We as a hotel group had a strategy session this week where we discussed all sorts of brand initiatives, image advertising, email, text, website, social media, and a plethora of other ways to reach our audience. The funny part though, at the end of the session we all agreed that no amount of advertising money and no strategy for greater reach will ever replace a personal phone call that leads to a face-to-face meeting. Isn’t that something? All the stuff we have today to make life and business quicker, faster, and easier still pale in comparison to the old fashion phone.

After the meeting I went back and looked at how many hotel transactions I was personally involved with back in the early 90’s. You know what? I was selling as many hotels then as I am now. Back then we didn’t have internet, cell phones, email, websites, yada yada. All we had was a business card, baggy suit, big smile, and the hole in our car trunk lid where our car phone antenna used to be. Ha  

You know what we did when we listed a hotel? We went to our office and started calling our clients to tell them about it. What a novel idea! It was effective then and even with all the advances we have today, it is still the most effective and rarely used method.

Today, if you walk into a millennial’s office and tell him/her you want them to start making phone calls, they look at you like you have lost your mind. Many of them have never seen an actual wall mounted phone.

There are simply some very important things you will never get from an email, snapchat, or text. It is called personal service. KT