Mr. Tarasofsky

Website / Online Mechandising / SEO

Understanding Just Who Visits Your Site and Why

By Jerry Tarasofsky, CEO, iPerceptions Inc.

He calls the front desk and no responds. After several attempts he does reach them. They apologize and tell him that someone will be up shortly to change his room. Fifteen minutes later (which to him seems like forever) a porter shows up and takes him over to another room, which upon entering, has obviously not been made up. Is he ever going to return to your hotel?

Well the same can be said for your web site. The degree to which you successfully understand who your web site users are, what makes them tick, what their key drivers of satisfaction are, and what they value and what they want most - in other words, taking the time to listen to them and respond to their online experience, will determine the success of your online initiative. To successfully build long-term loyalty and generate increased sales from the web channel, your web site must be able to emulate the same relationship development characteristics that you employ with all person-to-person direct channels. Amongst other things, this means you must be able to establish a loyalty relationship with your user/ customer and quickly and easily respond to their needs and wants. The successful conversion of a first time visitor to a buyer or loyal user, especially in a medium that allows visitors to abandon a transaction by simply clicking out of the site, should be your organization's web site ROI benchmark.

Our clients in the hospitality sector including such well know brands as Holiday Inn, Savoy, Radisson, InterContinental, and Omni Hotels accomplish this task by using a proprietary User Satisfaction Model supported by a strategic framework, and a unique system of processes, tools and question sets that allow them to listen to, understand and profile their web site visitors.

The feedback they receive from their actual online visitors is mapped to a strategic behavioral framework made up of key Site Dimensions including content, navigation, interactivity, and motivation and Site Attributes such as trust, privacy, speed, and language. This model allows site owners to be able to understand the differences in visitor levels of site satisfaction and why they rate the site differently. Your site may make a lot of sense and provide a high level of user satisfaction to a business traveler who is using it every week, but a first time visitor may not be able to get past the first few pages without getting lost. If you want to turn that first time visitor into a repeat customer you must be able to satisfy their needs as well. And you can't even begin to segment your web site strategies until you get a handle on this critical data.

Well-designed sites in the hospitality sector are diversified in the services they provide, yet they are created to provide ease of use for first time users as well as experienced more loyal customers. It is vitally important that your users be able to access the content they are looking for, and that, when they find it, it is relevant to their needs.

Something else to think about when looking at understanding just who is coming to your site is that the true ROI of analyzing web site user feedback in the hospitality sector comes from converting users of lesser value into more valuable users and increasing for example a site's "look to book" ratio or moving first time users to repeat users.

The data to create a loyalty/value matrix comes again from a knowledge base obtained by listening to your web site users. Mapping their feedback to a set of fixed dimensions and attributes as outlined above allows site owners to understand the key drivers of satisfaction for each group and also understand where their site ranks in the delivery of these key drivers.

For example, this means giving first time users the tools they need to easily navigate through the site and letting them know the site understands what they want even if they are not making an immediate reservation. For other users who want immediate response to their needs - making a reservation for example, must be fast and straightforward. Redeeming loyalty points as well has to involve as little work as possible. Your loyal customers value speed and efficiency and will move on if their needs are not quickly addressed. By tailoring your web site strategy to answer the needs of your most valuable users, your site will be able to offer unique targeted promotions that address their pain points, increasing return visits and overall ROI for you as the web site owner.

Using feedback to help revise and update your site should enhance every user's overall online experience, increasing loyalty, frequency of use and overall ROI. But if you don't follow up and constantly monitor and benchmark your user's experiences, preferences, and intentions over time, you run the risk of losing touch with your customer and just as in the example at the beginning of this feature, the chances of them returning to your web site will be close to zero.

The next time you are thinking about who is visiting your web site, think about those people in the same light you think about actual visitors to your hotel. In fact, it might be very interesting for you to map the feedback you receive from your in-room questionnaires, focus groups, and telephone surveys to the same framework used to map user feedback from the web. If your web site is a true reflection of your bricks and mortar brand, the user satisfaction ratings should line up. If not you have a problem.

Jerry Tarasofsky is CEO of iPerceptions Inc. Its webValidator® "captures the voice" of the online customer, helping companies learn more about their customers. Using a comprehensive perceptual framework to evaluate key elements of the visitor experience and, algorithms and modeling to identify attributes that drive satisfaction. The webValidator solution turns data points into easy-to-understand strategic and tactical decision support. iPerceptions’ clients in the hospitality sector include Crowne Plaza, Omni, Savoy, Wellesley, Homestead, Radisson and Holiday Inn. Mr. Tarasofsky can be contacted at jerryt@iperceptions.com Extended Bio...

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