The ability to provide positive experiences for customers along digital and in-person touchpoints over the entire customer journey, from research and booking to check-in and boarding, to hotel departure and more, has always been a challenging task in travel and hospitality. Labor shortages also continue to be a significant factor in travel, and the road back to smooth travel experiences for consumers is still proving bumpy.
A recent study by the American Customer Satisfaction Index showed declines in customer satisfaction across airlines, hotels, and car rentals. The hotel industry in particular had a fall-off of 2.7%, with more than half of the major hoteliers posting ACSI declines of 4% or greater.
Customers are wanting the ability to get assistance and provide feedback wherever and on whatever channel they prefer. Some recent customer announcements point to hotels ramping up their CX efforts to support this need.
The Barceló Hotel Group is leveraging technology from Talkdesk Inc. that will centralize the hospitality brand’s contact center operations and smooth out the customer experience for its guests. The company will be using Talkdesk CX Cloud, an end-to-end customer experience solution to empower their Barceló Hotel Group agents to assist any customer at any time. Features being leveraged by the hotel chain will include:
- Talkdesk for Salesforce, providing agents with real-time access to key customer details. Individual agents can also access all their communication channels, tools, and customer data on a single screen, resulting in streamlined workflows and increased efficiency.
- AI-powered features like Talkdesk Interaction Analytics and Talkdesk QM Assist will offer real-time coaching opportunities to help agents mine every interaction for the customer insights that lead to outstanding guest experiences.
“The Barceló commitment to excellent guest service is one of the main strategic objectives of the company. It’s not just our vocation, it’s the passion that drives us forward,” says Iñigo Onieva, global digital business director, Barceló Hotel Group. “We also believe that delivering excellent guest experiences and offering additional value during the reservation process through our contact centers, begins with giving our employees access to the best tools integrated into an omnichannel experience with Barceló.com. The Talkdesk solution presents our contact center agents with a simpler way to leverage complex data and provide a more personalized, seamless guest experience – before, during, and after staying at any one of the hotels managed by Barceló Hotel Group.”
“In hospitality and tourism, the customer journey extends beyond those moments spent enjoying five-star hotel accommodation. The brands who strive to also provide five-star guest experiences – from first inquiry to those thoughtful post-visit touchpoints – will be recognised as pioneers in the quest for guest loyalty,” says Kathie Johnson, chief marketing officer, Talkdesk.
Being able to receive feedback from a variety of channels in real time has taken on critical importance over the past couple of years of pandemic travel. Travelodge (UK) is focusing on allowing its guests to provide more frequent feedback, as well as collecting data via other listening channels via its implementation of Medallia’s experience management platform.
Medallia, a company with deep roots in hospitality, will be powering Travelodge (UK)’s Voice of the Customer program. It has already been rolled out across 590 Travelodge hotels across the UK, Ireland, and Spain. The Travelodge (UK) chain is using a combination of many of Medallia’s suite offerings, including data analytics, artificial intelligence, and active listening. IT will also have real time integration with Travelodge’s social channels and review sites, such as TripAdvisor and Google Reviews, as well as its hotel management tools. Travelodge will be increasing its customer feedback flow through “in the moment” surveys, allowing hotel managers to see signs of issues more proactively.
Claire Good, Travelodge Chief Operating Officer, says “Delivering excellent customer service sits at the heart of our business, and we are constantly looking at innovative ways to listen to our customers’ feedback so that we can deliver the best level of service. Utilizing Medallia’s vast experience and expertise, we have jointly created our ‘Voice of the Customer’ program. This sophisticated and flexible customer experience program will provide real-time customer feedback and will play a fundamental part in our customer experience strategic planning going forward.”
“Travelodge came to us with ambitious plans for its revamped Voice of the Customer program, demonstrating its drive to place the customer at the heart of operations. Since beginning work with the team, it has been clear that this is a customer committed to embracing change for the benefit of customers and staff. We look forward to working with Travelodge as it continues on this significant journey,” says Eduardo Crespo, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the UK, Ireland, and the Middle East, at Medallia.
Author Information
As a detail-oriented researcher, Sherril is expert at discovering, gathering and compiling industry and market data to create clear, actionable market and competitive intelligence. With deep experience in market analysis and segmentation she is a consummate collaborator with strong communication skills adept at supporting and forming relationships with cross-functional teams in all levels of organizations.
She brings more than 20 years of experience in technology research and marketing; prior to her current role, she was a Research Analyst at Omdia, authoring market and ecosystem reports on Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and User Interface technologies. Sherril was previously Manager of Market Research at Intrado Life and Safety, providing competitive analysis and intelligence, business development support, and analyst relations.
Sherril holds a Master of Business Administration in Marketing from University of Colorado, Boulder and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology from Rutgers University.
