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Frequently Asked Questions
Find out more about our business development products and services
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About the Knowland Business Development Suite
| Q. | What is the Knowland BDS? | | A. | The Knowland Business Development Suite combines our four products into one package, including Target Net, Insight, Readers, and the Event Booking Center. It also includes free Knowland University training courses as well as client care support and individualized training. |
| Q. | What do you mean by "Business Development"? | | A. | It means developing your business in a systematic, measurable, and repeatable way. Business development starts with defining your potential clients, then targeting those best suited to your property using the proper plan of attack and backed by the right tools and information. These four products work in tandem to support the business development process from start to finish. |
| Q. | What is included in the BDS? | | A. | The BDS includes Readers, the first online searchable reader board service, and Insight, a powerful search engine and mapping tool, to help you generate and micro target new group business from your own backyard and across the country. Also included is Target Net, a sales force automation and meetings management tool that employs the Software as a Service (Saas) model. Finally is the Event Booking Center, which provides telephone-verified contact information as well as augmenting your sales team with its own experienced telesales team to schedule sales appointments for you and book groups at your hotel. |
| Q. | What are the benefits of getting BDS instead of the individual products? | | A. | These products and services were designed to work together to support your business development process from lead generation to booking new group business to managing events. And when you buy them as part of the BDS package, you can realize huge savings. |
| Q. | Are there different versions of the BDS? | | A. | We have developed five separate BDS packages so each client can choose one that perfectly matches their needs. These range from packages for Big Box hotels to others for Select Service properties with no meeting space. |
About Target Net
| Q. | How does it compare to Delphi? | | A. | Target Net is much more than meetings management software. It combines true sales force automation with a true Software as a Service (Saas) management tool that is infinitely less complicated and expensive to use.There are no on-site servers, third party tools, networking solutions, or advanced training certifications required to use Target Net. Plus, it has a built-in lead generation tool based on Smart Targeting technology. See the Target Net feature comparison for more details |
| Q. | How many users can use it at one property? | | A. | As few or as many as you want: You choose how many members of your team have access to Target Net. |
| Q. | Do you do training? | | A. | We offer both online and onsite training. Our highly-trained client care technicians conduct private and group online training sessions on a weekly basis. They will also travel to your property to train you and your staff onsite. They will introduce you to Target net or asses how it is being used already, answer any questions, and then make suggestions on how you can further utilize Target Net. |
| Q. | Can you print out contracts? | | A. | Yes. You can view and print any contract in Microsoft Word. |
| Q. | Does it integrate with other systems? | | A. | Yes, Target Net has an SDK that allows it to integrate with multiple other systems. |
| Q. | Do I have to have a server or is it online? | | A. | Target Net is a true SaaS, browser-based solution. That means no onsite server is needed! Everything is hosted in a secure Peer1 data center. |
| Q. | What reporting capabilities are there? | | A. | Target Net reports are designed to be powerful yet easy to use. Quickly and easily pull up a report on accounts, opportunities, bookings, contacts, meetings, and more. Narrow down your results by source, status, or user. Or create your own completely customizable report. Results appear in grids with easy to digest charts and graphs at the top. Each report can be downloaded in multiple formats, from Microsoft Excel spreadsheets to Adobe .pdf and .csv files. |
| Q. | How will I get my corporate leads? | | A. | Target Net has built-in lead generation tools to help you find and target new group business.These leads include detailed, up-to-date contact information and an analysis of that group's compatibility rating with your property. |
| Q. | What can this do that Delphi does not? | | A. | The list is of things only Target Net can do is extensive but includes: generate leads, track opportunities, create preconfigured sales campaigns, analyze business you won and lost and why, diagram room configurations, access extensive group contact information, accurately forecast future business, and much, much more. |
| Q. | Have you talked with my management or ownership company? | | A. | We have worked with virtually every major hotel chain and management or ownership company. Let us prove to your superiors why Target Net is the superior option. |
| Q. | How much are the set up fees? | | A. | There are absolutely no set up fees with Target Net. |
