Business Travel iQ
Several recent conferences have had sessions on who 'owns' the customer. Hotels and airlines particularly are desperate to cut their distribution costs by getting more people into their properties and onto their planes through direct bookings and are doing this by offering discounts and benefits to their loyalty programme members.
They say that by obtaining customer data through initiatives such as loyalty programmes they can better anticipate customer needs. In fact, as the retail industry has amply demonstrated, personal data on behaviour such as preferences and buying patterns is invaluable for use in targeting offers.
Personalisation can deliver specific customer data for sales and offers, but nothing is more personal than the face-to-face interaction that travellers have in the building/aircraft itself.
At the Phocuswright Europe conference this week citizenM's CEO Michael Levie shared how he looks at loyalty as something different from a means of collecting data and driving sales. The hotel group has no loyalty scheme and believes that a competitive BAR (best available rate) and its service proposition does the job. If citizenM hotels deliver the service they promise, then why wouldn't their customers return?
Levie stressed that the service offering, whether pre- or in-trip, needs to be easy, subtle and friction-free. Encouraging travellers to use an app to book when the online process already works well is an example of creating friction. Continuously asking for data or preferences is frustrating for the customer and also causes friction but companies can intelligently make use of past behaviour. For example, when a citizenM guest sets their ideal room temperature using the in-room iPad, that number is linked into their customer profile and automatically set to that temperature when they stay next.
For travel managers finding the right type of supplier that fits the company's culture and employees' expectations is vital to keeping travellers happy and compliance high. A high-touch luxury service will suit some while others will prefer the type of property that doesn't have a check-in desk. They might not even want to stay in a hotel but would prefer an apartment or someone else's home.
Similarly, you'd think that if the company's online booking tool successfully did what it set out to the first time, there's no reason why the traveller wouldn't use it again.
But as we know, there are a lot of companies out there competing for eyeballs and money. What's the secret to loyalty? It seems to be all about seamlessness and treating the traveller as the most important part of the trip.