GuestInsights

Communication Revolution

I was watching 60 minutes earlier this evening, and was fascinated by the story about Wael Ghonim, the young Egyptian Google employee and his connection to the role of social media in the regime change in Egypt.  Mr. Ghonim ascribes the tipping point in the 2 week revolution to the moment when the Egyptian government blocked access to Facebook in Egypt.  Fearing the gaining momentum (500,000+ fans) on Mr. Ghonim's fan page, as well as its facilitation of the uprising's organizational and communication logistics, the old regime simply turned off Facebook to its citizens.  The result was essentially the straw that broke the camel's back; it provided validation of the oppressive nature of the government and forced the masses to go out into the streets to first find out what was going on, and then ultimately force change.  Mr. Ghonim goes on to say that without social media, specifically the juggernauts Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Google, the revolution in Egypt would not have happened.

It's fascinating to think about how major World events, even as recently as 10 or 15 years ago, would have played out differently if online social media had been around and as widespread as it is today.  Go back further in history and its easy to see that the speed of long distance communication at every point in time had enormous impact on how history unfolded. 

In considering social media strategies in the business world, there might actually be a lesson to be learned from the Egyptian Revolution Facebook story.  To me, it appears that social media for business is still in its infancy in early 2011.  Everyone knows they have to have a social media strategy, but implementation currently seems to be all over the place.  It's great to be able to continually Tweet or post your status on Facebook, but are your Tweets and posts important or interesting to your followers and fans?

In my opinion, the businesses that will be most successful in their social media endeavors will likely be those that encourage customers to contribute to the dialog, rather than using social media exclusively as a one-way communication tool.  The success of the Eqyptian revolution keyed on the openness, tranparency, and collaborative nature of the 500,000+ Facebook fans who shared their stories, ideas, and images of governmental oppression.  Alternatively, if the Facebook page had been set-up as a one-way "soap box", with no content generated by anyone other than Mr. Ghonim - "meet me in Tahrir Square on Friday and we'll overthrow the government" - how likely is it that the revolution would have succeeded?

 

A Short Paddle Down A Stream of Perfect Information Consciousness

The other day, I was driving around doing some errands when a song came on the radio that I liked, but had never heard before.  So I pressed the "info" button on my radio and instantly the artist and name of the song popped up on my in-dashboard display .  I made a mental note to check out the artist and song on iTunes when I got home.  

In the ensuing 10 minutes of driving between errands, my mind began to wander down a path that my new favorite song had led me to.  

It occurred to me that I now take it for granted that I can do this in 2010 with my XM radio.  Years ago (not that many really), I might have never figured out what that song was.  Quite possibly, the only way I would have learned what it was would be by happenstance; if I heard it again within a reasonable amount of time... and remembered it from my car ride to the bank... and the dj on the radio station decided to identify it.

Then I started thinking about how this kind of instant access to information has crept into many aspects of our daily lives.  We have the power to be (almost) all-knowing, all the time (again, almost). We don't need to rack our brains anymore to recall obscure bits of information from the past. If you really think about it, we hardly ever have to be stumped by a known fact-based question for very long.

Consider that I can now almost instantly tell my friend that Hawthorne Wingo wore uniform #43 (go ahead, look it up yourself) when we're having a conversation about great basketball teams.  Is it a good thing that I can find this incredibly important fact with a few keystrokes?  Again, looking back a few years, my friend and I might have reasoned our way to Wingo wearing 43 in a conversation by recalling all the members of the '73 Knicks. On the other hand, the discussion might have ended  without such resolution; either we would have mistakenly attributed a wrong uniform number to him or we would have given up without an answer.  Maybe there is value in coming up with a wrong answer (or no answer) to inconsequential daily questions like these.  In the big picture, perhaps having easy access to so much information will make us all dumber by depriving us of rich conversations that force us to use our brains in exercises of recall.

And what about the issue of "perfect information availablity" etiquette.  Let's say you’re out to dinner with a group of friends and the conversation turns to Academy Award winners.  Suppose one of your dining companions strongly insists that Tom Hanks won the Best Actor Oscar for "Saving Private Ryan", while others at the table disagree.  Of course, with a few keystrokes on your smartphone you can verify that Hanks was nominated for that performance, but did not win.  Is it bad form to show-up your friend on the spot, or are you better-off keeping the phone in your pocket (can you resist the temptation?) and letting the spirited conversation go on without knowing for sure?

