Why Topaz is right for Pacifica Hotels

A great part of Topaz being local is the ability to connect in person with the agents. We have the chance to get to know them, and even have our sales team give them a presentation. It’s important to be able to meet the team that’s out there, selling us—because they really are an extension of our sales team.

We don’t want our guests to be received by someone who could be anywhere in the world. It’s so nice that we have an actual pool of reservations agents that can come and meet in person easily. A lot of them are also, ironically, in the markets where we operate. So they are local to our hotels.

This was our first foray into implementing this type of service. During the RFP (Request for Proposal) process, we found that Topaz was the easiest and most personable to work with. In the end, it just made sense for us to use Topaz.

“Imagine how many reservations callers were on the line trying to give us business.”

“Imagine how many reservations callers were on the line trying to give us business.”

Do any of your hotels have an in-house reservations person or team?

Only maybe two or three of our hotels had an actual reservations team, and that was really geared towards group sales–and sometimes they would obviously have to take reservation calls. That is not the case at the smaller properties, where we might have one front desk agent to work in that 3 to 11 shift. He’s got to do all the reservation calls and check everybody in and let housekeeping know to run towels to that room.

And you know, I’ve been there. I worked front desk many years, so I know the struggles of trying to balance it.

We’ve seen the very strong cost benefit to the Topaz team and the model that we have. It just doesn’t make sense for us to take on that labor and try to figure out the appropriate staffing and scheduling, on top of everything else. It makes sense to use their infrastructure for managing their reservations staff.

How are Topaz associates at giving your guests an ‘in-house’ feel?

This is THE big win over the other competitors that are offshore or in another country, or even just out of state. The other piece that wins is just the amount of training and onboarding the associates get. They become very familiar with the property before we go live. The elevated quality of service from Topaz associates is a big testament Topaz leadership. Their training teams make sure associates are well-versed in all aspects of a property, only giving them additional properties when proficiency is ensured.

Topaz trains with all the material we provide to them, and then takes it to another level. The team then creates their own quizzes and exams for their associates to ensure they understand all things about a property–so they can answer questions that are likely to be asked by callers.

“It just makes for a more authentic experience. The caller feels like they’ve actually reached someone at the hotel, rather than someone who’s in a call center reading a script and doesn’t really know too much about the property.”

“It just makes for a more authentic experience. The caller feels like they’ve actually reached someone at the hotel, rather than someone who’s in a call center reading a script and doesn’t really know too much about the property.”

How has your relationship with Topaz evolved over time?

Initially, they worked with us through the process and determined our needs, and helped us calculate an estimated volume of calls. And from there we’ve kind of grown with them. We initially started with a general pool of associates, and then we kind of realized that they were converting calls to sales, giving us a measurable way of tracking their success and seeing the revenue that we were getting from the voice channel. After some conversations with the team, we moved into having a preferred group of agents. So we have a pool of Topaz associates that are exclusively selling our properties.

So let’s talk bottom line. What’s been your return on investment with Topaz?

The main metrics we look at is overall call conversion. How many of the calls that they take are they actually converting into a booking? We were impressed to see that we were consistently north of 20-25X ROI!

And their team is driving consistently higher ADR than what we’re seeing in a lot of our other channels. That’s a testament to the personable component of the voice channel vs what you get through the online channel.

Online, you can’t hear what the guest really wants out of their vacation or out of their stay at the hotel. On the phone, an associate can hear those desires, and offer an upsell to those desires with a better product or a package. Things like that allow them to achieve higher rates consistently—even more than what we’re getting on Expedia or through our own website—because there’s that personal connection with the caller.

“We were impressed to see that we were consistently north of 20–25X ROI.”

“We were impressed to see that we were consistently north of 20–25X ROI.”

Any parting thoughts about Topaz?

The main draw of the Topaz team is their authentic level of service: they are the most personable reservations experience company that I’ve seen. It’s certainly a testament to the Topaz team that they continue to do so well at an affordable price point.