HT Talks Tech: Robin Ruttle, Sr. Director, Loyalty & Partnerships, Sonesta International Hotels
With more than 15 years of experience in marketing, loyalty and CRM, and partnerships, Robin Ruttle, Sr. Director, Loyalty & Partnerships, Sonesta International Hotels, is a passionate marketing professional who believes in the power of storytelling and what it means for brands. She has been with Sonesta since 2021, where she oversees the loyalty strategy, execution, and growth of the Sonesta Travel Pass program as well co-brand Sonesta World Mastercard partnership with Bank of America. One of her biggest wins, to date, is the implementation of Tally, Sonesta’s award-winning loyalty platform. Ruttle led the implementation alongside the IT team and also co-designed the loyalty UI that is a part of Sonesta’s comprehensive CRM project: Sonesta Connect. HT caught up with Ruttle to learn more about her role with these projects.
Was Tally created in-house or with the help of an outside vendor?
Tally is a proprietary loyalty platform, but our internal IT team re-architected our marketing tech stack in order to integrate Tally seamlessly.
What issues was Tally created to solve?
We needed a true points bank, loyalty platform, that could power our newly redesigned loyalty program, Sonesta Travel Pass.
What does Tally do really well?
Its main function is points issuance, but it handles multiple types of promotions, offer conflict management, it handles the benefits of our various loyalty tiers, and has great financial reporting and fraud detection functionality.
What was your role in working with the IT team during Tally’s implementation?
I led the RFP process as well as the implementation from a business lead/corporate sponsor perspective.
When was Tally rolled out to all of Sonesta's properties?
It’s a central technology for the loyalty program, which all our properties rely on.
What does Tally do that you're most proud of?
Real time management of points earn/burn, multiple promotions, improved reporting and auditing functionality.
How is Tally helping to improve the guest experience?
Provides near real time issuance of benefits to our members.
Tell us more about the loyalty UI you helped co-design. What was your role on this project?
Loyalty consultant for integrating features and functionality to improve loyalty enrollment, and personalized service for our loyalty members.
What were your goals?
Improved UI to drive enrollment at the property level and better service for our guests.
How did you accomplish them?
We’ve seen double or in some cases triple digit percentage improvements towards enrollment goals at properties that are leveraging the new system we designed.
What are you most proud of with this project?
The improved experience for our associates that will empower them to provide the best service for our guests.
How is this tech helping to improve the guest experience?
The UI leverages our customer and member data to ensure we can personalize their onsite experience according to their preferences and loyalty tier benefits.
How is this tech helping to improve operations on the backend for Sonesta?
Associates now only have to use one OS to provide seamless check in/check out experiences for our guests.