By Scot Hornick, Jessica Stansbury, and Jatin Goradia
This article first appeared in Forbes on September 27, 2019.
Travel companies want to provide a personalized experience for customers, but they’re coming up short. The problem is not a lack of data: They’re collecting plenty through apps, websites, loyalty programs, and more. Every time families or businesspeople travel, they leave a digital trail about what they look for in a hotel, airline, rental car agency, cruise ship, or rail provider. Do they prefer a high floor or a room with a view? Do they like aisle or window seats, or early morning or early evening departures and arrivals? Do they go for an SUV or the intermediate? Over the past five years, travel providers have been accumulating petabytes of data on their most loyal customers.
Despite this treasure trove, many companies still use just the contact information to send offers they’re eager to sell rather than what the customer wants. If a traveler heads to the Chicago Jazz Festival at the end of each summer or skis in Aspen every winter, that potential customer should receive hospitality offers months earlier that make those bookings easier, less expensive, or more enjoyable. Instead, these travelers may get pitches about overpriced flights to Europe in the summer or to the Caribbean in the winter. Even if travel providers get a customer’s first name right or offer packages that match a family’s usual selections, they may miss the target on deals that interest their shoppers at that moment.
Travelers want the power to customize their journeys — pick their own seats, know exactly which room they’re getting and the amenities that come with it, or reserve a specific model of car with a sunroof or of a certain color
Why does that happen? Because customers are still hearing about the products that one or two departments at a travel company want to sell most. Rarely do members of digital, customer relationship management, loyalty programs, distribution channels, and revenue management operations sit down together to define the metrics and rules to best match commercial priorities to customer needs and preferences.
This is further exacerbated by inefficient processes that limit quick turnaround of omnichannel-targeted campaigns driven by dynamic commercial conditions. In the end, the efforts toward personalization are leaving both sides unfulfilled — customers aren’t being offered what they want, and travel providers fear they’re leaving money on the table.
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