Using analytics to crack customer behaviour is an area where revenue management must deliver, writes Ritesh Gupta

Evaluating the purchase path to understand where and why a customer decided not to book with you isn’t new. So savvy hotel organisations have worked hard to improve their infrastructure and approach to data management. But in the new omni-channel environment, this is increasingly challenging and the need to integrate data from different sources of paramount importance.

“Having good, clean and 100% of data from the property management system, central reservation system, the web and so on is the first requirement to get a full understanding of customer behaviour,” says Chinmai Sharma, vice president of revenue management and distribution, Louvre Hotels Group.

In addition, a data warehouse type setup with a business ingellience tool on top makes analysis a lot easier for mid to large companies. According to Sharma the key to becoming customer-centric is the ability to develop pricing and promotional offers that fulfill the needs of the customer, while adding revenue for the establishment when they need it.  

Know what is and isn’t working  

To know whether initiatives are working or not, it is necessary to evaluate the performance of direct channels.

Sharma agrees and says analytics is becoming a key area for the team to understand the purchase path of customers, especially for channels that a hotel organisation fully controls. These include brand websites, call centres and so on. On this front key initiatives could include:

• Knowing the exact point of abandonment: It is important to understand bounce rates in the booking funnel of the hotel website to see where customers are dropping off.
• Retargeting: Technology today makes it easier to retarget customers that did not convert or visited another website looking for travel or destination content.
• Having a strong human touch: Similarly hotels and dedicated call centres need to do more to see what the customer is looking for before and during the travel period.
• New mobile solutions: These offer the capability of push messages to entice customers with relevant offers.
• Staying in touch with guests: Once the guest has checked out, hotel firms should stay in touch with relevant information using travel behaviour and preferences that was collected during their stay.

Strong data management and behaviour analysis can be used to forecast demand. Careful forecasting coupled with buyer behaviour can pave the way for relevant offers, and improve chances of boosting revenues.