Revenue on the line: Why the voice channel matters more than ever

In this strategic episode of Hotel Moment, host Karen Stephens, CMO of Revinate, welcomes back Agnelo Fernandes, CEO of Cote Hospitality with over two decades in luxury hospitality, to discuss Revinate's 11th annual 2026 Hospitality Benchmark Report findings specifically for the voice channel. The report gathered data from Revinate's platform with 12,500+ customers, analyzing 2 billion emails, 28 million guest reviews, 4 million calls, and 22 million text messages, diving into tactics for email, voice, messaging, and web channels broken down by hotel size and class.

What you'll learn:

Voice as premium inventory mindset: Agnelo emphasizes voice is premium inventory "like gold today" requiring protection and prioritization by connecting to CDP, rejecting declining voice beliefs while acknowledging maturation where calls still convert strongly despite peak time pressures.
Peak season staffing transformation: Peak season breaks manila staffing models requiring two frames: triaging calls into revenue versus service categories, and scaling staffing into two layers with highly trained closers separated from service support staff. This hunters versus nurturers approach keeps revenue layers from dilution by transactional work.
Unified CDP data paramount importance: Having unified guest data and CDP with orchestration layer where agents view preferences based on what's needed proves paramount. Cote's evolution took data, scrubbed it well, and put it into buckets where agents have information upfront equipping them with conversion or fade back strategies. This transforms calls from negotiations into booking experiences guests crave rather than 60-90 minute information fishing.
Lead capture and AI structural fix: Only 56% of guest profiles have phone numbers representing massive missed opportunity, with Cote incentivizing agents where greater data capture builds incentive banks. Non-booker data stores why guests didn't choose them, enabling preference-based targeting for next relevant offering. With only 16-34% of calls being booking needs, AI provides structural fix giving sales protected capacity with CDP data preventing information fishing while handling FAQs through AI filtering.
Mindset shifts for voice revenue growth: Treating voice as strategic revenue inventory versus operational cost separates hotels growing voice revenue from those quietly losing it.

Throughout the conversation, Agnelo and Karen emphasize that AI doesn't like data silos with effectiveness only possible if data is clean, synthesized, and in one place, explaining why CDP foundation matters as things move faster than ever with six months potentially bringing very different conversations about possibilities, and that investments and mindset shifts separating hotels growing voice revenue from those quietly losing it center on treating voice as strategic revenue inventory versus operational cost, measuring it like hotel inventory to protect and grow the highest touch and highest profitable channel hotels can own.

Read Revinate’s 2026 Benchmark Report here: Revinate.com/hospitality-benchmark-report/

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Episode Highlights

[02:50] Voice as strategic revenue channel - Agnelo establishes the framework: "We treat voice as a strategic channel, that it's staffed appropriately, that it's fed by unified guest data, and then prioritized for true revenue moments rather than letting some of the operational noise drown it out, and then we lose sales."

[05:36] Peak season staffing layers - Agnelo explains the two-layer approach: "One is triaging calls into what is revenue and what is service. The calls that come in, if they're not divided between the two, then you're losing potential revenue. Second piece is scaling staffing into two layers, one being a revenue-focused layer where you have the best of the best highly trained closers, those that can upsell, and then separate that from those that know how to service and support the guests. It's like the hunters versus the nurturers."

[08:36] CDP data transforms agent confidence - Agnelo describes the impact: "Having that unified guest data and CDP and then building an orchestration layer where they're viewing the preferences of the guests based on what is needed and not what is intuition. It's absolutely critical for them to have this information at their fingertips. Otherwise it becomes more of a negotiation versus let me just truly book you this experience that you're craving for. The more information agents have at their fingertips, the better equipped they are, the more confidence that they have in terms of going for that conversion versus just making it transactional."

[10:32] Non-booker data gold mine - Agnelo reveals the opportunity: "That potential guest has likely gone somewhere else or decided not to travel. That data is extremely important in helping us build our gold mine. We've got a list of questions that agents ask them so that this way we can build continuity the next time we reach out to them. We find that a lot of folks like to hear directly from the brand, especially if you're proactive and you've got a message that resonates with them."

[14:20] Phone number capture incentives - Agnelo shares their approach: "What we try to do is incentivize our agents to make sure that the greater data you capture, the better off you are. It's not just getting email and address, but an actual phone number, then you can build your incentive bank if you're able to capture all that data. The only way to do it is to have it in the script, make sure they can ask the question at least twice without being intrusive."

[18:12] AI filtering service from revenue - Agnelo explains the structural fix: "When you think about 16% to 34% are real booking needs, the structural fix is how do you separate the responsibilities and the toolings. I would ensure that we give sales protected capacity along with the data that's built on CDP so they're not wasting time 60 to 90 minutes fishing for information. FAQ and leveraging AI to enable you to have information at your fingertips, whether it's booking confirmation, housekeeping requests, all this can be handled by AI."

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
03:21 - Voice as premium inventory mindset
05:36 - Peak season staffing: hunters versus nurturers
08:36 - Unified CDP data's paramount importance for agents
10:32 - Lead capture and non-booker data leverage
14:20 - Phone number capture strategies and incentives
18:12 - AI structural fix for filtering service calls
22:06 - Mindset shifts for growing voice revenue