As we turn the calendar to 2011, I'm sure we can look forward to faster, more ubiquitous mobile information access in the new year and beyond.  Hopefully, we'll learn to use our new powers appropriately so that we don't regress intellectually and socially.

JR

 

 

 

 

 

 

Buzzword du Jour: "The Cloud"

Having being a part of the technology industry for a couple of decades now, it's been intriguing to me to watch the vocabulary of IT grow and evolve over time.  Acronyms, abbreviations, and buzzwords have always been a part of the tech world, but in recent years there seems to be a concerted effort to mainstream some of this vocabulary. Sports on TV have long been subsidized by business-to-business commercials, but technospeak is much more prevalent in these ads today.  In fact, tech jargon has even found its way into consumer-oriented commercials these days too.  I wonder how many non-tech oriented folks, who certainly are being targeted as buyers and/or purchase decision influencers, really understand what these commercials mean.

The newest term to crossover into our living rooms is "the cloud".  From consumer oriented products advertised on TV, to business applications, you can't get through a night of prime time television or a Sunday afternoon of football  (unless you use a DVR) without hearing about "the cloud".  Most interesting to me is that the cloud is not a new idea.  It's essentially a re-branding (oops, a buzzword from elsewhere in business!) of the basic concept of networked computers in varied locations. This of course, has been around for quite some time; it's the essence of the Internet.  The basic premise of the cloud is that the computer on your desk (or lap) doesn't need to do anything other than connect to the Internet and run a Web browser. The browser can then run any applications and access any documents or files you need.  All of the applications and files are hosted and stored on machines somewhere out there on the Internet.  Word proessing, number crunching, or even specialized applications or services like GuestInsight (yes, we're part of the cloud and have been for 10 years) can be run without any additional investment in hardware or software. 

To be sure, recent advances in network data transmission speeds, processor power, data storage technologies, and programming concepts have brought the true value of worldwide networked computing devices (a.k.a. the cloud) within reach of the masses.  The idea of the cloud being a new technology or the next big thing in IT, though, is sort of comical. Practically, the popularization of the cloud is an invention of marketing.  If you've got a few minutes, see and hear what Larry Ellison, founder of Oracle, has to say about it here in an amusing rant.

JR

This Issue Is Not Going Away Anytime Soon

Here we go again; the methodology problem associated with online review sites like TripAdvisor just won't go away.

To be clear, again (it seems like we are always discussing and/or writing about this issue), the concept of the review sites is fabulous and offers the promise of consumers making perfectly informed purchase decisions.  Unfortunately, the concept relies on all human beings using the sites to behave themselves.  All of us don't (that's why we have laws, police, jails, etc.), and therefore the basic "open"  review site premise is terribly flawed.

Consumers are craving this type of information-- the review sites are big business and attract millions of "eyeballs".   The deceptive practices that are allegedly rampant on these sites, however, has sprouted a new industry - digital reputation management.  

The most recent firestorm to hit the media spotlight attempts to hold reviewers and the review sites to ethical and legal standards.  Past and pending lawsuits have attracted attention, as has one reputation management company's announcement that it will publish a list of reviewers who have been suspected of contributing false reviews on sites like TripAdvisor.  

How it all shakes out remains to be seen.  Stay tuned...

 

*Google "Tripadvisor lawsuit"

Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should

First of all I apologize that this month's post is near the end of the month. We've been hard at work on a major rewrite of the GuestInsight platform software that runs your guest surveys and reports. The title of this blog post refers to a saying we've been throwing around our offices during the software rewrite process. It's sort of the mantra for a litmus test that we apply to features that are proposed when we make upgrades to our services.

As a Web software designer, it's very easy to get caught up in advances in technology and add all kinds of bells and whistles to your applications.  The problem when designing for the Web, however, is that you can't control how users will access your application.  Specifically, your users get to your application through a Web browser, but unfortunately, not all Web browsers are alike in how they access and display Web sites.  

