Recast: Building relationships through reservations: Insights from The Broadmoor

A reservation call can be more than a booking. It can be the start of a relationship.

In this recast episode of Hotel Moment, Revinate CMO, Karen Stephens sits down with Sarah Stephens, Room Reservations Manager at The Broadmoor, to explore how her team uses voice conversations to create personalized guest experiences and drive direct revenue.

Sarah shares how real-time performance data and hands-on training empower agents to sell the property authentically, while thoughtful listening helps turn small guest details into memorable surprises.

She also reveals how proactive follow-up with guests who didn’t book during their initial call generated nearly $1 million in direct booking revenue over three months. It’s a practical look at how human connection can strengthen both luxury service and hotel revenue.

Meet your host

Karen Stephens

As Chief Marketing Officer at Revinate, Karen is focused on driving long-term growth by building Revinate’s brand equity, product marketing, and customer acquisition strategies. Her deep connections with hospitality industry leaders play a key role in crafting strategic partnerships. Karen has more than 25 years of expertise in global hospitality technology and online distribution — including managing global accounts in travel and hospitality organizations such as Travelocity and lastminute.com

As the host of The Hotel Moment podcast, she interviews top players in the hospitality industry. Karen has been with Revinate for over 11 years, leading our global GTM teams. Her most recent transition was from Chief Revenue Officer, where she led the team in their highest booking quarter to date in Q4 2023.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Sarah Stephens: I think that those special touches that you really can only find when you have a great conversation with somebody are truly what makes memories for guests that last a lifetime. And they feed our souls.

[00:00:15] Karen Stephens: Welcome to the Hotel Moment Podcast presented by Revinate. I’m Karen Stephens, Chief Marketing Officer, joining you from sunny San Francisco, California.

[00:00:23] Dylan Cole: And I’m Dylan Cole, Managing Director of Revinate Europe, calling in from Amsterdam.

[00:00:27] Karen Stephens: This is the podcast where we explore how technology shapes every moment of the hotelier’s experience. And more importantly, how the right technology delivers real outcomes for hotel teams and guests alike.

[00:00:38] Dylan Cole: From revenue strategy and guest communication to operations and marketing, we sit down with the people transforming hospitality around the world.

[00:00:46] Karen Stephens: Depending on the conversation, sometimes it’ll just be me behind the mic.

[00:00:50] Dylan Cole: And sometimes it’ll be me, bringing a European perspective and stories from across the global hospitality industry.

[00:00:56] Karen Stephens: Whether you’re a hotelier, a tech enthusiast, or just curious about where hospitality is headed…

[00:01:03] Dylan Cole: You’re in the right place. Let’s get into it.

[00:01:05] Karen Stephens: Welcome to the Hotel Moment Podcast. I’m your host, Karen Stephens, the Chief Marketing Officer of Revinate. And today we’re excited to speak with Sarah Stephens, Room Reservations Manager at The Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado. With over a decade in luxury hospitality, Sarah has witnessed firsthand how the reservations landscape has evolved from analog to digital, all while maintaining the personal touch that defines Forbes Five-Star service. She’s here to share her insights on guest engagement, the power of the voice channel, and the art of creating memorable experiences before a guest even steps foot in the hotel. Sarah Stephens, welcome to the podcast.

[00:01:43] Sarah Stephens: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

[00:01:46] Karen Stephens: I’m excited for you to be here, too. The Broadmoor is a classic hotel. What a beauty. Can we just start by telling our audience, for those who aren’t familiar with The Broadmoor, where it is and why it’s so special?

[00:01:58] Sarah Stephens: Absolutely. So The Broadmoor is located in Colorado Springs. We are the largest and longest Five-Star hotel in the world. And we love that accolade. We stick true to the service here at The Broadmoor, and we have everything from a Five-Star spa to a Five-Star restaurant, and really put an emphasis on our service here at The Broadmoor and making sure our guests are truly front and center.

[00:02:24] Karen Stephens: That’s what’s so great. So as you mentioned, Forbes Five-Star rating, you’re the longest-running, which is fantastic. So tell us a little about your role as the room reservations manager. Could you tell us a little bit about how many agents you have there and your role in making sure that you hold onto that Five-Star rating?

