The Salesforce playbook for hospitality and transportation.
Hospitality and transportation both sell an experience that is produced and consumed at the same moment, which leaves no room to fix it afterwards. Group and corporate sales, guest or passenger data, and the operation that delivers the service usually sit in different systems, so the people at the front line are the last to know what was promised.
- 13 chapters
- 5 Salesforce products in depth
- 14-point readiness checklist
- 9,959 words
What's inside.
Written by our Salesforce consultants for hospitality and transportation. Read it start to finish or go straight to the chapter you need.
Salesforce in hospitality and transportation: where it pays off
6 patterns that work, and the stack we typically deploy.
The challenges Salesforce has to solve
The 6 problems a design has to solve, plus 4 methods we use on them.
Which Salesforce products fit, and how
Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Salesforce Data 360 (Data Cloud), Salesforce Field Service: use cases, data model and buyer questions for each.
How to implement it
Who needs to be in the room, what the first release includes, and the questions to settle before kickoff.
Moving from your current system
What moves from your current system, how to plan it, and the decisions to make early.
The systems to connect
10 systems to connect and what flows between them.
Regulation and compliance
6 rules and obligations the design has to account for.
Readiness checklist
14 decisions to make before you sign a statement of work.
What to measure
6 metrics to baseline before the build, with a worksheet.
After go-live: support and health checks
What ongoing support covers and when to run a health check.
If a project has stalled
How stalled projects get back on track, and how to get more from the org you have.
Where the industry is concentrated, and local guides
local guides for 6 metros.
Next steps
Free assessments and how to reach a consultant.
From the readiness checklist.
Three of the 14 decisions the playbook asks you to make before you sign a statement of work. The full checklist, with the rest of the playbook, is in the PDF.
Get the full playbook →- Settle account ownership rulesWhen several properties or terminals sell to the same corporation, decide who owns the account, how credit is shared and how leads pass between locations. Encode those rules in territory design and assignment automation, or disputes between local teams will undermine adoption quickly.
- Keep card data outGuests' card numbers belong in the payment gateway or booking engine, never in a CRM case comment. PCI DSS scope grows if cardholder data leaks into the CRM. Add validation to catch card numbers typed into free-text fields, and train staff to reference transactions instead.
- Design for frontline turnoverNew staff arrive constantly, especially in seasonal operations. Keep layouts minimal, automate as much as possible and provide in-app guidance. A design that assumes experienced users will generate errors and a heavy support load every time a new cohort starts work.
The Salesforce products it covers.
Each product chapter covers use cases, how the data is modeled and the questions buyers ask. Shorter versions are on our site.
- Salesforce Sales Cloud for HospitalitySales Cloud gives hospitality sales teams an account-based view of group, meeting, wedding and corporate business across properties.
- Salesforce Service Cloud for HospitalityService Cloud helps hospitality and travel businesses respond to guests at every stage of the stay or journey.
- Salesforce Marketing Cloud for HospitalityMarketing Cloud lets hotels, resorts, venues and transportation operators communicate around the actual journey of each guest or traveler.
- Salesforce Data 360 for HospitalityData 360 (formerly Data Cloud) gives hotels, resorts and hospitality groups a single guest profile built from systems that rarely talk to each other: property management, central reservations, booking engines, loyalty, restaurant and spa point of sale, Wi-Fi sign-ins and guest surveys.
- Salesforce Field Service for HospitalityField Service fits hospitality where work requires people to travel between locations.
Who wrote it.
Abstrakt Solutions is a Salesforce Select partner based in St. Louis, with 108 Salesforce certifications, 7 Salesforce accreditations and a 4.95 out of 5 rating from 92 reviews on Salesforce AgentExchange (formerly AppExchange).
The playbook draws on the guidance we publish for hospitality and transportation.
