Customer Success Story – The Liz McGrath Collection

Background

Hydraform International Ltd. was founded in 1988 by Jochen Kofahl from the belief that high-quality bricks could be made with a mix of 20/80 cement and soil under hydraulic pressure. This early focus on sustainability means Hydraform has been the leader in alternative building technology since its establishment.

Headquartered in Johannesburg, South Africa, with a global customer base across more than 50 countries, they deliver technology-driven solutions that enable communities to build in an eco-friendly manner. Hydraform is the original developer of the Hydraform interlocking building system, and their solutions promote sustainable practices.

Hydraform has been a Maximizer customer since 2012, and recently moved from the On-Premise Edition to the cloud-based Sales Leader Edition.

The Cellars Hohenort – Liz McGrath Collection Hotel

Hotel history in the making

Liz McGrath always had a passion for decor, food, and gardening. She particularly enjoyed the art of living, which she and her late husband experienced at the Relaix & Chateaux hotels they visited over the years. In 1988, taking inspiration to create her own local expression of history and culture, she decided to transform the hotel she owned at the time, into an exclusive country house retreat.

Opening a hotel takes a lot of guts and passion. Liz had both. Plus a gift for finding people with the same can-do attitude needed to make it in the hospitality industry. But what made Liz’s decision so monumental, that at age 60 no less, she became South Africa’s first female hotelier. Then in just 8 years (and many awards later), she’d be the first to own three. So in 2015, when she passed away at age 93, as an homage to her legacy, the family rebranded the hotel group in her name. While still family-owned the three hotels are now run by a female-led management team, including Martina Barth as Group Sales Manager.

Using CRM instead of spreadsheets

When Martina joined 3 years ago, they already had Maximizer in place for sales.

Previously the hotel was managing their tour operator lists with Excel. Martina points out with Maximizer, “It’s easier to add in new contacts, particularly with the Outlook integration.” Especially after trade shows, they have to import a lot of new contacts, which is harder to maintain with spreadsheets. Now everything is centralized and accurate and they don’t have to worry about spreadsheet version control.

“It is very important that we stay in contact with our database and that we are able to segment it easily. Otherwise, we’d have 15 -20 different lists, the computer would crash and we’d have lost everything.”

Before Martina joined, the database was quite messy. Nelia and the team at Camsoft Solutions provide them with local support to keep things tidy and accurate. “She is always quick to respond, if not immediately, usually within a few minutes.”

“We feel like we have support at all times.”

Everything in one place

Martina Barth works closely with Nicole Tunmer as Co-Group Sales Managers, and they use Maximizer with tour operators, corporate, and event organizers. While they have loyal guests that come back yearly, their biggest aspect of repeat business comes from the tour operators.

“We are not selling hotel beds, we are selling experiences. Success is having full hotels. Staying top of mind with the tour operators ensures this happens.”

For now, they use Maximizer as a centralized database, that they both access remotely. Martina explains,

“The value comes with having up-to-date, accurate contact details that everyone can access. If you don’t have the latest contact details, they are wasted interactions.”

This centralized access to data allows Martina and Nicole to segment the contacts by corporate, conferencing, or leisure. Then by geography. They then use these segmented lists to create a specific campaign for various markets, which they send through Mailchimp.

“The greatest value that we get from Maximizer it is that the data is sitting in one central place that we can all access it remotely. That is really key.”

Looking forward, they are excited to do more face-to-face meetings and trade shows again. For them, selling experiences cannot be done by email alone. It’s about fostering human interactions with people that have the same passion for travel, food, and living.