Avaya identifies gaps in the guest experience

Avaya has announced the findings of its first annual Hospitality Industry Survey, where 72 global hotel brands identified market trends and room for improvement.

Survey respondents aligned around three particular issues as they seek to improve the guest experience: guest engagement, communication and services. Many companies, however, are seeing significant opportunities by taking advantage of mobile, multichannel communications for both guests and staff, and updating standard, in-room devices with cool new applications and capabilities.

Various gaps in the guest experience were identified through the survey:

Engaging guests - more than half (55%) of hospitality companies say they struggle to engage their guests during the booking process, while 70% say they struggle during and after the visit.

Communication between guests and staff leaves a lot to be desired - 60% of survey respondents say the inability of their staff to effectively communicate with guests is a “main factor” diminishing the guest experience at their properties.

Services - six in 10 (62%) of global respondents said the quality of the guest experience at their properties would be significantly improved by enhanced in-room and on-property guest services.

Technology to the rescue

Since most guests are on the move during their stay - as well as a large portion of the staff dedicated to serving them - respondents recognised that mobile apps offer the most compelling opportunity for improving service of any technology (48%). In fact, 81% of respondents are planning to create high-functioning apps over the next five years.

“The guest experience is more important than price when it comes to repeat customers and recommendations. The big question is how do we improve the experience at a reasonable cost, when nearly everything about a hotel has high capital and operating expenses? With Avaya, our hospitality industry customers are finding exciting new ways of engaging guests, creating efficiencies and delight that will help ensure their properties are booked to capacity,” said Frederick Sabty, VP, Hospitality Worldwide for Avaya.

Avaya provides solutions to more than 2,500 hotels worldwide and has existing relationships with nine out of 10 of the world’s luxury hotels.

Digi's Chinese new year promotion focuses on family and tradition

Source: Digi website.

Chinese new year is often the only time in a year when many Chinese see distant relatives, and Malaysian telco Digi is banking on that to run a new year promotion that could reach many eyeballs the world over.

Digi is running a promotion to bring back more precise family titles for Chinese families in an age where relatives outside the immediate family are simply called 'aunty', 'uncle' and 'cousin'. In Chinese, maternal and paternal relatives are differentiated by different titles. There are also different terms used if the person is younger or older than the individual or the individual's parents. Things become convoluted in large families where the youngest children in one generation may be younger than the oldest grandchildren two generations away.

"May you always find the right words to bring your family joy," says Digi to subscribers on its kakilang (own people) website. The company has a quick video as well as a cheat sheet for those who want to know that their paternal uncle who is younger than their father should be greeted as shushu（叔叔) while their maternal aunt who is older than their mother should really be greeted as yima (姨妈).

Interested?

Save the cheat sheet or view the associated video
Digi is also running a related contest on Facebook that ends 22 February

Personalisation is key to e-commerce success

Online revenues boil down to knowing what the customer wants and personalising the experience for him or her accordingly, says online fashion marketplace Zalora, which was at the 2014 Influential Brands: Celebrating brand leadership and Asia brand heroes conference to speak about reaching out to different audiences for digital business.

Founded in 2012, Zalora carries 20,000 products, more than 500 brands and supports multiple touch-points for sales. “We make it as convenient as possible,” Zalora Marketing Director Dione Song said, pointing out that Zalora purchases can be collected at 7-Eleven convenience stories, SingPost's POPStations, or through cash-oh-delivery arrangements.

The company recently invested in a pop-up store at the popular Ion Orchard mall to bring the products to those who are still uncertain about buying online. “Our vision was to bring e-commerce to the offline space. We allow you to get over the barrier of online shopping, show you the product, allow you to try it, but you can’t buy it,” Song explained. The experience can help people to get used to the idea of ordering online and getting their purchases delivered in one or two days instead of the inconvenience of carrying the purchases around, she said.

Song added that Zalora does not segment its customers into ‘Gen X’ or ‘Gen Y’ as the company believes customers are not homogeneous in age segments. “It doesn’t mean that if you’re in an age class that you all act the same way. Customers are very discerning. They know what quality is, they know what they want to pay. We target customers as individuals,” she said.

The experience goes all the way down to personalised web browsing experiences and newsletters, she said. Customers who have browsed one brand are shown complementary brands that are similar. New customers may receive an added incentive to buy, while repeat customers are introduced to in-house labels which they might not have been open to as new customers.

‘Sharks’, people who hunt for discounts, are given bundled deals, whereas those who are more likely to spend more are shown designer brands. “If a customer has looked at shoe pages 10 times, we show you shoes. Everyone has a personal experience. They see a different page but they do not know it,” she said.

Newsletters from Zalora.

Zalora even knows how many times its e-newsletters are read per month, and may change the email subject titles or push special promotions to inactive customers.

"Understanding of a consumer through a behavioural analytical study is important for businesses, not only for the digital businesses. The brand’s strategies should be mapped against the consumer purchase journey which covers multi platforms from which consumers are most likely to be reached when they are commuting to how they purchase, where and why,” said Song.