try to get the best agreement with customers by any specialized technics or skills As the salespeople work face to face or directly with customers through phone or email, they are represent for the hotel and play the key role in the success of the business Their effectiveness impacts on the sales

performance of the hotel In the long time, the performance of salesperson is the key of success in improving the sales of independent guests because this is one of the potential channels for this group.”

Personal selling which is included in marketing mix theory plays a significant role in a company Stated by Weitz and Bradford1, salespeople in each area have different roles depending on different

17

activities or functions and required different set of knowledge, skills and abilities but in all areas, it plays a key role in long-term buyer-seller relationship According to Plank and Greene 2, personal (motivation, aptitudes, skill levels and role perception) activities selling is related to a complicated salesperson – customer relationship Its mission is to reach the goal of doing business – get the deal – sign the purchase orders or sales contracts However, there are several other factors included both external and internal factors that have impact on the company’s success By Gursoy and Swanger 3, these external factors such as demographic, economic natural or technological are the kinds of factors that companies have little control or even no power to manage them Also in the case of solving problem in organization, the analysis and solution are made based on the internal situation and potential of the company so we focus on the internal factors The internal factors that can influence the level of success of the hotel should be discussed such as location, service satisfaction, assets, buildings, personnel and skills, etc.… Hoang Hai Long located on district 1 which is in the central and crowded district in Ho Chi Minh City Be convenience as near Ben Thanh market, easy

to walk to many restaurant and coffee shops nearby, opposite the Tao Dan park, take 5-10 minutes

to reach to theater, museum, hall, Independent Palace are all competitive advantage of the hotel location On the other hand, the hotel ‘s capacity and infrastructure are recognized as the level of 3.5 stars standard instead of the published standard 3 stars to the customers Hoang Hai Long is trying to improve so as to get certification of 4 stars level Related to the service and customer satisfaction, extracted from the collecting data from hotline, email and receptionist team, quite little complaints or bad feedbacks from the customers, no issues that are in need of being concern

Among four elements of 4Ps, product and price are the factors that the sales team can exploit and implement strategies to drive sales such as make the difference for their products and service or apply price competition due to the most booking of independent guests are through Agoda,

Traveloka and other apps A small number of rooms with the best price in same area can make the hotel located on the top of searching and attract more searchers; moreover, these data can become hotel sources in the future if the sales team apply re-target strategies for these accounts who used to click to our options From the above argument, the author can conclude that personal selling

activities is required and significant in the case of Hoang Hai Long Hotel

3.3 Lack of advertisements activities

Based on the in-depth interview with Mr Dong – the sales manager of Hoang Hai Long hotel, we got his sharing about these channels that the hotel director focus on:

“ We spend more cost on bonus for sales employees and commission for outsources comprising personal outsource or agencies From the hotel was established up to now, we have applied it to manage sales and revenue of the hotel and not focus on advertisements The cost we spent for PR and advertising activities is very little compared to commissions As we don’t have website,

Facebook or any channels for advertisements and PR Our last marketing activities were not

effective and bring result as our expectation The only one online channel that we reach to the customers is through booking apps and they work efficiently We post our service in Traveloka, Booking.com and Trivago In my opinion, the marketing is necessary for our hotel to spread our positive information and brand image in customers perceives We need to find, attract and get more new value customers instead of old customers and waiting for outsources passively.”

According to the report and sales analysis, the two biggest selling channels of Hoang Hai Long are outsources/ agencies and hotel directly through telephone booking or email booking which

accounted more than 60% That is the reason why they spend more commissions and bonus instead

of paying for marketing cost However, in the modern life with the development of digital and technologies, the importance of marketing is needed to be considered Marušić 4 defined that

19

advertisement is one of the elements of marketing mix Osman et al.5 stated that the importance of marketing management and marketing mix variables have strong impact on profit performance as well as corporate performance because of its momentous roles in organization Bannett 6 also mentioned that good product with attractive price are not enough to attract the customers without modern marketing Stated by Vucetic 7 ,the importance of online advertising has achieved a certain position with the growing number of users and technical advances of online technology Especially

in competitive market in Ho Chi Minh City, the number of hotels is large and still increasing which led to high level of competition and unconstraint market, the effective and helpful marketing

strategy plays an important role in business management The advertisements raise the awareness to the customers while PR raise the interest by providing the positive information All of these tasks are useful and supportive to sales index According to Tehrani, Tehrani and Moghadam8,

advertising is a basic, effective and influential tool in business with the essential concept is

attracting much attention of customers

3.4 Unattractive sales promotion

Based on statement of Hon 9, promotion is one of four elements of 4Ps together with three others are product, price and place According to Sîrbu 10 ,promotion is one of the essential factors to ensure the quality of products and services for customers loyalty to the company Doyle and Stern11stated that the benefit of sales promotion is bringing quickly result so it was used commonly to increase the number of sales in the short term by applying money off voucher, free goods or special offers or discount Promotion is no strange to anyone nowadays as it appeared everyday everywhere around us in daily life Mrs Minh – a customer of Hoang Hai Long hotel has shared:

