Business Need

Our client runs a chain of business hotels in 50+ countries. Until about 4 years ago, they have been successful in clocking a year-on-year occupancy rate of over 90%+ throughout the year. However, over the past few years due to the flurry of hotel booking portals, they have been experiencing a significant drop in bookings through their own website and mobile app. Customers were visiting the website for exploring the property tours, packages, and other details but the website hit-to-customer conversion ratio was continuously falling. Prospective customers went ahead and booked the same room from a hotel booking aggregator portal for better rates due to bulk blocking of inventory, in turn, narrowing the client’s profit margins.

KS Solution

Analyzing the customer interaction data for the website and app, the Knowledge Synonyms team concluded that this emerging challenge can only be addressed by increasing visibility in the virtual world and converting customers while they are on the website. We thoroughly examined the customer journeys to figure out potential purchase decision points. Our team also studied the customer journey on competitor portals and various online hotel booking portals. The team also did an extensive analysis of paid and non-paid search keywords being used by the competition to get a better listing on search engines. A thorough review of types of campaigns, advertisements, and promotions being done by the competition to pull the customers on their website.

Equipped with these insights and data, the KS team created a one-day-long blended Digital Marketing training program wherein their Central Digital Marketing, Sales, and Reservations teams were provided training with the objective of converting more customers while they are in the Need cycle and on the client website/app. The training covered issues like-“What kind of customer touchpoint, communication, advertisement, and promotions to leverage to convert purchase intent into conversion?”. Client-specific scenarios, use cases, facts sheets, and job aids were included in the overall training program.

Post the training, our Digital Marketing experts handheld the customer’s teams for about four weeks to help them apply the acquired learnings to their job roles and actual job situation.

Benefits

The customer conversion rate on the website went up by 3.8%.

The client is now selling more through its own website and app, resulting in lesser inventory usage by booking partners.

Profit margins are on a positive trajectory due to lesser booking partner outgo.