Mr. Federman

Website / Online Mechandising / SEO

Is Your Website Talking to Your Call Center?

By John Federman, CEO, eStara

Since the internet allows people to comprehensively search for the lowest prices, some have said that customer loyalty in the travel and hospitality business is an outdated notion. I wholeheartedly disagree with that statement. Loyal customers remain the lifeblood of the industry.

However, the convenience and efficiency of the Web has lead to laziness on the part of many tasked with servicing customers.

In the past, whenever a customer had a question online, companies were quick to offer them FAQs, and perhaps an email address. While these self-help strategies are fine for handling routine questions, they are ineffective at turning undecided prospects into customers. The days of using the Web as an interactive brochure are long gone. Hotels need to do much more to assure they turn online lookers into bookers. In addition, now that the competition is just a click away, customers will not hesitate to leave your site (and your brand) if they do not get quick resolution to their problems.

As humans, we strive for personal connections within each facet of our lives. We frequently inhabit places we are not only familiar with, but that also recognize us and enjoy our presence.

Hotels.com utilizes real-time web analytics and customer behavior patterns to identify high-value customers. With this information in hand, they can offer their most coveted clients special rates and also give them a chance to speak with a customer service representative to answer their questions. Companies that reach out to customers during key points in the sales transaction with useful information differentiate their offerings from competitors and turn themselves into a destination site.

Once a loyal customer is identified, Hotels.com can tailor their site's offerings to suit that particular person's preferences. For instance, if the customer frequently stays in a the Steamboat Grand Resort Hotel during the winter while they ski in Colorado at Steamboat Springs, Hotels.com can offer the person a discounted rate based solely on their buying history. Marketing strategies that reward customers' brand loyalty with exclusive bargains always rewarded themselves through increased web site traffic, bolstered online revenues and, possibly most importantly, happy customers turning into company evangelists.

Now, this kind of personalization goes a long way to building customer loyalty online, but what happens if - despite your best efforts to present a personalized experience - the customer still has a question and has to pick up the phone to call your customer service department? Will the time they spent online go to waste? Will they have to, in essence, start the process all over again?

Online, real-time web analytics and customer behavioral patterns present companies with a comprehensive view of a customer's habits, but this information is typically lost when the customer is forced to cross-channels and leaves the website.

The goals of marketing and customer service dovetail - marketing cultivates loyal, high-value customers while customer service agents strive to maintain that high loyalty through excellent service. These goals seem complementary, but for too long, marketing and customer service departments have maintained their separate fiefdoms. This separation comes at the expense of the customer and their loyalty to your brand, because at the end of the day, the customer won't remember whether or not they had a good experience with your website or a good service experience with your customer service department...they're going remember a good experience with your hotel brand.

New technologies, like click to call and click to chat, make it possible for hotels to bridge the gap between their online and offline sales and support channels. By simply adding a few lines of code to a website, hotels can leverage their existing web analytics infrastructure and tie it in to their call center for a complete view of the customer. With click to call and click to chat, the context of the customers online session is preserved when they decide it is time to get assistance from a live agent. When a call or chat is initiated with a customer service representative, that agent receives information on their computer that describes the customer's recent online behavior (eg., destination, room type, preferred customer status, etc.) and allows the agent to greet that customer without having re-hash steps that were already taken online. This not only goes a long way towards establishing loyalty, but closing a sale.

Vacation planners are under a terrible amount of stress. They have to book air travel, hotel reservations and car rentals -- at the very least -- and, to make matters even more complicated, the person must also find the best deals. While this type of venture has become progressively easier as hotel and hospitality web sites become more sophisticated, it would be erroneous to overlook the value of a knowledgeable voice within the customer service strategy.

Continental Airlines is good example of a company that integrates their online booking with their phone channel. Recently, a friend of mine was trying to book a flight for five family members, across different parts of the country, through Continental.com. He had booked four flights successfully, but was having trouble finding a connection for the fifth, so he was stuck. After sitting idle on the page for a few minutes, a button appeared on the screen prompting him to call a Continental service rep if he needed assistance. Frustrated, he clicked on the button and entered his phone number to receive an immediate callback from Continental. When the call was connected, the Continental agent greeted him by saying, "Hello Mr. Johnson, I see you're trying to book five different flights, but it looks like you're having trouble with this last one. How may I help you?"

The agent used the context of the customer's online session to help him get the information he needed and complete the transaction online. The customer was floored, and quite relieved that the time spent online did not go to waste. The call center agent was happy to assist the customer without any issue. In addition, I am sure the call center manager was pleased aswell because the agent was able to resolve the customer's needs in less time than it would have taken if they had to start from scratch.

John Federman is CEO of eStara. eStara’s interaction tools increase marketing and sales conversion rates for large enterprises including Starwood, Hilton, Red Lion, and Club Med. Other clients include Verizon, Amazon.com and Continental Airlines. He is responsible for strategic direction, growth and corporate vision. Mr. Federman has 20 plus years of experience with information technology and media companies. Prior to eStara, Mr. Federman was co-founder, president and CEO of Dotomi, an Internet advertising company. Mr. Federman is a graduate of UMass and holds a BA in Business and Art. Mr. Federman can be contacted at 703-842-4436 or John.federman@estara.com Extended Bio...

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