“When buying somethings or booking any services, I not only compare prices among companies but also their promotions I think everybody includes me, special women, housewife will chose the most advantage option In my case, I like direct discount promotion or free goods/services that I can use.”

Hoang Hai Long hotel used to applied promotions in running business We got some comments

from Mr Dong – the sales manager Hoang Hai Long hotel from the in-depth interview:

“ We have issue some vouchers for promotion such as food voucher for guests who staying at our hotel, discount coupon for next staying time 10% or 15% off Although it increased the

consumption of customers, the increasing in sales and profit are far from our expectation Hence, it led to unsuccessful campaigns and delayed plan.”

When the customers have the knowledge of products or services detail information and quality or the brand that it belongs to, sales promotion is a tool to promote consumption as well as sales productivity It plays as a tool to improve the sales index in a short term with boom speed as the customers have a certain belief or optimism on this product Riza and Tanveen 12 also claimed that

a company can choose multiple channels to increase its sales performance And promotion is one of the tools can applied on vary channels such as directly at the hotel booking or through apps

booking The boom speed of online activities such as booking apps nowadays attract many people

to spend more time on searching and using it which make increasing of users and reservations as well as consumption through this channel

3.5 Problem Validation

In the group of independent guests, the segmentation of customer is determined by age It is divided into 3 groups: young people who are from 15 years old to 32 years old, middle-age who are from 33 years old to 49 years old and seniors who are more than 49 years old According to Agrawal and

21

Kamakura 13, age is one of the observable characteristics to segment customers which is a common approach in business practice Mrs Chi – the director of Hoang Hai Long hotel has a comment on their target customers:

“ In each group of customers, we have different segments For example, in group of tourist, we segment customers by level of income For the group of independent guest, our segmentation is based on age In this group, the target customer is young people who are from 15 years old to 32 years old The reason is the young customers are quite active and like backpacking tourism They prefer the experience and preparing themselves when they travel.”

Extract from the statistics report of sales department of Hoang Hai Long hotel, the guests that are belongs to group of young people accounted for nearly 60% while the group of middle-age is 27.8% and the group of old customers is 12.5% in the structure of group of independent guests To understand clearly about the customers in this group, we have interview some customers at

different ages They told us about how they know and chose this hotel as well as their feeling when using service at Hoang Hai Long

Mr Vinh – a customer who are 56 years old coming from Ha Noi Capital and represent for the group of old people:

“ I come to Sai Gon to visit my relatives and join the wedding of their daughter By the way, we visit Ho Chi Minh city some days I don’t know well about this city so my son booked everything for

me and my wife including air ticket and hotel My relatives picked me up at the airport and we just follow them these days Staying at this hotel, we feeling quite good and comfortable The employees are friendly and kind to old people like us.”

Mrs Tran – a 40-year-old guest of the hotel who are belongs to middle-age group She is traveling with her family:

“ On occasion of Tet holiday, our family have a trip to visit the south of Viet Nam We stay at Ho Chi Minh City 2 days then joining the tour to visit some West provinces and the Mekong Delta I know this hotel as I used to stay there in my business trip last time At this time, I came with my boss and the reservation was making by my company For me, this hotel is very convenient as its location is in the center of Ho Chi Minh City and the price is acceptable comparing to some hotels nearby I have checked the price of some hotels around here before booking So I booked the rooms via Traveloka to have the discount price However, I think they don’t put more rooms there as the number of room is less and no much more choice for types of room, maybe just 3 types.”

Ms Van – a visitor comes from the Hai Duong province of Viet Nam She is 25 years old and represent for group of young people:

“ I and my best friends have a 4 - day journey in Ho Chi Minh City This is the first time we have come to the south of Viet Nam We have arranged many times for this trip but we were so busy We look for all information about this city such as places to visit, shopping mall, hotel, transportation

to prepare for this trip by searching on website and booking online My friend have found it on travel app and booked for us In my opinion, this hotel has good service and the room is clean It is the best one comparing to the hotels I have stayed in other provinces of Viet Nam Next time, if I came to Ho Chi Minh city again, I still stay here.”

