Exceptional customer service is the basis of any successful business, but it’s even more crucial in the hospitality industry. Your clientele is the foundation that can make or break your business. When your hotel services B2B customers, it’s vital to ensure that they have an exceptional experience in order to build the reputation of your company.

To do this, you must understand the needs and priorities of these customers. By personalizing services based on their feedback, you can meet the needs of B2B customers and improve their experience. It builds trust in your organization, creating loyal, long-term partners.

But it all begins by taking steps to improve relationships with your business customers.

Building Strong B2B Relationships with Your Brand

Building excellent relationships with your business customers starts internally by creating an impeccable hospitality B2B brand strategy that goes beyond a fancy logo. Branding is not a shortcut to great results. Instead, this is a long-term strategy for developing a reputation that firmly establishes your hotel as the top choice for B2B customers.

Because it is a longer game, measuring the success of brand-building activities is more complicated than simply crunching numbers, as you would for, say, search engine or website analytics. One of the best ways to gauge the success of your brand is through customer feedback. To truly set your brand apart, build relatability by addressing the needs of your B2B clients and consistently presenting a personable but professional brand image.

Your brand should:

  • Offer a unique B2B customer experience to help you stand out from competitors. This approach should be customer-centered and based on information gathered from their feedback.
  • Build a detailed picture of your ideal B2B customer based on demographics, behaviors, buying patterns, and preferences. Consider what motivates B2B clients to choose a hotel or other services.

Creating an avatar for this customer provides insight into their needs, desires, and feelings about business travel and helps you to see your ideal B2B customer as a person rather than an abstract collection of data points. That allows you to effectively develop excellent customer service policies.

To build that picture, you must start by gathering and analyzing customer feedback.

Prioritizing B2B Customer Feedback

The basis of building positive relationships with your B2B customers is listening to their needs and desires. It builds trust, making customers more likely to share honest opinions, especially regarding challenges they experience when booking hotels for their clients. Some companies go as far as employing dedicated customer success teams.

While choosing methods to obtain customer feedback is crucial, there are some things you’ll need to consider before proceeding. Remember that your customer’s journey starts before they book with you and, ideally, continues indefinitely. You should focus just as much on acquiring a B2B customer as keeping their business.

Remember when collecting data that different customers prefer different forms of communication. Many factors impact this, such as time constraints, their generation, where they are from, what devices they use, etc.

There are several ways to collect customer feedback on hospitality services:

  • Ratings. A good rating, i.e., 4 out of 5 stars or more, is helpful to promote your business. You can collect this data from travel sites, like Expedia or TripAdvisor, and on social media, such as your Facebook page.
  • Reviews. Customers prioritize both ratings and reviews when booking hotels. Written reviews provide targeted information about a hotel, and that can persuade a prospect to book.
  • Surveys. Many companies employ follow-up surveys once a customer makes a purchase. Send a simple survey that has both multiple-choice ratings and space for comments.
  • Listening. Whenever you engage with your customers, it’s crucial to understand what’s important to them while traveling for business. That means actively listening whenever you engage with them and paying attention to details, such as special requests, that your customers require.

You can track all of this data, including demographics and the details of their requirements in a secure customer database that also provides robust analytics. Tools like that will help you deliver tailored B2B services to your guests before, during, and after every booking.

Customizing B2B Services to Elevate the Customer Experience

Processing and keeping track of all this information is just the beginning. To truly elevate the customer experience, you’ll need to deploy marketing strategies devoted to the unique needs of your B2B clients, including travel agencies, corporate clients, and event organizers.

  • Use digital tools like programmable chatbots, CRM systems, and artificial intelligence (AI) to personalize services. For B2B clients, this can manifest in different options, such as branded portals for client booking, custom offers based on their business habits, and information tailored to their data history.
  • Create B2B loyalty programs that go beyond consumer programs to appeal to B2B clients. For example, implementing a tiered reward system lets you offer different rewards for different volumes of business. Rewards should address business needs, like discounts on conference rooms or event planning services.
  • Produce content that establishes your brand as an industry leader. That can include information like white papers or travel management webinars. Online content such as social media can cover trends, hot topics, and important changes in the hospitality industry.
  • Collaborations with professional partners. This includes businesses that align with and complement your services and technology partners that can enhance marketing and other digital tools. Building relationships with local companies also allows you to offer exclusive deals to your B2B clients.

Now that you have a plan for delivering exceptional customer service, it’s time to inform your staff of these changes.

Getting Employees on Board with Customer Service Enhancements

Employee buy-in is crucial for delivering enhanced services. That’s why efficient in-house communication with your staff is your first step in offering excellent B2B customer service.

Face-to-face communication is the best way to inform your employees. Although it’s easier to do everything virtually, speaking with your staff in person builds the trust and rapport necessary for them to add their ideas to a new challenge. No matter how you deliver this information, be simple and concise. Remain personal, polite, and objective. And don’t forget to ask for feedback. Your staff may also be able to make suggestions or address challenges that can further enhance your services.

Once the staff is ready to roll out these new hospitality services, it’s time to inform your customers.

Communicating and Deploying Customer Service Enhancements

Ask yourself if you speak your customer’s language or if your content is full of clichés. Avoid buzzwords, and be on high alert for overused industry-specific words, such as “world-class,” especially in your marketing materials. These words can be turn-offs to alert clients and aren’t as specific as words such as “first-class benefits.”

Research how your customers are talking about their services. Review any customer comments you’ve received, either from direct contact, surveys, or social media. You can also use tools like Google Trends and Google Keywords to find the best words for driving customers to your website and social media. Optimizing content means sharing your message the way your ideal B2B customer would.

Delivering exceptional B2B customer service can build the reputation of your hotel. To deliver a high-quality experience, you must understand your client’s needs, build a program around them, and communicate it effectively to your teams and clients. That will turn your B2B customers into lifelong fans.

Indiana Lee