PMS profiles are uploaded from the Property Management Systems of all linked hotels. PMS profiles contain the reservation, stay, and revenue details of guests. Selected PMS profiles are promoted to central profiles based on various rules and criteria.
Central profiles consolidate the profile details of the original PMS profile, such as address data, opt-in information, preferences, etc. One central profile can combine the details of several PMS profiles.

Central profiles can be used as marketing campaign recipients provided that the guest has opted in.

Note for B2B users: Agent and Company profiles are uploaded from the Property Management Systems, usually after night audit. They contain the actual revenue, stay and reservation details pertaining to your accounts.  They account for the revenue figures displayed on the Production and Reservations tab of accounts.

Caution: Automated match for B2B PMS profiles is available but needs to be activated by reaching out to Customer Support. We recommend assigning PMS to Sales accounts on a daily basis. 

The journey from a PMS profile to a marketing campaign recipient

Data flows from the individual properties in a hotel group to NextGuest CRM.

Profile management - what happens with profiles and their data?

Profile management identifies valuable guest profiles and promotes them to central profiles. Profile management is all about maintaining, controlling, and distributing guest profiles across the hotel chain.

A PMS profile reaches the database and is promoted to a central profile based on various automated criteria.

Profile Promotion creates a central profile.

• Central profiles consolidate the profile details of the original PMS profile, such as address data, opt-in information, preferences, etc.
• One central profile can combine the details of several PMS profiles. Central profiles can combine data from different PMS profiles.
• Central profiles can be used as marketing campaign recipients provided that the guest has opted in.

Cleaning, matching, and merging profiles

A whole set of the integrated automatic check, clean, match, and auto-promote processes ensures the comparison and alignment of PMS profiles to central profiles.

• Profile Hygiene and Cleansing​
  
  • Remove and correct invalid characters.
  • Verify incoming data (e.g., St., Str., Street, Ave.)
  • Validate postal address.
  • Basic address check, for example, mandatory fields, has the ZIP field been filled.
• Advanced Address Check
  • Syntax check
  • Domain and mail server check 
  • Exclusion rules for certain email schemas (e.g. @guest.booking.com)
  • Hard and soft bounce processing
    • Hard bounce: Email address has bounced for permanent reasons address invalid, a domain name is incorrect, etc.
    • Soft bounce: Email address is temporarily unavailable because the recipient's mailbox was full, the server was down, the message too large, etc.
  • Check for valid postal address, first name, last name, and 1 stay.   

Automated Profile Matching and Enrichment

The automated profile matching routine assigns new PMS profiles to central profiles based on multiple matching criteria.

• Direct Match: Checks for unique matching fields that lead to an automatic match: email address, last name, first character of first name
• Field Weight Match: Compares PMS profile fields against central profile fields and assigns matching points:
  • Above match threshold: match
  • Above review threshold: wait for manual review
  • Below review threshold: Standalone or Miscellaneous Profile

Field Weight Match

Field weight matching is a point-based method, comparing newly imported PMS profiles with available central profiles. It involves a comparison of pre-defined target and destination field values and specific weightings for the various fields. The settings and points can be be adjusted and customized. 

Profile Promotion

• Automatic profile promotion: Based on user defined automatic promotion rules, the system identifies high-value customers without a matching central profile and automatically promotes these to central profiles. 
  • Valid email address, first name, last name
  • Valid postal address, first name, last name + 1 stay
• Interactive manual promotion in Profile Manager: If the automatic matching and promotion services cannot make a secure match the respective PMS profiles are moved to candidate pools where they can be viewed interactively. (Review recommended 1/week at least)
• Profiles with Candidates (potential matches below match threshold)
  • Standalone profiles (e.g. duplicate email)
  • Miscellaneous profiles (too little information, e.g. no valid email)

Overview of possible Central Profile Types

• Prospect (PRO)
  • For example: Profiles without stays or revenues
• Central Member (CM)
  • For example: valid E-Mail and postal address as well as revenue spent