In short, the hotel target customers is group of young people which is accounted for 60% of

independent guests as Mrs Chi has mentioned They have concentrated in the right segment and has applied the promotion with the competitive price to attract their valued customers Many

booking were collected by the online booking apps as the customers had shared As per sharing of internal interviewers of the hotel, their advertisement activities and marketing campaign in the last are not successful and effective to their business There are a small amount of customers who was introduced to stay at Hoang Hai Long persuaded or re-target activities or competitive selling

23

strategies by sales team The sales team has responsibility to answer the phone, advise, convince,

find the customers, making the booking, keep the relationship with them, special the target

customers However, the customer management systems of the sales team is inefficient and their

role to find and store the big data of customers is weak as well Hence, to improve the sales

performance of the group of independent guest, the hotel should increase the effectiveness of

personal selling activities

4 Causes

Possible Causes

Key problem

Figure 11 Possible causes map

As the researcher has mentioned above, the main reason that led to the decreasing of number of

independent guest group is ineffective personal selling activities The inefficiency of their jobs

performed clearly such as the average number of return-customer is nearly 5% which quite less than the other groups so that the loyal customer in this group is trivial Therefore, the causes was

discussed and analyzed are all related to the target customers of the hotel and how to maintain their

attention, their interest as well as get their loyalty So in this case, which is the most important and

what is the reason: the skills, the data or the relationship?

Ineffective

personal selling

activities

Poor selling skills

Lack of target customers data Main cause

Weak customer’s relationship

4.1 Poor selling skills

Pettijohn, Pettijohn and Taylor 14 concluded if the companies hope their sales team to engage in customer-oriented selling, they must ensure that salespeople have the necessary selling skills that enough for them to succeed in this behavior and are encouraged to join in this task as the more skilled salesperson, the better individual's customer-orientation scores Personal selling skills can be developed together with advancing their knowledge and providing more job opportunities to keep individuals self-motivated which are included in human resources development strategies in general and training strategy in particular Johlke 15 stated that selling experience, presentation skills

perceive to be important because of their power to improve sales performance that’s why the

managers want to emphasize retaining skilled salespeople

In the case of small business such as Hoang Hai Long hotel, the high productive selling team is more essential and demanded There are two different kind of skills which are technic skills such as presentation, explanation, negotiation, and behaviors, attitude of salesperson but all of them are strongly related to customers’ satisfaction in sales communications They impact much more on the decision of the valued customers According to the sales manager of Hoang Hai Long hotel:

“ Very little number of customers that make complaint of sales staffs, they usually comment about the other department So, to measure the level of the skill of salesperson, we don’t base on this too much As per my supervision at sight or through camera or record in telephone, I can value them

by my experience Although their behaviors are not so excellent but are acceptable as we don’t have too much time to train for them Normally, we will remind and teach them in their probation

at the hotel However, it should be improved themselves by the long time and pick up experiences.”

Especial for the group of independent guests, the customers that belong to this group have more direct connection with the salesperson beside the booking app Different from the other groups,

25

they can make booking through many other channels such as companies, agencies or tourist

companies Compared to other industries, business in services that related to food, entertainment and relaxing activities require more good and fluent personal skills because the customers have high level of satisfaction to meet their standards It is no longer a price point benefit; they use these services to make them more relaxing and comfortable which are the criteria for customers to choose consumption and evaluate quality besides other key criteria such as location

4.2 Lack of target customers data

The tasks of a salesperson are not only answers the reservation phone but also provides information for the request of the customer, answering questions, advising sales, reaching the target customers The ultimate goal of the sales team is to close customers' orders and bring sales to the company However, Hoang Hai Long hotel did not have the data of new target customers as well as not much data of old customers in independent group

Based on the sharing of the sales manager one more time – Mr Dong, we understand clearly about it:

“ We have stored the customers information in files when they check-in at our hotel Of course, we also save the information of our closed customers to keep in touch with them We have a separated data of loyal guests However, most of them are not belong to group of independent guests We focus on the group of business guests and conference guests as following our strategy up to now we have more customers in these groups so we maintain and develop more in them Beside, for the new contact of potential customers, we have not found or bought or traded it Our sales team are now working on the available data of the hotel.”

The target customers include the old guests or the new ones who are in the segmentation of the companies and can help them reach their goals existing on the customer market Both of them are