Omaha, Neb.-based development and management company Anant Operations, which manages midscale Marriott International and IHG lifestyle brands, has replaced its legacy system with SalesAndCatering.com's STS Cloud sales and catering software system at its 10 properties.
“We recently installed the STS Cloud sales system across our 10 hotels to centralize and coordinate sales processes,” said Garrett Meek, corporate director of sales for Anant Operations. “STS Cloud is ... a great prospecting tool. We can see the drivers for different-sized groups and create strategies that result in more effective selling.”
STS Cloud tracks Anant’s current accounts, prospects and historic pricing structures for each account at every property. “STS has a great [customer-relationship-management] module,” said Meek. “We use it to categorize our accounts by markets in all Nebraska cities. We group contacts by city so our sales teams for each territory can see all contacts and group history in their market. This is a great prospecting tool that includes sales traces for timely follow-up. The system also tracks each group account’s [return on investment] and production. I can manage more effectively because STS records which salesperson is working each account, the account’s activity and their call notes. This is essential to promote group loyalty and repeat business.”
Meek said STS’ data tracking was an unexpected benefit: “Data transparency in STS builds a better relationship between our sales team and ownership. Anant’s relationship with its owners is based on numbers. Now we can show owners the definite bookings, revenue and tentative bookings and performance for each group with accurate forecasting for each property."
