Customer success story

Userguest Case Study

TTMC’s targeted strategy improves outbound sales, delivering high-quality demos and stronger conversion for Userguest.

Userguest is a fast-growing travel-tech company offering a smart website personalisation platform that helps hotels drive more direct bookings. By displaying behaviour-based notifications to website visitors, the platform encourages completion of bookings, helping hotels reduce reliance on online travel agencies (OTAs) and increase revenue. With more than 2,000 hotel clients across 35 countries, Userguest is expanding rapidly with an ambitious plan for international growth.

Campaign objective and background.


Following a successful seed funding round, Userguest set out to optimise its outbound sales strategy to accelerate growth and strengthen its presence in key markets—starting with the UK. Sales development had relied on internal resources, but the approach was fragmented, resulting in inconsistent strategies, processes, and messaging. This lack of cohesion made it challenging to scale outreach effectively.

To drive a more sustainable solution, the company wanted to partner with an experienced outbound provider to manage the top and middle of the sales funnel — from data acquisition to outreach — introducing greater consistency and structure to their model. Following a competitive selection process, Userguest appointed The Telemarketing Company (TTMC) based on its proven track record in the hotel and SaaS sectors and its ability to source high-quality data via specialist industry providers.

Project execution

A briefing took place during which TTMC undertook a detailed discovery process to ensure alignment on objectives, audience, and messaging. Working closely with the client, they developed a tailored outreach strategy to address the brief, target market and audience, typical pain points and challenges and the unique selling points of the proposition.

The primary goal was to engage senior decision-makers — typically Heads of Revenue, Marketing Managers, Owners and General Managers — within 3 - 5-star independent hotels or small hotel groups. TTMC was tasked to deliver a feed of high-quality appointments to the internal sales team, who would then focus on delivering demos and closing sales.

The agency’s remit also included building brand awareness by:

  • Introducing Userguest to relevant hotel stakeholders

  • Clearly communicating the platform’s benefits

  • Building early-stage trust in a relatively new product category

To ensure data quality and relevance, TTMC drew on its network of specialist providers to source contacts aligned with the target customer profile — a key area where the client had previously faced challenges and was eager to see improvement.

When calling began, TTMC agents engaged prospects in consultative, unscripted conversations. Rather than relying on rigid sales scripts, they focused on natural conversations, tailoring the proposition to each hotel’s specific needs and context.

Each call was carefully structured with clear objectives:

  • Introduce the Userguest platform and highlight its core value — increasing direct bookings and reducing OTA commissions.

  • Understand the hotel’s current approach to driving direct traffic and managing conversion.

  • Explore pain points, such as dependence on OTAs or limited visibility into guest behaviour.

  • Gauge interest in learning more and qualify suitability for a platform demo.

  • Book appointments for the sales team, with the option for a trial post-demo

To support visibility and transparency, TTMC gave the Userguest team access to Connect, their bespoke real-time reporting portal. This allowed the client to monitor progress, download call recordings, and access profiling data captured during calls. This enabled them to give detailed feedback to help hone the approach quickly. It also gave them access to valuable insights such as reasons for lack of interest, booking engines or competitive platforms already in use, and the general appetite for a free trial.

As calling progressed, client and agency worked closely to identify opportunities to improve performance and address any barriers to success. For instance, reaching hotel staff who were not office-based or positioned in one part of the hotel proved challenging. Once this issue was identified, the team narrowed its focus to Revenue and Reservation Managers, who were both more accessible and more engaged — resulting in a noticeable improvement in response rates.

Initially, the campaign targeted 4- and 5-star independent hotels. Once this data pool was exhausted, TTMC expanded the audience in a controlled way, sourcing additional data with the same profile to maintain momentum. Outreach was also extended to include small chains and 3-star hotels with 60+ beds. Data was managed closely so that the approach and messaging could be tweaked to align with the needs and positioning of the different segments.

The client’s internal model had struggled with poor-quality appointments and frequent no-shows, which drained valuable sales resource. TTMC’s robust qualification and quality assurance processes ensured that scheduled appointments were reliable and well-attended. Additional confirmation calls were made to secure attendance or reschedule when needed—enabling the sales team to focus solely on well-qualified, engagement-ready prospects.

TTMC’s team established itself as a seamless extension of the internal team, providing regular feedback and strong communication throughout the process and adapting messaging in response to real-time insights from the market. All leads handed over were fully qualified, with interest confirmed and a follow-up appointment scheduled. The team also supplied detailed notes from each conversation to support a smooth handover and ensure the internal team could continue the discussion with full context.

Results

The client has been extremely impressed with the quality of work delivered by TTMC, including the professionalism and communication skills of agents, proactive account management, agile approach, and detailed insight and reporting. The project has demonstrated the value of a systematic and expert-led outbound model, resulting in a high-quality pipeline, strong attendance rates, and impressive conversion performance.

Beyond lead generation, the campaign has also contributed to broader strategic goals, including increased brand awareness and a deeper understanding of buyer behaviour in the UK market.

Key outcomes include:

  • A strong pipeline with an initial potential value exceeding £150,000.

  • Deeper engagement with key decision-makers in priority hotel segments.

  • Valuable insight into the challenges and behaviours of UK hotel buyers.

  • Enhanced brand visibility in a critical growth market.

  • Cleansed and enriched data: 200+ new records, 1,000+ field updates.

Userguest is now focused on progressing and converting opportunities in the pipeline delivered. Conversion has been strong, and they have already secured several high value wins.