I like to think I am somewhat of a loyal person. I have friends for life. And I think most of them will show up at my funeral. I try and learn from my dogs everyday what true loyalty means.
As a customer, I am also generally loyal. I am loyal not per se to the brands but to my friends working in those brands. So I try and support them when I can. I think we all do that in our own little way.
So when I was in Auckland and looking for a place to stay for the weekend, I went straight to the brand.com website – besides, I have a loyalty card so I figured maybe I’d get some recognition for that.
But the site was so clunky and slow on mobile that I gave up after a couple of attempts.
I then went to booking.com and found the same hotel. I did my couple of clicks and was ready to book when I said, “no, let me try again with brand.com.” I’d rather they get my business direct than through a third party. I know how hard hotels struggle in this regard.
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Same story. Clunky, slow. I am on the move, I have places I need to go, food to eat, things to see. I need this done pronto. Defeated, I went back to booking.com and completed the transaction in less than a minute.
So you see, this is where the problem lies. It’s not that the customer doesn’t want to book direct. It’s even when she wants to book direct that she can’t because someone else is so much better at it.
I’ve been speaking to hoteliers since the year began to get a feel for how the online travel market is moving and I sense the needle moving more and more in the intermediaries’ favour.
With customers going mobile, it’s whoever manages to own that small piece of real estate that will win.
It’s whoever manages to own the NOW. Who can give me the best price NOW? Who can give me the best choice NOW? Who can I book with NOW?
In the race for NOW, technology is the leap frogger and the big OTAs have the advantage. And NOW there’s only really TWO of them left – Priceline and Expedia. The amounts they invest in technology are phenomenal. Accor says its is investing £225 million in technology over five years. In one year, Expedia spends roughly £500 million in research and development.
I heard another anecdote from someone in the US who is also a loyal customer of brand.com. On the road, he goes to their mobile site, logs in as a loyal customer and finds a room priced at XX dollars. Smart traveller that he is, he checks HotelTonight and finds the same room priced half of XX. He goes to said hotel and asks to see the general manager to explain the difference. In the end, he gets the HotelTonight price but why did he even have to do that?
When I speak to hoteliers, I am told there are myriad reasons why this pricing disparity happens.
Thing is, the customer doesn’t care why. Remember, people don’t care what you do but what you can do for them. And if you want to keep them loyal, then you’ve got to make it easy for them to be loyal to you.