Currently, the browsers with the largest percentage of users are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera.  From a software developer's perspective, there are quirks to how all of these browsers render Web pages that must be accounted for (IE being the quirkiest!) in application design.  In addition, we must consider that users are using different versions of these browsers - some very old, on different kinds (i.e. Windows vs. Mac) and versions of operating systems (circa 2010 or circa 1998).  Also, users have the ability to disable features in Web browsers that often give modern Web sites functionality (i.e. Javascript).

In our business, we interact with two types of users:

• your customers, who complete your guest surveys
• you, our clients, who interact with our reporting tools

In writing our software, we made a decision when we opened our doors in 1999 that we always want to make sure we collect data from as many people as possible.  That is, our survey interface has to be able to be used by anyone who has the inclination to give their feedback.  The way we have been successful in doing this is that we keep things as simple as possible - we don't employ cutting edge technologies in this part of our software; we design with a lag mentality-- we make sure that any features that are added can be used by computers and browsers that are NOT up to date. Conversely, if you require survey takers to have a browser plug-in (i.e. Flash) or to interact with images/animation that are memory or processor intensive, you are going to miss out on valuable feedback. Testing shows that any potential delays you present to your audience will significantly reduce your response rate- folks will just abandon the survey if they need a plug-in or the survey is taking too long.

For our other group of users-- you-- we have a little more design flexibility when it comes to writing our software.  We know that there are sometimes restrictions on what browsers may be used in a corporate setting, but generally speaking, folks accessing the GuestInsight reports are using up-to-date computers, operating systems and browsers.  In addition, since at any given point in time we know exactly who will be using the reporting tools, we can publish browser recommendations and/or requirements.  Since 2005, we have been recommending Firefox as the browser of choice. We continue to test our software functionality in all the major modern browsers (listed above) and will advise clients individually if there are any inconsistencies discovered.

Considering this greater degree of control on the client end, we are increasingly employing new browser-side technologies in this aspect of our software updates and rewrites.  Still, we are careful not to get too enamored with features or technology just because "we can".  In addition to the technological compatibility issue, the litmus test for feature inclusion in our software also includes rigorous usability hurdles.  Usability is something we look at every day, even after a version of our software is live.  We constantly monitor our user logs to see which reports get the most use, as well as those that seem to be less useful to our client base.  This data is then combined with anecdotal feedback from you to help generate wish lists for future versions of our software.  

 

 

 

 

 

Guest Expectation- Tricky Business

In your survey, the first question we ask guests is how their stay met with their expectations.  There are 3 response choices; exceeded, met, or did not meet.

So let's flip things around for a second: what's reasonable for you to expect in terms of responses to this question?  

The knee-jerk response to that question is that you'd like to exceed the expectations of every guest. On a theoretical level I suppose that's true, but practically speaking I'll make the case below as to why you really don't want that result. To begin, let's lump your guests into 2 categories; those who have stayed in your hotel before and those who have not.

For those guests who have previously stayed with you, expectations are pretty well set.  It's a tall order to significantly exceed expectations for this group.  Anytime you can exceed the expectations of a return guest you really have things clicking.

For your first time guests, the expectation equation gets pretty complicated.  How are those guests'  expectations set?  There are many factors at play, including how they came to choose your hotel, recommendations/opinions of friends/relatives, marketing materials and messages, guidebooks, online reviews, etc.  In addition, there is a value component-- that is, expectation fluctuates with the price paid for a hotel room.

So, let's say you are able to exceed the expectations of every first time guest.  Is this a good thing?  I would argue that it is not.  Why?  If you're exceeding everyones' expectations, then it's clear that those expectations are unrealistically too low.  You would then be faced with the tough task of determining why and trying to change all of the variables in the equation mentioned above.  In addition, the implications of too-low guest expectations also extends to missed opportunity- that is, travelers who choose another hotel because they are looking for something "more" during the decision making process.

Getting back to the expectation question in your guest survey, what results should you be looking for? Clearly, the first objective is to have the percentage of guests who answer "not met" as low as possible.  This is a key metric to monitor over time.  Among the remaining guests, the split of "exceeded" and "met" is dependent on the percentage of your business that is made up of repeat guests.  Again, the more repeat guests you have, the more difficult it becomes to exceed expectations.  