[00:02:42] Sarah Stephens: Absolutely. So I have, at any given time, between 13 and 15 agents. We’re a fairly large reservations center. I’m kind of in the center, and they’re all around me. We’ve been working on this service. I’ve been the reservations manager for about 14 years now. So it’s something that we always have top of mind. We’re always thinking about the interactions — how could we make it special for our guests? What little clues can we pick up on that they’re sharing with us in the calls to go above and beyond for our guests? And so it’s the pride that we take in every call that we take. And running a team of between 13 and 15 agents is a special thing to have. We’re like a little family providing that level of service, and with 65 years with Forbes, it’s something that we’re honored to have as well.

[00:03:34] Karen Stephens: That’s fantastic. You know, we like to say that the stay really starts with that first call, with that reservation. So I love how you talked a little bit about picking up on those clues. And then when your guests arrive on property, that through line of the guest experience really starts with that agent on the phone.

[00:03:49] Sarah Stephens: It does. And sometimes that could happen a year in advance that we could be talking with them and really cluing in on how to make their stay here extra special. And so it’s something that every guest, every time, and making sure that they’re focusing in on those details.

[00:04:05] Karen Stephens: So Sarah, can you share a little bit about what started your interest in hospitality? How did you get into this career path?

[00:04:12] Sarah Stephens: Yes. I am one of those people that I think I knew when I was in high school. I went on a family trip to Disney World and we stayed at just a regular Ramada hotel, and the pool and the amenities at that hotel just made me think, way back then, “I want to work at a place that makes everybody have this much fun on their vacations.” So I started in a little hotel in my town and did breakfast service and housekeeping and eventually front desk, and went to school for hospitality at RIT in Rochester, New York. And they had a sister school in Dubrovnik, Croatia, and we were able to do a three-month stay in Dubrovnik and go to school there at their hospitality school. And one of the fun things the kids kept asking us was, “Have you ever been to this place called The Broadmoor in Colorado?” And my husband and I thought, “No, we’re from New York. We’ve never been.” After we graduated, we were looking for where to go and where to head next, and thought to ourselves, “We should explore Colorado and that place those kids kept talking about.” And sure enough, 19 years later, I’m still at The Broadmoor — and a fun story that I had to go to Croatia to find out about The Broadmoor!

[00:05:30] Karen Stephens: Okay, that’s incredible. So first of all, I am always a big fan of anybody who gets the opportunity to travel abroad, work abroad, study abroad in a foreign country. I just think it broadens our experience and lens on life like nothing else. So that’s so cool. But I can’t believe it was the kids that were like, “Hey, maybe you’ve heard of this place in Colorado?”

[00:05:50] Sarah Stephens: And I had never heard of it. So it was a great way to jumpstart now a wonderful career. I have to thank the kids in Croatia for that.

[00:06:01] Karen Stephens: I love that. So you’ve been at The Broadmoor ever since, is that right?

[00:06:04] Sarah Stephens: Ever since, yeah. We moved out here 19 years ago. I started as a front desk agent and worked my way up to a supervisor, and then about 14 years ago moved into the reservations manager position, and love really being a manager that can be helpful, be positive, create an environment where we’re here to make this Five-Star level experience for every guest.

[00:06:27] Karen Stephens: Yeah, so let me ask you: how have things changed in the 14 years that you’ve been now in the reservations team? What changes have you seen over that time?

[00:06:35] Sarah Stephens: A lot of changes with technology and different tools that we have available. When I first started in this role as a reservations manager, it was a task every day to go in and plug in an Excel sheet off of a report that we got, what our abandonment rate was and conversion rates. And that was just a daily task. And now those things are not only at my fingertips every day with certain reporting with Revinate and all of that, but it’s great that the team has some access to that. They never knew how many calls they were taking or how much revenue they were producing for the hotel. And now it’s definitely a tool that they have up on their screen every day, all day — how many calls they took and how much revenue they’re making and things like that. And the buy-in from that really allows a team to feel like they’re a part of something, they’re actually making a difference. And prior to that, they just came in and took calls, and they never had any knowledge of who or what they were really doing at the end of their shifts.

