Lorena Kurtjian Hernandez, Senior Director, Solutions Principal for Travel, Hospitality & Restaurants, Medallia – April 24, 2023
As travel continues to make a comeback after the outbreak of COVID-19, the hotel industry has seen a surge in demand for guests traveling for in-person experiences such as concerts and festivals. However, not all properties have been successful in increasing bookings during these events and hotels need to make a difference and take action to appeal and win this key traveler segment. sex is occurring.
Here are five steps you can take to get started.
1. Collect and aggregate cross-channel customer signals throughout the guest journey
Hotels have the opportunity to listen to and gain rich insights from the plethora of customer signals (or data points) that travelers generate through their omnichannel guest journeys. experience.
Hotels can capture these learnings from customers’ digital behavior during the booking process, contact center conversations, in-app and SMS guest messages, social media mentions, and online reviews. By aggregating all these customer signals together with operational data and behaviors observed during a stay, hotels can better understand pain points guests may face before, during and after their stay. . It also unlocks opportunities to improve every part of the guest journey across channels and touchpoints at scale.
For example, during the booking process, from how potential guests interact with your property’s website or app, to the amount of time customers spend looking at frequently asked questions, to the availability of live chat for support before completing a booking. You can learn a lot, including whether you should. Or if a website error or confusing experience causes you to abandon the booking process in frustration.
Similarly, live chat, email, and phone contact center conversations can be used to understand why customers should seek help in the first place, the sentiment of these conversations, and whether hotel employees can help address customer concerns. can clarify what
As another example, hotels actively utilize two-way in-app and SMS messaging to check-in guests upon arrival at the site and to collect and improve feedback on the cleanliness and comfort of their rooms. can see if there is anything we can do. Experience while they are still at the facility.
2. Use AI and ML to analyze customer insights, uncover priority areas, and optimize the end-to-end guest journey
Manually making sense of the vast amount of customer data available to hotels across various touchpoints and channels is not a scalable task for hotel staff. That’s why savvy facilities are using AI-powered text and voice analytics to analyze these aggregated customer signals and identify key focus areas to maximize the customer experience.
Text and voice analytics instantly review structured data from surveys and unstructured data from social media mentions, online reviews, open-ended guest comments, and contact center conversations to different sources of insight into top themes, topics, trends, and areas of focus. This gives your staff a clear picture of what drives low ratings and customer churn, and what leads to increased guest delight and repeat bookings.
3. Segment your property’s customer data and insights
Hotel properties want to understand how to better meet the needs of guests traveling for live events. In particular, customer data should be segmented to refine insights relevant to this group. By looking at the feedback and experiences of this particular cohort of customers, the property manager can see how these guests differ from typical hotel guests and what their specific concerns and priorities are. You can check whether
In order to be able to segment these guests, the hotel may track data during the booking process, within the app, when guests call our contact center, when they arrive on site, or through customer feedback surveys.
4. Democratize access to guest insights to the right team members within your organization to improve in-the-moment experiences
Customer experience data is often collected after the fact and shared with employees. It is too late for hotel staff to take action and make an impact. This is a missed opportunity, especially as the hotel adapts to serving guests who may be visiting the facility for the first time for a live event.
To ensure that the right team members have real-time access to the right customer insights so they can do their jobs better and meet the needs of their guests once the organization starts aggregating and analyzing all customer data. is important.
For example, a housekeeping manager needs to loop on real-time guest feedback about room cleanliness. This allows us to address issues on an individual level at that time, such as assigning housekeeping staff to provide more thorough cleaning on a larger scale if needed.
Similarly, if a real estate website or app experiences a problem, your marketing and digital teams can stay up-to-date so they can make changes to streamline the experience in real-time. For example, use digital behavioral analytics tools such as session replay technology to capture anonymized video replays of how real customers interact with your company’s website or app so that potential guests can You can determine why you are abandoning the booking process before completing the Additionally, contact center conversation transcripts may also provide insight into the breakdown of the digital experience, especially if the property receives a spike in calls related to errors on her website or app.
By giving managers access to insights from customer reviews on channels like TripAdvisor and social media platforms, and transcripts of contact center calls, emails, and live chats, managers can ensure that their customers It helps provide better coaching and training to staff in the moment to respond. Team-Facing Her members communicate with empathy, reflect brand values, and solve problems to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
5. Evaluate, Iterate, Optimize
When hotels identify key areas they want to focus on to improve the guest experience, it’s free late check-out for guests traveling for late-night events, free late check-out for guests attending events 21 and above. For example, offering additional rides or discounts for large groups. Having the tools to measure the impact of these efforts is critical. That way, you can see if the strategies implemented are improving KPIs such as bookings, revenue, and repeat visits.
final thoughts
Improving the guest experience is not a one-time effort. This should be an ongoing, continuous, iterative process. Hotels must focus on improving the experience at the individual guest and system level to drive results at scale. A great place to start is by listening to, analyzing, and acting on guest feedback, including direct and indirect signals.
Lorena Kurtjian Hernandez is a Global Solutions Principal specializing in travel, hospitality and restaurants for Medallia. With over 20 years of experience in the travel industry, Lorena has a proven track record of successful customer and employee initiatives that enhance experiences and drive business outcomes. At Medallia, she leverages her expertise in customer experience strategy, data analysis, and marketing strategy to consult with clients across industries, sharing her best practices and innovative solutions for CX to address industry challenges. are dealing with. Lorena earned her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth Her School of Business and a BS in Marketing Strategy from the University of Illinois at Urbana Her Champaign. She is also certified in Change Management and is a frequent speaker at industry events and conferences.
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