Fairmont builds ultimate customer intelligence platform with SAS

In difficult times, the need to understand and effectively communicate with customers is fundamentally greater. Reflecting on tourism, the challenge for the industry is to get frequent guests to return, while also encouraging trial amongst new clients,” says Tracey Jarosz, Director of Customer and Marketing Insights. “For Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, those challenges exist, as well as trying to expand into new markets and understand local nuances in guest behavior.”

Customer Success Video

Check out this video to learn more about Fairmont and its successes with SAS.

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Customer ViewPoint
You have questions; our customers have answers. Check out this video Q&A.

Tracey Jarosz
Director of Customer and Marketing Insights

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According to Jarosz, the key to understanding guest needs is having the right information systems in place. In the past, Fairmont got most of this information from paper-based documents and from a number of different vendor systems it was using. None of the technology was integrated, with disconnected processes, and it was difficult to link information to a particular guest. SAS® Software, however, feeds off a central repository and Jarosz praises it for its ability to connect the dots.

“What led us to SAS was the breadth of solutions that met our end to end needs.  We can link history to a particular guest, their stays, their total spend, what they liked and disliked, and their travel preferences.”

Jarosz says the breaking point that led Fairmont to SAS was the anticipation of fast and furious growth. “When we took a look at vendors who were global in nature, and who could meet our needs for accuracy and agility, SAS came to the forefront. Up until this point, our core markets have been primarily US and Canada. That is changing dramatically and we're opening up numerous hotels in the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Asia,” she says.

With the support of SAS Consulting, Fairmont has integrated a number of SAS products to create what Jarosz refers to as the ultimate platform for Customer Relationship Management. Fairmont uses SAS data quality software for enhancing the quality, reliability and accuracy of data; SAS® Web Report Studio for Web-based query and reporting; SAS® Enterprise Guide, a graphical guide for powering SAS applications; and, SAS® Enterprise Miner™, a powerful tool for analyzing vast amounts of data.

Since implementing SAS, Fairmont has realized several benefits including improved address accuracy, leading to fewer incorrect mailings; better record reconciliation and information management for unique guests; and, improved ability to calculate profits at the guest and segment levels.

The key stakeholders of the SAS solution are Fairmont’s IT and marketing departments, which consists of both light and advanced users.

“Some users in our corporate marketing division  want to drill down to the deepest level of a report to really see what's happening, while other colleagues just want to see at the high level what the trends are,” says Jarosz. “The ROI that we've seen so far has been both tangible and intangible. Tangibly we can now link ROI back to individual guests or guest segments and, intangibly, we continue to build a deeper understanding of our guests ranging from what they're doing with us to what we think they’ll do with us in the future .”

For example, Fairmont is leveraging SAS to implement a best practices approach around campaign management. Using a data warehouse as a central place for contact records and response information, the marketing department now knows what channel the customer was contacted through, what behavior they had for that particular campaign and whether or not they responded.

“We have a much better view on what the guest is doing with us over time in relation to our communication pieces,” she says. “Which particular e-mail did they click? Did they view it? Did they opt-out? Did they click on our privacy policy? That information is now all flowing back to us at the guest level,” she says.

According to Jarosz, SAS is giving Fairmont a competitive advantage in a highly competitive market by serving as a central repository for all its information. “Our key processes are all connected and we have leading-edge tools that allow us to get at information quickly.”

In spite of this, Fairmont believes it may only be scratching the surface when it comes to using SAS software. “How I see us using it in the future is much different than today,” she says. “I see us using it for multiple guest touch points, not only our direct marketing efforts, but all guest processes, from operational and in-property to the service level.”

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