[00:07:42] Karen Stephens: Yeah, that’s really interesting. I can’t believe you were doing all of that manually or on spreadsheets, you know, abandonment rate and trying to coach and train. I mean, you know, obviously you have to listen in anyway on those calls, but that’s pretty incredible. So why do you think the voice channel is so important when connecting with guests, compared to email or online booking? So you mentioned you have the team, you’re running reservations there. What makes the voice channel special?

[00:08:06] Sarah Stephens: I honestly think that it has a lot to do with that connection that we can make with the guests. When you have a voice channel where you can communicate and show the tone in your voice and the excitement for the guests, and then come up with something out of that guest experience that you had, it can be truly unique. We just had a guest recently who was calling in, and they wanted to share with us that this was going to be their second stay at The Broadmoor. And the first time around, they really saved every penny and they were able to come for a night. They didn’t really do much else. They mentioned that they brought a bunch of Doritos, and they were eating Doritos in their room a lot in order to save money for the stay. But this time around, they were going to come back and they were going to be able to dine in one of our restaurants as well. And we took that conversation that we had with the guest and thought, “Okay, what can we do with that?” We actually made a bag for them with a handwritten note from the agent that said, “I know you’ve moved up in the world, but just in case you want a trip down memory lane…” And we put a few bags of Doritos in there and that handwritten note. And I think that those special touches that you really can only find when you have a great conversation with somebody are truly what makes memories for guests that last a lifetime. And they feed our souls as well in hospitality, I feel like — being able to do something special for a guest. It’s a selfless act that we get to do, but it’s also what makes our job so special.

[00:09:38] Karen Stephens: It is so cool. I think what’s really nice is that, obviously, being able to cater to the guests like that and make sure they have the best stay is so tantamount to the guest experience. But also when you have a beautiful property like The Broadmoor that does have so many ancillary services and restaurants and all of that, can you talk just a little bit about how the agents kind of curate a stay for that customer? And where I’m going with this: obviously the hotel industry, it’s been a difficult year in terms of RevPAR. Other things are not going the right way. But what we’re seeing is hotels that have ancillary and are able to sell that in — you know, again, it does two things at once: it makes the experience great, but it also drives revenue. So can you talk to us about the approach for your agents along those lines?

[00:10:23] Sarah Stephens: Yeah, I think we spend a lot of time on our training as well. We do close to a month’s worth of training before the agents are really on the phone speaking with the guests. We get them out into these areas and show them a bunch of rooms, experience The Broadmoor a little bit themselves. We take every agent in my office to lunch at one of the restaurants, because I want them to experience what that feels like to dine in one of our restaurants so that when they’re talking to the guests, it really comes off as authentic and something where they can share their own experience with that guest. We have three different wilderness properties, and we try to go up and do tours of them so they can see and explore the wilderness properties a little bit, the features of the rooms, and things that they’re able to share with the guests that really makes them know, “Hey, I’m getting a special experience by talking to this agent versus going online or doing it via email,” where those additional little things may be left out.

[00:11:26] Karen Stephens: Yeah, that’s so cool. That’s 100%. That’s the difference between digital and actually connecting with a person who’s been there. And also, I think my personal feeling is — and there’s a lot coming on with AI, and certainly we know that AI, we’re going to have it in Revinate platforms, it’s important to be able to help people to get on with servicing guests directly — but really that connection, that human-to-human connection, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to replace that. What are your thoughts on that?

[00:11:53] Sarah Stephens: I would agree. We have just been talking about this fairly recently as well, that with a Five-Star resort or luxury property, I think they may be some of the last to kind of come on board with AI, just simply because of the extent of the information that we need to have and the level of service that we try to provide. I can see how those tools are useful and we’re dabbling a little bit with writing custom letters to guests or things like that. We just had a recent call that we believe was a robot call calling in, so how we’re going to handle that and if that’s going to work, how we’re able to kind of assist and help with those type of calls. But I feel like that voice channel, especially at a Five-Star property, is something where our guests seem to love the connection that they make with the team members here, and that service level is kind of unmatched. So it’s something we’re playing with, but also I don’t think we’ll have to worry about that completely going away anytime soon.

