Four Ways Data Can Reinvent the Customer Experience

The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation by as much as ten years. Consumer behaviors and preferences have changed during a time of “doing everything” from home. Travel has been sidelined, but as the vaccine rolls out, consumer preferences will be important to anticipate as we redefine travel in the age of COVID-19. Hospitality tech leaders can reimagine the full customer experience keeping in mind contactless processes and other considerations for travelers as they begin to emerge from home.  One of the ways to do so is by breaking down the data silos within an organization to uncover as much data as possible about your customers and making those meaningful connections.  Leading hospitality organizations, like the Marriott Group, understand the importance of connected customer data to ensure a seamless guest experience. They partnered with Reltio for its expertise and platform and through our work with Marriott Group and others in the space we have identified four critical ways connected data can reinvent an organization’s customer experience.

Connect Experiences Across Online/Offline Touchpoints

Connected guest experiences must include every touchpoint, whether onsite, interacting with customer service or engaging on the website. Failing to connect customer data can result in a less than rewarding experience every time the customer engages with your brand. Enabling teams across the  organization to use connected customer data allows for scale and the ability to deliver hyper-personalized experiences, every time. Real-time data also helps organizations to gain insights to speed responsiveness and resolve guest issues.

Create A 360° View

Using graph technology will reveal the many-to-many relationships between guests, households, corporate accounts, facilities and more. Correlate data from prior stays, guest spending, amenities used, logistics and even social sentiment, enabling real-time recommendations and personalization. Imagine a customer arrives in the hotel room with all the items they prefer, on the right floor, with a room furthest from the elevator featuring a great view of the ocean. The ability to personalize the guest experience is essential within the hospitality sector and is what garners brand loyalty.

Power Smart Segmentation 

With connected experiences, hospitality organizations can better segment guests based on thousands of attributes, including real-time behavioral, social and third-party data. The segments created can easily be provisioned to a marketing automation or guest relationship management systems. Effective guest segmentation, allows for the recognition of the most loyal guests, and can increase ROI.

Align Engagement and Consent

A personalized, enjoyable experience is the crux of the hospitality industry. By centralizing customer data  businesses have the ability to adhere much more easily to guests’ privacy preferences. It also simplifies the compliance process by efficiently meeting regulatory requirements like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California Privacy Rights Act. Do not leave your business exposed.

Innovators are allowing hospitality organizations to use data now in ways that were nearly impossible to do before. The real-time insights derived from this type of innovation is what made it possible for Marriott International to do things like introduce day passes to monetize otherwise empty rooms and give those working from home a safe change of scenery. It also helped them to realize flexible cancellation policies were a real consumer demand. T&H companies such as Marriott that are able to quickly pivot and adapt with a responsive data strategy have the ability to withstand economic pressure and impact their bottom line. Connected customer profiles give businesses greater agility and enterprise scale to win in today’s competitive digital economy.