Ms. Jenkins

Reservations / Online Pricing / Booking Engines

Simplifying Your Booking Process

By Cid Jenkins, Vice President, ATG's eStara

Smart hoteliers go above and beyond what's required to provide their guests with an exceptional, personalized experience that leaves travelers feeling welcome and important. Yet, hotel executives often miss the mark by not extending this best-in-class experience throughout all of their communications channels, including the booking process. By providing a cohesive, easy and pleasant encounter from start to finish, you can arm your guests with unforgettable memories that will build customer loyalty and word-of-mouth exposure that likely cannot be replicated by a marketing campaign.

Customer Service Talks...or Consumers Will Walk

According to Forrester Research, 47 percent of those who research travel plans online don't end up making a purchase on the Web. Sure, those potential guests may have called your establishment to book a room instead, but the fact is that something prohibited them from closing the deal online and, if you want to attract more guests and encourage them to book their stays on the Web, you need to simplify the process. The best way to do this is to implement services and technologies such as click to call and click to chat to offer unparalleled customer support so that if your guests do encounter an issue online, they will be met with instant access to an associate who can help them.

Click to call and click to chat are services that can be easily integrated into your current e-commerce platform to give your potential guests direct and immediate access to representatives who can help them complete their booking and answer their questions. These technologies appear as icons on your Web site and give your customers the option of speaking with a live associate on the phone or chatting via instant messenger. Unlike toll-free numbers, these options do not include holding or wait times, or the possibility of being patched through to several individuals within a customer service center.

In fact, in a recent, independent, ATG-sponsored consumer survey of more than 1,000 respondents, we found that having instant access to live help such as click to call and click to chat, ranked third on a list of the seven most important factors of Web site when making a purchase. The other factors included usability of the site, finding the best bargains, enhanced mobile shopping capabilities, relevant product recommendations, availability of peer reviews and ratings and the ability to integrate purchases with social networking sites. Our survey further proved that 94 percent of the 1,000 respondents felt that having access to a cohesive live help strategy, via call and chat, was "useful" to "extremely useful."

Clearly, consumers have strong opinions about the need for access to customer service when making purchases online, and we can't blame them. The recession is forcing consumers to tighten their budgets and fully examine every purchase, so it's more important than ever to make those purchases as easy as possible for them.

Now that we've discussed consumer behaviors and preferences, let's revisit that stat from Forrester Research. If those 47 percent of travelers who researched holiday plans online and abandoned the process prior to making a purchase had instant access to live call or live chat, it's very likely that this figure would drastically reduce, thereby increasing the possibility that these travelers would be spending their money at your property.

Online travelers generally abandon Web sites when faced with pricing or technical support issues - this is simply human nature. Busy consumers don't have the time to wait on hold for an associate to help them or repeat their issues multiple times to multiple representatives. In the past, executives at online travel and hospitality companies felt they could address these concerns by providing prospective customers with self-service tools, such as FAQs. Yet, today's savvy (and budget conscious) traveler requires a new level of technical support and immediate gratification that gets delivered in a way that suits their needs. In fact, in that same ATG-sponsored survey, respondents deemed FAQs and email inquiries the least useful form of communication when seeking assistance during an online purchase.

A Case Study

Need more proof? One of our customers, a major hotel group with locations throughout the west coast, which is renowned for its caring service and comfortable accommodations, wanted to extend that brand promise to its Web site by giving customers more ways to seek assistance when they need help making online reservations. The company deployed a cohesive, live help offering via call and chat technologies throughout its reservation and hotel overview pages, giving customers instant access to a live agent while they are browsing the site and completing their online transactions.

After implementing this strategy, the hotel group created multiple post-call surveys to gain insight from customers about both the online and call center experiences. Through this extra effort, they found that 62 percent of their guests felt that click to call technology improved or drastically improved their Web site experience, and 92 percent found click to chat very helpful.

Perhaps one of the most important findings was the increased revenue the company saw once these technologies were implemented. The hotel group saw abandonment rates decline by 13 percent, translating into satisfied travelers that will become loyal guests for the long-term.

So Where Does That Leave My Organization?

That may be the question that's going through your head at the moment. Well, it's quite simple, actually. By investing in technology that simplifies the booking process for your guests, you're already on the right track to creating an ultimate online experience, one that will differentiate your brand, increase bookings and decrease site abandonment rates and, ultimately keep your guests - and their friends - coming back to your properties time and time again.

Cid Jenkins oversees strategic sales initiatives. For nearly a decade, Ms. Jenkins has been instrumental in developing eStara’s strategy in the travel and hospitality market while garnering extensive experience driving revenue for eStara's partners, which include companies like Continental Airlines, Hotels.com, Red Lion Hotels and Starwood. Ms. Jenkins' career began as Director of Business Development at GraciasDoctor.com. Her international business knowledge started at the Consulate General of Chile and International Sleep Products Assocation. Ms. Jenkins can be contacted at 703-648-8296 or cid.jenkins@estara.com Extended Bio...

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