[00:12:54] Karen Stephens: So Sarah, you mentioned Forbes Five-Star, so let’s talk a little bit. When you get a Five-Star rating, that is not just about the property. It is not just about the amenities and the service levels when you get there. There are also people who call and shop the reservations team. So you talked a little bit about training, but can you just talk to us a little bit about how critical it is for your agents, because you never know when those calls are coming in, and it does impact your star rating? So we’d love to hear your take on that.

[00:13:23] Sarah Stephens: Definitely. So that is one feature with Revinate, and with the team that I have, it has been instrumental in making sure that we kind of stay at that level that we want to be at. The team self-scores themselves now and does a graded call each month on their own to kind of reflect back on how they felt they did in that call. And then having a sit-down with me or a supervisor to kind of go through a call together and pause and stop and re-record is something that we’ve found very, very helpful. I think nobody likes to hear their own voice at first when they’re listening to that with me, but the more we work through it together and kind of fine-tune the points that we want to do, I think at the end they love having that time with me, having some extra time just sitting down and talking together. And that’s something that’s come a long way. When I first started, we would go into a separate office room and I would open a file folder of just calls that were there. And at the end of the day, I didn’t know what call I was picking or whose call it was, if it was a booked call or what I was listening to. It would take us 20, 25 minutes just to find the call we were going to grade. So certainly that’s been a helpful tool that we’ve used, and coaching and scoring consistently every month, every time, making that a kind of stepping point for the agents when they first get out of training — that they’re going to sit with me and we’re going to review those calls — has been hugely helpful. It holds everybody accountable, and me as well, to sit with all the agents and make sure I’m learning about where they might be needing some extra training or what’s going on in their days as well. So it’s been a lot of fun, and at the end of the day, they enjoy that time we get to spend together.

[00:15:10] Karen Stephens: Yeah, that’s really cool. So I think, as you said, you’ve got to be prepared, and training and coaching is the way to go. Another thing that we think about a lot, again kind of going back to the state of hotels today, and with revenue dropping, occupancy dropping: how often are you using an outbound call strategy with your team? Is that something that you do where you pick up people who haven’t booked a reservation and calling them back, maybe when a group cancels or something else? How often are you using that strategy with your team?

[00:15:38] Sarah Stephens: Yeah, I would say that has been a really big win for our team here at The Broadmoor. We started using Revinate almost 13 years ago, and when we did that, outbound revenue was something that we weren’t really tracking or even following. And we would just kind of let the callers call us back. And when that was presented to us as a tool, we really dug in with that and said, “When you have a great conversation with a guest, ask to follow up.” It’s been a success for us that we love. The team loves to make that kind of a goal for the entire team, and then individually it seems that every agent on the team ends up booking some outbound revenue. And we’ve continued to kind of push: let’s do one more this month, let’s see if we can get one more guest to book. It’s been a huge tool that’s really come back tenfold, and I think in the last three months we were almost close to a million dollars in revenue just in outbound with the team and them making those calls following up.

[00:16:39] Karen Stephens: Amazing. So $1 million in revenue outbound with your existing team, you’re not paying any commission on that to OTAs. You’re handling all of that in-house, which could be another $200,000 just from commission alone. So what a fantastic strategy. That’s really cool. And for our listeners, Sarah is, as she mentioned, you’ve been working with Revinate, formerly NAVIS, on this product for years and years and years, and you come to our NAVIGATE conference every year. And you meet with all your old buds in the industry. Can you talk to us a little bit about how valuable that conference is? Not so much the content we provide, but the community around this very — I don’t want to call it a niche because it’s not niche — I think there’s just a small subset of hoteliers that really understand the value of the voice channel and how to maximize it. So can you talk to us a little bit about that community and the learnings?

