6 Best Hospitality & Hotel CRM Software for 2023

Revinate is an industry-specific hotel CRM software designed to engage hotel customers at every lifecycle stage. The system is a data platform and marketing automation tool built into one product. It comes with omnichannel communication options to engage and nurture customers via telephone, text message, email marketing, or through the hotel’s website. Throughout each campaign, the system will collect data on targeted audiences to help enrich customer profiles, segment customer lists, and ultimately optimize campaigns for more bookings and revenue.

Revinate is the best hotel CRM because of its sophistication and supplemental services. For example, teams can use Ivy, the artificial intelligence (AI) feature, to text guests, manage routine customer requests, and offer personalized upselling based on the customer profile. The built-in tools and integration options also enable a robust reputation management system where a hotel can request and manage online reviews for Google, Booking.com, and Tripadvisor, all from one interface.

One issue with Revinate is there aren’t any built-in payment processing or point-of-sale (PoS) systems within the platform, nor is there any third-party integration that would allow a hotel to manage and handle payments from the CRM. Tripleseat is the best alternative for adding payment processing applications to the CRM platform.

Revinate revenue and campaign dashboard (Source: Revinate)

Like Revinate, Guestware is a hotel management software for small hotels and larger ones. Between the three available plans that are priced based on the number of rooms at the facility, hotel teams can oversee multiple parts of the operation. These include guest and incident management, facilities maintenance, and marketing activities through email marketing, loyal program management, and pre-arrival planning.

Because Guestware also acts as a hotel property management system (PMS), it’s the best CRM on the list for running hotel operations. The platform offers modules specifically for handling guest requests and maintenance. For example, there are engineering preventive maintenance features where teams can conduct mobile inspections of the premises and schedule updates to prevent infrastructure problems down the road. Optional interactive voice response (IVR) tools allow guests to request housekeeping or incident response services.

Guestware’s CRM features aren’t available until the Guestware Suite plan starting at $200 per month. Also, while the system will manage and store the customer data, the communication features are limited to email marketing, which isn’t built in and demands integration with an external marketing automation platform. Freshsales is the best alternative on this list regarding standard and built-in sales and marketing CRM capabilities.

Freshsales is a customizable, general-use CRM system that can be tailored to meet the needs of a restaurant, small hotel, or event-hosting venue. Though not ideal for operations and facilities management, the platform is great for sales, marketing, and guest service activities. Teams can store contact records of their guests, keep them automatically up to date with profile enrichment, run automated sales sequences, and engage customers through live chat, email, telephone, and website apps like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and Google Business messenger.

Even with its excellent lead and customer management features, Freshsales is known for its free plan. Hospitality businesses can access some Freshsales features, including a built-in phone, task management, contact management, and AI chatbots, at no cost. Additionally, those free-forever features are available to an unlimited number of users.

Because Freshsales is a generic CRM, it does not come pre-packaged with hospitality modules such as facility maintenance, reputation management, or events management features. Users who prioritize those capabilities should look to Revinate as a great alternative for hotels, or Tripleseat as an excellent specialized CRM for restaurants and event venues.

Hapiguest, a native software to Salesforce, lets hotels collect, track, and map customer data and then synchronize it into the Salesforce Sales, Marketing, or Service Clouds. Once integrated, teams can use all of the Salesforce features for analytics and to run their marketing campaigns, manage sales activity, and assist hotel guests. Hapiguest centralizes data from PMS and hotel management applications that can be easily connected and used in the sophisticated CRM.

For instance, one of the main features is the guest data flows within Hapiguest. This lets you design customer journeys that consider the channels they use, their transaction history, and their profiles. As it collects data, hotel businesses can create insight-driven marketing campaigns and automate customer service strategies to give guests the best experience based on their history and priorities.

Since Hapiguest is only a data collection, mapping, and flow-generating tool, users must use the integration with Salesforce to create marketing campaigns, handle service inquiries, and oversee sales bookings. Revinate is a better alternative for hotels that want those features built into the system.

Hotels, restaurants, wedding planners, trade associations, caterers, and any other organization responsible for hosting and managing major events would extract significant value from Tripleseat. The platform uses built-in features and outside integrations to help guests book reservations, receive and sign sales orders, and complete online payments. Additionally, there are extensive reporting capabilities for sales revenue, bookings, and event planning progress.

The best module we found in Tripleseat was the event management system. Teams can receive new event requests, track point of contact data, store invoices and order documents, create and assign tasks, and monitor outstanding payment balances all from a single event record. Users can also fully manage bookings and reservations from the platform, regardless of whether they’re running a hotel, restaurant, or event-planning business.

Tripleseat is an excellent, all-around CRM for hospitality management in that it can help restaurants, hotels, caterers, and unique venues plan intricate events. However, users need to integrate with outside apps such as Mailchimp, Facebook, and Constant Contact to actually market and generate sales leads for those events. Freshsales is the best option for teams that want to handle sales and marketing activities within the CRM software.

The eInsight CRM platform is a marketing-heavy solution that focuses on helping hotels develop awareness and drive brand loyalty. It comes with single guest views, which show entire profiles of customers with insights on their contact data, likes, dislikes, history, and customer lifetime spending. Hotels can use that information to personalize guest experiences, deploy automated marketing campaigns, and give customers VIP treatment.

Regarding marketing capabilities, eInsight CRM allows you to design customer journeys that help automate campaigns based on their actions, interests, and content preferences. Users can also create and deploy mass email campaigns using customizable email templates from the CRM system. Finally, campaign data can be collected and analyzed using Microsoft Power BI, then presented on stunning visual dashboards to help marketing teams create or adjust strategies.

While eInsight provides excellent solutions for creating hotel brand awareness and generating interest with its marketing capabilities, it does not offer any features for hotel operations management. Guestware is the best alternative for overseeing hotel maintenance, guest request, and property management activities from the CRM platform.