I was recently reading Richard Mandigo’s blog about his service experience with a hotel several weekends ago and it got me to thinking. Richard had booked his room through a 3rd party retailer, such as Priceline, Expedia, Hotels.com, etc. Check out his posting here:
http://www.trmandigo.com/blog/2009/oct/26/hotels-vs-expedia-vs-customers/
After reading this, there is a third fundamental point regarding the level of service hotels provide to customers booking through third party online booking sites. Accountability. Or rather, lack thereof.
These days, most lodging companies send out a survey email after departure, asking the guest to rate several different factors about their stay, typically on a graded scale. These factors may include how friendly the front desk was, to how clean the room was, whether the restaurant food/service/hours were adequate, and a plethora of other things. Around 30% of customers will complete the surveys, and return them to an above property bank (usually managed by the corporate level), where the data is compiled, and a report is issued to the individual property providing the management with “service” scores with which they are then held accountable (to maintain a franchise flag, as metrics for management bonuses, to stay out of the “red” zone, etc.). Typically, these scores are highly impactful on the overall performance of the property, and therefore are highly touted by on-property managers as a barometer of where they should focus their efforts.
The issue with customers who have booked through 3rd party online sites, such as Expedia, is that the contact information that is transmitted through a GDS to a property’s PMS, and hence to the individual guest’s reservation in the PMS, is typically that of the 3rd party site’s corporate offices. It is not the individual customers contact info/email address. The reason for this is two-fold. One, the hotel must appropriately bill the 3rd party for the room, so the info is on the guest’s folio, and two, it allows the 3rd party to maintain a reasonable degree of privacy for the guest’s contact information. What this results in, however, is that the email address field in the guest’s reservation is never populated with the individual guest’s information. This means, the guest does not personally receive an email survey from the lodging company after their stay, and as a result, cannot affect the individual hotel’s service scores negatively or positively! If the scores can’t be affected, why in the heck would management care to treat customers that book through third party online sites the same as customers that may have used the lodging company’s own reservation channels? These guests, while they provided revenue (albeit usually lesser than others that may have booked through the lodging company), cannot impact the hotel with feedback regarding their stay. The obvious answer, I suppose, would be that on-property leaders have a moral obligation to provide superior levels of service to ALL customers, regardless of booking channel. That’s not tangible enough for me.
3rd party online retailers of hotels, such as Expedia, Priceline, etc., must re-evaluate their existing agreements with hotels, as well as their own policies regarding sharing of customer information, to make sure that the guest’s contact info is sent in the electronic reservation files to the hotel PMS. Also, even though it’s time consuming and could be percieved as intrusive, hoteliers must focus their check-in staff on getting customer email addresses upon arrival. Only then, will these customers receive post-departure surveys and be able to hit property management where it hurts (their internal service scores, bonuses, etc.), or help (if they are providing good service across the board). Resultingly, management is forced to care about 3rd party customers, and this then trickles down to frontline service providers, which benefits the entire operation. The benefits are not just translated into more accurate service scores, but heed an overall level of employee satisfaction, because the front line service providers GENUINELY care about providing quality service to everybody. All of a sudden, ALL of your customers, regardless of whether they booked through the lodging company, or paid lesser and booked through a 3rd party online reseller are provided the same high service levels. What a concept!
Feel free to comment your thoughts.
MD.
