TECHNOLOGY is a bane or cureall, a barrier to getting things done or your shiny, wired right hand, depending on where you sit on the geek scale. At Premier Inn, developing a new software application proved to be the answer to a real business dilemma.

In spite of winning several corporate accounts, the company was reluctant to sign up to the global booking system that travel management firms use to make corporate reservations, says Luke Goggin, the head of national accounts. “We had to decide whether to adapt to the norm,” he says, but this would have meant passing transaction fees on to hotel guests.

Thanks to a working group and some IT know-how, the travel agencies that the hotel chain is partnered with now use a new software interface that seamlessly sits next to the historic booking system.

Everyone wins, Goggin says: travel agents no longer have to pick up the phone to make bookings, corporate clients are saved booking fees and Premier Inn’s staff don’t have to stop looking after guests to take telephone bookings. “We spent a really long time trying to get a better way of working,” he says. “And we seem to have ticked all the boxes.”

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For the Huntingdon Marriott hotel, technology and IT training solved a different challenge to the business: how to boost the online customer service given to individual guests. Chris Robinson, the market sales researcher at Marriott UK, says that the hotel’s web-site is now a “virtual hotel lobby, generating sales leads and increasing customer correspondence”. There has been a 68 per cent growth in sales year on year and the hotel web-site is rated No 1 across the hotel group worldwide.

The hotel now also offers a bespoke service to potential clients interested in booking a wedding or conference venue. The details differ for each booking sent out via a new online tool, eProposals, while still adhering to the group’s brand guidelines, Robinson says. And it’s just one of four online tools designed to improve the customer experience. Another allows companies to book corporate travel through customised web pages. About 70 per cent of booking costs to the business can be saved by encouraging clients to book online, he says.

“It makes us stand out from the competition and offer something different,” he says.

A piece of software traditionally used by technical support to help existing customers is now helping Ben Huston, the GoToAssist manager at Sage UK, to get closer to new customers. When someone calls to buy a product from his team, he or she is able to connect to the caller’s computer via the internet and talk them through an online presentation. It’s about making sure that the customer is sold what they really need, Huston says. It requires a different mindset from target-driven selling.

“We are not revenue focused. The revenue is fantastic – don’t get me wrong – but we are more focused on the customer experience.”

Giving your best salespeople the chance to make as many sales as possible sounds like a business no-brainer, but it can be difficult in a call-centre environment, says Alastair Grier, the director of customer sales and service at RBS Insurance. “We had multiple calls coming in [to the call centre in Doncaster] that weren’t effectively managed,” he says. The solution was a dynamic telephone system that is continuously updated and able to match the profiles of sales and service staff to callers’ needs. The result is better customer service, Grier says, and positive competition among staff who have to keep performing to receive the most lucrative calls.

It’s tough if your clients are salespeople and you’re there to evalute their performance, says Byron Ward, the head of IT at Silent Edge, a sales training company. It has developed a diagnostic tool to gauge an individual’s skills, knowledge and behaviour on the job and benchmark it against best practice. It’s hard to ignore evidence plotted in charts and graphs, he says. “It really motivates them to change their behaviour.”

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