HOSPA Webinar - 6th July, 2022

Customer Experience Management & The Art of Creating the Perfect Stay 

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In conversation with Jane Pendlebury, CEO of HOSPA, Geoff, Head of Hospitality at Medallia, and Laura, Head of Customer Experience at Travelodge
 

Attendees
[JP] Jane Pendlebury, CEO of HOSPA
[G] Geoff, Head of Hospitality at Medallia
[LG] Laura, Head of Customer Experience at Travelodge

Transcript:

00:01 - Jane Pendlebury, CEO of HOSPA: HOSPA and Medallia Webinar

G: The industry has changed since 2019. From 2009-2019 it was steady, with positive continued growth. It’s been disruptive since 2019, with erratic, up
and down booking trends. Customers have different expectations now, particularly when it comes to packages. Previously, there was a strong belief that loyalty schemes would keep customers, rather than experience/products. Now, business in particular are looking for experiences/packages so brands need to rethink their purchasing conditions.

LG: There’s a significant change in behaviours - particularly with business customers. Staycations are also keeping hotels busy; we’ve changed the operation.

JP: Change is the new constant. Business travel has a different face; people are looking to extend business trips into weekends. Loyalty schemes were popular among frequent travellers (ease of use) but since Covid customers went to brands that could adapt. Now they’re less likely to be loyal to one brand.

Post-stay surveys:

What is the importance of listening to guests pre/post/during their stay, and across different channels?
LG: The exceptional analytic tool gives a flavour of the trend lines. Medallia and Reflexis are able to give a full view of the whole customer journey and capture early warnings.
G: 4 areas:

1. More likely to prioritise increase quantity of signals that comes into the platform - gathering information from different parts of the business.

2. More likely to synchronise data across across internal systems to generate more meaningful insights. Capture unstructured data from chat/call/customer support systems

3. Capture customer feedback from external social review sources, such as Google Maps/TripAdvisor Giving guests a variety of platforms/ways to feedback allows businesses to see the bigger picture. We still see a healthy response rate over email, so won’t eliminate altogether, but will seek feedback from lots of other sources to maximise response.

JP: The staffing crisis: trying to do more with less staff and how technology can help.
L: Businesses are operating with less resources. The analytics tool allows the hotel manager to concentrate on the right thing. A good analysis gets to the root of the problem, not just the trend.
G: Technology can’t replace people. It can, however, allow people to do an exceptional job and make it easier/allow them to be more efficient. It’s a full time job for several people in itself just to collate the data - a unified system can do it easily, freeing up staff. Analysing the issue means it can be solved quicker. For example, the queues are visible and so management might focus on fixing those, when in actual fact the feedback suggests a slow-draining bathtub in a luxury room is more off-putting for guests. This is a solvable issue, as long as staff know about it in good time.

Customer experience is everybody’s job.

CX leaders 26x more likely than (Ligerts?) to experience growth of 20% or more over the previous fiscal year of analysis - real reasons for investments. Businesses need to be forward-thinking in the customer experience approach for better financial results.
LG: Customer strategies should be shared with all departments. Having everyone directly involved allows consistency. Question: Where is the biggest opportunity to listen? 

G: The customer experience can begin anywhere. What is the highest touch point/level of interaction? Businesses need to concentrate on where the customer’s eyes are and how the funnel works: where bookings aren’t happening, enhance website/apps. It all comes down to choice.
LG: The survey prompts some customers, but social media is the most preferred method. Live chat is also popular. Different people/circumstances require
different modes. For example, for an immediate response, many people turn to social media. For a reactive response, ie about a booking, they tend to use a
live chat. You can’t always guess - there are different tools for different stages of the customer journey.
G: From the Four Seasons to economy brands, travellers prefer convenience across the board. Multi-channel operation in one place means all the data is in one
environment.

Question: How do you encourage the board to understand why you want to invest [in the technology]?
LG: Show the opportunities to every division: feedback, reviews, return, experience, revenue.

Point of contact for a hotel - who sees the value the soonest?

G: New disciplines require new operations. You need buy-in from finances - and back up from the RoI reason behind it. You need a leadership team who truly believes.
JP: It’s all about humanising feedback and understanding that feedback. Video feedback is popular, guests can talk about their experience which can help
shape a picture, and fixing issues in real-time (ie a dripping tap) can help.

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