| Q. | Will you have to come to the hotel to install? | | A. | Since all you have to do to access Target Net is log onto our website, there is nothing to install onsite! |
| Q. | Will you be able to upload my current meetings? | | A. | Knowland will take all of your old and current meetings data and import it into Target Net so it's ready to go for you. |
| Q. | How long will it be before I can start using the service? | | A. | It will take about one to two weeks to get everything set up on Target Net for you, including importing all your old meetings data. |
About Insight
| Q. | What can I use this for? | | A. | The applications for Insight are endless! Use Insight to generate leads customized for your hotel. Find groups in your backyard and across the country that are perfect for your property. Find new groups for sales blitzes. Instantly know if a group is right for your hotel by looking at its star rating. Find groups similar to great leads you already have. |
| Q. | How is it different from Readers? | | A. | Insight is a search engine and mapping tool that provides you with group and event information not just from your comp set but across the globe. Insight also gives you Smart Targeting tools such as star ratings, similar groups, and search filters to microtarget the groups you are most interested in. |
| Q. | How many markets do you cover? | | A. | Knowland collects data in over 100 markets in six countries across the globe. |
| Q. | How many events and groups are in the Knowland database? | | A. | Today, Knowland has data on almost a quarter of a million events held at hotels by 300,000 groups. Both of these numbers increase by the thousands every month. |
| Q. | How long have you been collecting data in my area and other feeder markets? | | A. | It all depends on your area. Some markets we have been collecting data for five years or more and others we just entered in the last year. |
| Q. | Do you get contact info for all groups? | | A. | Yes. Detailed, telephone-verified contact information, including meeting planner information, is available in the group's profile. |
| Q. | How many users can we have? | | A. | There can be as many users as there are employees at your property. |
| Q. | Am I limited to a certain number of searches? | | A. | No. Search for new, customized leads as many times as you want for no additional cost. |
| Q. | Can I still request verifications in Insight? | | A. | Yes, Glengarry leads are still available to you through Insight by requesting a verification or qualification. |
| Q. | How do I print the information? | | A. | Simply choose what information you want to print for each group and print as many groups as you want at one time. |
| Q. | What's the Star Rating system? | | A. | Insight uses the preferences you have set up to calculate a rating for each group's compatibility with your property. Each zero to five star rating is listed within your search results and more information about how each group received their rating is available in group details. |
| Q. | Do you have onsite training? | | A. | We offer both online and onsite training. Our highly-trained customer care technicians travel to your property, assess how Insight is being used, answer questions any of the users have, and make suggestions on how to further utilize Insight. Later on they follow up to check on your progress. |
About Readers
| Q. | What is a reader board service? | | A. | A traditional reader board service provides reader board information for your property's comp set. This list of group events held at each hotel is typed up in a report and sent to you once a week. |
| Q. | What makes you different from other reader board services? | | A. | Readers is the world's first searchable online reader board service. We offer much more than just a list of this week's events, including detailed contact information and historical data on the group's past events. It's all available to our clients right from our web site in an easy to read calendar view or list format. |
| Q. | Are you in my area? | | A. | The Knowland Group reads data in hundreds of markets across the globe. If you're in an area with a population of 300,000 or more, chances are we're there too. If not, we are happy to discuss establishing a new route just for you. |
| Q. | Who in my comp set is already using the service? | | A. | We have a corporate policy of not disclosing client lists. We can, however, provide references from hotels in your brand, management, or ownership company. |
| Q. | How do you get the reader board data? | | A. | Every week we send out approximately 200 field researchers into more than 2,000 hotels to take digital photos of each hotel’s reader board. Those photos are uploaded nightly and the data recorded into the Readers database, where it is available to our clients the next day. |
| Q. | What about the other group and event planner details? | | A. | We are constantly adding new groups to our database and verifying information on the hundreds of thousands of organizations already there. Our research teams call every group listed on every reader board to ask who the meeting planner is for that organization. We also conduct research to create a detailed profile of each group including location, size, industry segment, and other contact information. |
