For successful tech companies building a solid and loyal customer base is far less about trusting your gut than having the right data and testing and learning from it. Flattened company hierarchies are also seen as important in getting the best from teams and, as a result, building more successful customer relationships based on personal preferences. So in a turbulent and highly competitive market, should hotels should start thinking more like tech companies to take back control?
Is "Challenging Assumptions" the key to cracking customer experience? Booking.com thinks so and others do too. Love them or hate them - and yes hotels over the years have had a pretty tetchy relationship with booking.com - but few could dispute how successful a company the Amsterdam upstart has been.
After being acquired in 2005 by Priceline for $135m in cash, booking.com helped catapult its US parent from a $10m company to one worth over a billion dollars. This booking.com acquisition, along with others like Agoda, Kayak and more, was, as Priceline CEO Glenn Fogel outlined at a recent EyeforTravel conference, part of a strategic push to go global. "We found companies that knew how to sell the way people in Europe [and other parts of the world] wanted to
A decade on and in 2016, booking.com was responsible for 80% of Priceline's annual revenues. Great news for Priceline! Not such great news for hotels, which over the years have lost control of inventory and forked out commissions of anything between 15 and 30% for privilege of a presence on OTA websites.
But with eroding margins and regulatory pressure brought to bear on OTA bully boy tactics in the US and Europe, the fight back has begun. Recently, we've seen some hotels taking back control by innovating with loyalty programs, technology and more, and even entering what are perceived to be fairer deals with Google (that is another story).
Although there is still some way to go, there is a growing recognition that OTAs, if managed correctly, can play a valuable role. But as Brian Harniman, a former Priceline executive and founder of strategy advisory firm Brand New Matter, puts it hotels need to "partner wisely". Other advice includes using data to shift from cost per booking to cost-per-customer, providing real value (such as upgrades, free drinks and so on) and never ever allowing anybody to dictate RM practices.
Priceline CEO Glenn Fogel Sharing his Insights Into Their Light-Touch Acquisition Strategy — Photo by Reuters Events (former EyeforTravel)
Data is key here, something that booking.com understands well. Just about every decision taken here is driven by data, which are driven by a clear purpose. That purpose, Booking.com Commercial Excellence Manager Ben Bates recently told an EyeforTravel audience is, quite simply, about "keeping the customer at the centre of everything we do".
This core goal is one of the secrets of booking.com's success. Joerg Esser, a theoretical physicist and former senior Thomas Cook executive, believes that in these turbulent markets, it is Booking.com's ability to 'anchor a purpose' that has made it so successful. Anchoring purpose is the first of five simple smart 'ant colony inspired' rules that Esser has been working on since leaving a senior role at Thomas Cook last year, that will give firms a 'toolbox' to drive real change.
But what exactly does this mean in practice within the walls of booking.com and are there any lessons for hotels? Bates, who will be speaking again in Las Vegas this October, makes this point: "We hear a lot about trusting your gut [about what the customer wants] but I would like to challenge that assumption."
Interview with Ben Bates, Excellence Manager, Booking.com — Photo by Reuters Events (former EyeforTravel)
The results from A-B testing, a practice that Booking.com is an evangelist of, proves the point. "Nine out ten A/B tests fail," Bates admits, because very often companies design a product or tool by making certain assumptions about what users want and are time and again proved wrong.
Esser agrees arguing that in competitive markets with shifting consumer behavior, you have to start from the position that everything you do is a hypothesis and not that you have an "expert gut feel"
Innovative hotels are beginning to recognize this. In a recent interview with Sagar Desai, Head of Acquisitions & Development, Viceroy Group he said: "Lot of companies today are A/B testing. Smart hotels should A/B test too. Why put up one website? Put up two and see which responds best."
Viceroy is one of those hotel organisations operating with a flattened hierarchy and in a more nimble fashion. According to Desai, who will also be speaking in Vegas, in order to survive, hotels really need to operate more like tech companies and be willing to work flexibly and rapidly test and change.
As a successful tech company there are, perhaps, lessons to be taken from booking.com. Bates sees seven data-driven themes emerging for hotels to take note of, and whatever your relationship with the Amsterdam based upstart, this is pretty compelling stuff. Drawing from Bates' recent presentation we have compiled these top tips.
Perhaps the hint is that it's a waste of time to launch a hotel branded loyalty program, something the bigger chains have been investing in to drive direct bookings! But, as Harniman says, hotels shouldn't let anybody dictate their business practices. Instead, they must take back control.
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