Loyalty programs are the entry point or the base from which to begin building a relationship with customers. In order to create loyalty an organization must develop and maintain consumer trust which is based on factors such as price competitiveness, the brand image, the service guarantee, the relevance of the offer, virtual care and CRM.In the current environment it is important to be able to continuously update CRM systems and processes because each new step towards customers adds a layer of complexity and sophistication in terms of being able to target the right customers with messages and obtain information that will allow hotels to market smarter.The actual trend is personalizing services for each segment of customers and trying to maximize the positive impact of these services on customers at all touch points using the last interaction management techniques.The objective of segmentation is find the right trade-off between quality and quantity data, to target the right segments and manage communications spend based on customer value potential.A challenge for CRM in the future is keeping pace with technology and the changing attitudes and motivations of customers.Organizations such as Hilton Hotels, Cendant and Delta airlines are investing a lot to develop CRM using new, high tech techniques to increase the customer retention rate.Hilton hotels discovered that by sending three personalized emails to a customer you could double the folio total.Cendant successfully introduced a system to reward costumers for multi-brand use under the same umbrella company, and two years after launch, members stay more often, pay more for rooms and stay longer.Delta airlines recently executed a re-positioning of their brand image and now uses mind set based segmentation of customers.The systematic success of investments in CRM underlines the fact that this kind of activity is still underestimated and has to be discovered and explored. It represents one of the main opportunities for the future in the hotel market to re-invent the business, and obtain a higher retention rate and new customers.To get the full text and audio podcast contact kate@betterrevenue.com