Collaborative Success for eCommerce and Revenue Management Teams

“At RevenYou, we work with a wide array of hotels, motels and serviced apartments. Each client is allocated a revenue and distribution specialist plus sales or marketing where appropriate. Because we are all working towards the one goal of increased profit, we have to work together. To foster this team approach, we utilise team meeting times to discuss different clients. It may be a client that is doing well and we are looking for ideas to find that extra 1% or a client that is struggling. Each team member will be given a chance to talk about their client and the rest of the team can ask questions, offer advice, share insight and gain knowledge.

These meetings are a time to learn and to foster a collaborative working environment. Our KPIs for each hotel are focused on the whole hotel revenue and not individual departments. This ensures that team members work together to achieve best results.

At RevenYou we also have regular catchups to discuss what training and development each team member would like to explore. This allows us to learn new skills and create an understanding of what other specialists deal with on a daily basis. All team members have the opportunity to attend training and webinars relevant to growing hotel profit. No is not an answer.

We also utilise each staff member’s area of expertise. For example, revenue and distribution specialists may be asked to analyse data and create spreadsheets while marketing specialists will be used to help the revenue team to access sites and understand what they are looking at. Creating a collaborative work approach is not always easy but it comes from the top down. I have to role model this as CEO.”

“Many, if not most, commercial teams work remotely from each other. This creates the need for regular communication and touchpoints. ECommerce team members should be invited to attend and participate in regular revenue calls and a portion of time should be set apart for their topics. I also recommend having a Teams or Slack group open so team members can ping each other less formally, rather than going through the rigidity of an email.”

“I believe synergy and communication are key if we want to see these two departments achieving important objectives. Having regular meetings is vital to maintaining alignment. Additionally, both departments need to share information to make informed decisions.

Comprehensive tracking is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of commercial campaigns, helping us to understand conversion rates and areas for improvement.

Last but not least, and maybe this will be a new question… I think we should open the debate on whether they should be two separate departments or part of the same one. It’s significant to consider the potential benefits and challenges of both arrangements.”

“It is essential to clearly define who is responsible for receiving, addressing and executing requests. In performance marketing, it is particularly important to provide clear instructions regarding demand requirements. Hotels sometimes fill up organically through regular guests, while at other times, they require additional promotional efforts. To optimise ROI, it is crucial to align demand requirements with budget allocations.

Revenue Management should provide eCommerce with key parameters, such as lead times, to boost bookings during low-demand periods, as well as the rate programs that need to be promoted. Conversely, eCommerce should share feedback on the performance of keywords, especially those targeting one-time events like concerts or sports events so revenue management can incorporate those insights into the pricing strategy.”

“E-commerce and Revenue Management need to be very much aligned in order to maximise efficiency and ROI. While Revenue Management knows best when additional demand is needed, E-commerce has the tools to drive it. Nowadays, with the ever-expanding role of Revenue Management, it is sometimes hard to distinguish between the two disciplines. E-commerce should focus on revenue increase just as much as Revenue Management, while the latter needs to understand all the E-commerce tools and be aware of the whole guest journey to truly optimise total revenue and profit.

So these two departments need to be one. Unified under one leader, in constant discussion, following the same KPIs. In my previous roles, I’ve seen the lead lie with Revenue Management and in others, I’ve seen it lie with E-commerce. Both approaches work just fine, as long as you are open about your KPIs (ROADS, RevPAR, Direct Share, etc.) and foster a culture of constant exchange and respect.”

“Lately, I have seen that the main focus in revenue management strategies is based on surviving in the current market. However, operational success must be based on understanding the business metrics and applying them across the department. From past experiences, communication is important. Communicate on what is required from each team member which can be measured to achieve clear goals and expectations. Visibility, reach and conversion are important for commercial and operational success.”

“Ecommerce and Revenue Management must work side by side and share objectives to avoid wasting money and energy. A good practice is to share the respective data: revenue has all the intelligence relating to trends, bookings, demand forecasts, benchmarking, competitive insights, etc. Ecommerce can read data relating to source markets, searches and travel interests. Cross-referenced data can reveal interesting opportunities but it is necessary to clarify and define a single objective in order to create harmony between teams and break down silos.”

“The best advice for management trying to improve the relationship between eCommerce and Revenue Management is to ensure they share the same goals. More often than not, Sales, Marketing and Revenue leaders have contradicting targets, sometimes jeopardising the overall goal. Therefore, heading into the 2025 budget season in a few months, those leaders must sit together to align on what they mean to achieve collaboratively.”

“First and foremost it is important that everybody is aligned with the strategy and the effects on the bottom-line results of the hotel. In my experience, when all goals support each other (Sales targets vs. KPIs Topline vs. KPIs Bottom Line) there is already a strong base for a good relationship. Make clear guidelines on who is responsible for what, clear budgets, and an understanding of things Sales can decide on independently and which topics / amounts / decisions need to be a joint decision with Revenue / Commercial / General Manager.

It’s important to have a budget that is set up in agreement with all departments, individual targets that support these budgets and regular meetings to touch base on the progress. Finally, each month you must evaluate the previous month and decide if the set goals are still realistic.”

“The key part here is the cross-pollination of the two disciplines, particularly in smaller independent hotels. Communication is the founding principle needed here.
For example:

• Revenue understanding where eCommerce can drive activation for need periods.
• Taking the dexterity of a segmented database for targeted newsletters and then bringing that into paid online advertising to drive occupancy in those times.
• eCommerce on the other hand should understand the pickup reports and drive actions continuously.
• Long-term planning with the commercial plan for the year, setting those sale dates, actions with online travel partners, planning offers with trade, allows for better rate maximisation and fewer last minute adjustments.”