[00:17:30] Sarah Stephens: Absolutely. I think it’s a big energy boost for sure, being able to get together with other revenue managers and reservations managers and all the hoteliers that get together for that conference, and it kind of revitalizes you a little bit. You get something from everybody that you talk to. And I come back and I’m ready to go and I’m excited about things, and you always learn something new. It’s kind of good to see what Revinate’s working on in the future, but the connections are amazing. I was emailing over the summer with one of the girls that I met from another luxury property at the conference this year, and her and I are now connected on some of the social media channels. And so you really get to understand other people that are doing the same type of work you’re doing in a luxury property. I connect with them and it’s been a lot of fun. I met some really great friends at the conference and just through Revinate in general as well.

[00:18:31] Karen Stephens: Oh, that’s great. It’s our favorite time of year. We’re getting ready — the pre-sale is opening. It’s happening in April, so I’m excited to see you there. I’ve got a couple of questions left for you. So you mentioned the Dorito story. Is there another guest interaction or something that really stands out for you over the time that you’ve been working there for 14 years in the reservations team?

[00:18:48] Sarah Stephens: Definitely. So I think that, you know, we have a lot of these stories that I like to share with the team and different teams here as well, but another one that sticks out was we have our Christmas show that happens every year in December, and we had a guest who was coming. Our headliner that year was Melissa Manchester, and they were very excited for that. And we took an opportunity to get a signed CD from her, and when she came and got her tickets from me at the ticket area, we were able to present her with a signed CD. And she was just taken aback that we would go that far with a comment that she had made in the call about, “I’m just so excited to come see Melissa Manchester, and I can’t believe she’s your headliner.” And it’s little details like that. It’s all about listening to the guest, because had we not heard that or picked up on that little experience or that little thing that we had heard from her, we couldn’t have made the experience what it was.

[00:19:44] Karen Stephens: Yeah, that’s so cool. I think about talking about training your agents to listen for ways to delight guests, right? Like, what a cool part of your job, you know, if I had something every day where I’m like, “I’m going to give somebody a little surprise here” or really reinforce that and make the stay great. I mean, that just feels like a great piece of job satisfaction for anybody involved.

[00:20:06] Sarah Stephens: Yeah, and I think I like to hit home with the team that it doesn’t have to cost anything, either. That’s the biggest part—is that you can find something as simple as, you know, if a guest is coming with their dog, people love their pets. So being able to just give them a Broadmoor tennis ball that was probably down on the tennis court and cost us nothing at all, or a couple of dollars to do — being able to give that guest a tennis ball at check-in, Their face just lights up when their dog’s able to be a part of the Five-Star experience as well.

[00:20:38] Karen Stephens: That’s it.

[00:20:39] Sarah Stephens: Personalization doesn’t have to be expensive, right?

[00:20:42] Karen Stephens: It does not. That’s so cool. I love that. So my final question for you, Sarah: looking ahead, how do you see the role of reservations evolving over the next, call it, 5 to 10 years? What do you see in the crystal ball?

[00:20:55] Sarah Stephens: What a wonderful question. I think that it needs to continue to be on the service piece. This year after the conference and all of that, I was really getting into with a few other people at The Broadmoor, a little Broadmoor book club, and we’ve been reading Unreasonable Hospitality, which is a wonderful book, and it really focuses in on the service and the details. I think that with voice not really going away anytime soon and people being price-conscious of where they spend their money in the world, it’s got to land on the service. So continuing to train the teams that service is going to be the way forward, and if you want to be the best, you have to have that personalized service with each and every guest. If we can do that, we know we’re going to stay competitive in the markets and that our guests are going to keep wanting to come back, because they expect that and they love that personalized service.

[00:21:53] Karen Stephens: That’s excellent. Well said. Well, thank you, Sarah. I appreciate it, and we will see you soon.

[00:21:58] Sarah Stephens: Sounds great. Thank you for having me.

[00:22:04] Karen Stephens: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Hotel Moment by Revinate. Our community of hoteliers is growing every week, and each guest we speak to is tackling industry challenges with the innovation and flexibility that our industry demands. If you enjoyed today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe, rate, and leave a review. And if you’re listening on YouTube, please like the video and subscribe for more content. For more information, head to revinate.com/hotelmomentpodcast. Until next time, keep innovating.

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