| Q. | How accurate is the information? | | A. | Our field research management team monitors each and every photo taken for quality assurance. We have developed an intricate system of checks and balances to ensure that we constantly know if any inaccurate or outdated information is being used so that it can be corrected immediately. |
| Q. | Do you provide historical data? | | A. | Yes! All of our data, whether from last week or last year, is available to you at no additional cost! |
| Q. | How long have you been collecting data in my area? | | A. | It all depends on your area. Some markets we have been collecting data for five years or more and others we just entered in the last year. |
| Q. | How do you estimate attendees? | | A. | We take the square footage and calculate how many people could meet there with the room set up in a traditional classroom configuration. We then take 60 percent of that number and that is our estimate of the attendees at the meeting. |
| Q. | Where do you get the contact information? | | A. | We call every group listed on every reader board to ask who the meeting planner is for that organization and get other crucial contact information. Over time we periodically verify this information for accuracy. The darker the shade of the contact information, the more recently it has been verified. |
| Q. | How many days a week do you collect data? | | A. | Our field researchers across the globe are gathering reader board information Monday through Saturday. Within each market, we will collect data anywhere from three to six days a week based on each client's specific needs. |
| Q. | How many users can we have? | | A. | There can be as many users as there are employees at your property. |
| Q. | What are Glengarry leads? | | A. | Named after the classic sales film Glengarry Glen Ross, our telephone verified leads will help you close new group sales again and again. Much more than simply verifying a group's contact information, Glengarry leads come with detailed information about an event, straight from the event planner. We will find out if there were any complaints or issues with the hotel, what room rate the group paid, when the group's next event is, what they are looking for in a hotel for their next event, if they plan on shopping around for a hotel, and much more. |
| Q. | How does the telephone verification process work? | | A. | Any time you find a group in Readers whose business you want, simply click Request Verification. Our sales team will immediately contact the group and find the actual planner who set up the event. These researchers are specially trained in working with event planners to find out what particular needs an organization has so your hotel can meet them. |
| Q. | What's the difference between verification and qualification? | | A. | If you have a particular question you want us to ask or anything else you would like us to know in addition to the standard verification questions, click Qualification instead. Write in any special requests you have and get an answer to that question as well. |
About the Event Booking Center
| Q. | What is a telephone verification or Glengarry lead? | | A. | Named after the classic sales film Glengarry Glen Ross, our telephone verified leads will help you close new group sales again and again. Much more than simply verifying a group's contact information, Glengarry leads come with detailed information about an event, straight from the event planner. We will find out if there were any complaints or issues with the hotel, what room rate the group paid, when the group's next event is, what they are looking for in a hotel for their next event, if they plan on shopping around for a hotel, and much more. To receive a Glengarry lead, simply click Request Verification or Request Qualification on any group you choose. |
| Q. | What is the difference between a verification and a qualification? | | A. | If you have a particular question you want us to ask or anything else you would like us to know in addition to the standard verification questions, click Qualification instead. Write in any special requests you have and get an answer to that question as well. |
| Q. | What are Schedule its and Book its? | | A. | Schedule its and Book its are available in Readers and Insight for any group you choose. Simply click Schedule a Sales Appointment and the EBC will find the event planner for that group and set up an appointment or site visit with he or she for you. Or choose Book this Group and our team will contact the event planner as your property's representative and convince them why their next event should be held at your hotel. |
| Q. | Who staffs the EBC? | | A. | We hire individuals for the EBC who are natural salespeople, outgoing and good on the phone with a thick skin if need be. They then undergo intensive, ongoing training to give them all the tools and knowledge they need to achieve results for you. |
| Q. | How does the EBC represent themselves to the people they call? | | A. | We never divulge any information about your hotel to event planners when conducting telephone verifications or qualifications. |
| Q. | How does the EBC integrate with other Knowland products? | | A. | The EBC team is always there to support your work in Readers and Insight. Every service from telephone verifications to scheduling and booking requests are available to you with one click from any group's profile. |
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