In this webinar episode of Hotel Moment, Brent Sanders, Sr. Customer Education Specialist at Revinate, is joined by Colton Bean, Director of Reservations at Suncadia Resort, to break down Revinate's Secret Shopper Call Report, original research on what actually happens when guests call luxury and upscale hotel reservation lines. Drawing on 308 secret-shopped calls to 135 unique properties, Brent and Colton expose three operational gaps quietly draining revenue: missed contact capture, skipped discovery, and weak infrastructure. Along the way, Colton shares the specific coaching, role-play, and follow-up tactics that have made Suncadia's reservations team a model for the industry.

● The contact capture gap: Why 92% of unbooked luxury calls end with zero contact details collected, and how a simple opening script (name, reason for stay, phone number) captures all three in under ten seconds.

● Reframing the ask: How positioning contact capture as a personal favor rather than a marketing opt-in makes agents, and guests, more comfortable sharing information.

● The discovery and engagement gap: Why 56.6% of calls skip discovery questions altogether, rising to 74% at the front desk, and what that means for guest experience.

● Verify then trust: How the rise of AI research changes the reservation call itself, since guests now arrive already armed with facts and expect a conversation, not a recitation.

● The three-recommendation rule: How Suncadia requires agents to offer at least three personalized recommendations per call, drawn directly from what the guest shares.

● Securing the booking without pressure: Why a simple credit card hold, with no deposit required, converts roughly 75% of undecided callers into confirmed bookings.

● The infrastructure gap: How 26% of after-hours calls land in voicemail and 59% of calls go unrecorded, and why both quietly cost hotels revenue.

● Coaching without call recordings: Why Colton says managing a fully remote team without recorded calls is like "not having a right arm."

● Extending coverage with RezForce: How outsourced, trained agents fill after-hours and overflow gaps without losing the personal touch.

Brent and Colton also touch on automated call scoring, cross-training through fam stays, and how a strong lead form keeps every follow-up organized and personal. Their conversation is a reminder that in a world where AI can answer any factual question, the human conversation is still what converts a caller into a guest.

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[00:07] Getting the data is only half the battle - Colton explains why capturing a contact detail means nothing if it never makes it into a usable system. "Getting the data was just half the battle, and then getting it into the CRM to be able to be used later is the other half." It's a distinction that separates a nice conversation from a real, working lead.

[00:09] Why people buy from people they like - Colton unpacks the philosophy behind Suncadia's approach to non-booked calls. "At the end of the day, people buy from people they like. So if you just say, 'I got an in for you, I made this a personalized experience that nobody else got today,' they're gonna be like, 'Wow, that's really cool.'" Even a caller who doesn't book that day remembers being taken care of.

[00:25] Verify then trust: what AI means for reservation calls - Colton shares a takeaway from a recent industry keynote on how guest behavior has shifted. "People don't trust anymore, so they're verifying, and then they're trusting." Because callers now arrive pre-armed with facts from AI, he says, the agent's job is no longer to recite information but to personalize it.

[00:37] The card hold that clinches the booking - Colton describes a low-pressure tactic Suncadia's hotel agents use to keep a hesitant caller from walking away empty-handed. "Let's go ahead and get it held just because I only have a few of these left." He notes that 75% of the time, guests take the offer rather than risk losing the room.

[00:43] Flying blind without call recordings - Colton reflects on managing a fully remote reservations team without the ability to review calls. "It's kind of mind-boggling at this point... it's like not having a right arm." Call recordings, he explains, are the only way to coach behavior and catch guest service issues before they escalate.

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro

05:03 - Closing the contact capture gap

16:28 - Simple tactics to gather guest data

24:00 - Moving beyond robotic rate quoting

36:40 - Securing holds and mastering follow up

42:15 - Fixing infrastructure leaks and voicemails

52:10 - Scaling agent coaching with AI