OPERA Sales Force Automation is a central Sales support tool for the hotel chain’s regional or national Sales team. SFA features are designed to maximise sales for the chain at large, regardless of where the business may materialise. SFA’s lead handling module communicates prospective business to selected hotels. When running as part of an OPERA PMS multi-property complex, SFA staff may view inventory and book directly into participating properties. SFA is fully integrated with OPERA’s central reservation system, ORS.
Key Features
- Lead Management
SFA communicates prospective business as leads that are sent to selected chain properties based on customer preference and hotel features. Hotels running OPERA Sales & Catering or PMS can receive leads directly into their systems. Fax and e-mail may also be used for lead sending. Hotels without OPERA can receive and answer leads via the Web Lead Reply feature. Reports are provided for lead analysis.
- FIT Contracts
This set of features assists Sales staff with negotiating contracts and monitoring production. OPERA PMS’s extensive rate handling features may be used to define bulk discounts and to subscribe rates to participating hotels. FIT Contracts also tracks materialisation of negotiated contracts.
- F&B Meeting Agenda
This tool lets Sales capture high-level meeting and food and beverage requirements, even if these are vague and subject to change. The F&B Meeting Agenda gives lead recipients the catering details needed to respond to a lead.
- Multi-Property Interaction
When SFA is configured as part of a multi-property hotel complex running OPERA PMS and Sales & Catering, SFA staff can view guestroom and function space availability across all properties in the cluster. SFA users can book directly into a property using the standard OPERA PMS and S&C business block.
- OCIS Integration
SFA and the OPERA Customer Information System (OCIS) share the same profile database. SFA/OCIS integration allows SFA users to search for company, travel agent and source profiles in OCIS and create new OCIS profiles. Through SFA’s integration with OCIS, SFA has access to chain-wide production statistics and business materialisation details.
SFA is aimed at customers who need centralised sales. It can sit on top of OPERA Multi Property in the same database or OPERA/v6/v7 stand-alone sites or regional clusters and is connected in the same way as ORS (OPMS -> OXI -> OXI HUB -> SFA). SFA offers full access to the Profile screens, the same screens as in OPMS/OSC, but with a consolidated view of the entire hotel chain. In addition, SFA offers the possibility to create ‘group and event booking leads’ that can be sent through to the OPMS for the hotels to respond to. It also has the ability to manage the contract process for negotiated rates. This means that rules can be set up for qualifying accounts for certain rate amounts, printing off contracts etc. The actual creation of the rate code generally takes place in the OPMS or in ORS.