Wasn't the Internet Supposed To Make Our Lives Better And Easier?

So the newest Web trend is the integration of all of the various social media outlets; Facebook with Twitter, LinkedIn with Digg, and most recently, TripAdvisor with Facebook. It seems that every site has all the little social website mini-icons prominently displayed so that you can "share this" with everyone; your friends, relatives, colleagues, clients, and everyone you ever met. Where are we headed with all of this? Will all of this integration enrich our lives and/or allow us to make better business and personal decisions? Or is it creating more noise and distraction for all of us to have to deal with?  The answer is probably yes to all of the above.

Let's look at the newest social media integration that impacts our business lives, specifically the TripAdvisor/Facebook connectivity announced a few weeks ago (read about it here). In the article referenced, the author goes to a noted research firm, Forrester (full disclosure- a company we've partnered on projects with) for clarification on why this alliance was forged. The bottom line is that there is an ongoing credibility issue with anonymous review sites and this alliance is a step toward addressing it. At the end of the day, though, sites like TripAdvisor which allow anyone (without a mechanism to verify hotel stay information) to post a review are flawed. Still, their impact must be addressed by all of us. As hospitality operators, what's the best course of action? 

Our recommendation is to stay the course we've been recommending for 5 years; continue to monitor these sites for questionable reviews, follow (or formulate) your company policy to respond to negative reviews on those sites, and use your GuestInsight feedback to monitor operations-- after all, the smoother things run, the less likely you'll see negative reviews.

On top of that, incorporate guest comments into your "official content" (see this post for more on what that means).  Two of our newer GuestInsight add-on tools make it easy to do that;

GI-Guestbook identifies very satisfied guests during the GuestInsight survey and asks for their permission to publish their comments to an automatically generated testimonials page you can incorporate into your web site.

GI-FacebookConnect takes it a step further by publishing those guest comments to your Facebook fan page.

So let's get back to the question I posed in the title of this blog post-Wasn't the Internet Supposed To Make Our Lives Better And Easier?.  I'm pretty sure the original intention of the Internet was to enable efficient communication of data.  It does.  Does it make our lives better and easier?  In some ways it does, but the necessity to deal/sift/manage much more information that we used to certainly weighs into the quality of life equation.  The bottom line, though, is that this ever-increasingly connected world is here to stay. We all need to jump in and use these resources as best we can.  

A Researcher's Thoughts on Twitter

Recently, there was an article in USA Today about the power of Twitter. It discussed the rise of Twitter as a communication tool, business tool, and barometer of public opinion. There's no disputing the first 2 points. The contrasting example of emergency response pre and post Twitter (9/11 vs. The Haitian earthquake) is striking. As a business communications tool, Twitter shows great promise.

However, I believe we must be careful when we try to project public opinion based on tweets. The article quotes Susannah Fox, Associate Director from the Pew Institute's Internet & American Life Project, a respected monitor of public opinion. She suggests that tweet monitoring may be replacing focus groups for gathering information. Elsewhere in the article, the author talks about companies monitoring Twitter to "hear" what people are saying about their products and brands. Sure, there's value in "listening" to these tweets. But let's not take our eye off of a very important concept that was completely ignored in the article-- sampling.  That is, how representative of a specific population (i.e. a company's customers for brand monitoring or the general population for measuring public opinion) are the users of Twitter? 

Clearly, the demographics of Twitter don't mirror the general population (here's Pew's take on Twitter demographics from a year ago.)  In the year since the study was conducted it is likely that those numbers have changed significantly. Even so, the Twitter population will never be representative of the general population.  There are many factors that drive both who uses Twitter (i.e. personality, social connectedness) and what they use it for (i.e. communication, personal soap box).  At the end of the day, though, any conversations we mine must be kept in perspective.  It is unlikely that what we "hear" is the complete picture on a topic and we must use other data gathering techniques to make sure we fill in the gaps.

What are they measuring?

Two weeks ago I leased a new car. Going into the process, I had a good idea that I was probably going to lease the same model car that was just coming off of a lease. So... I anticipated a relatively painless experience at the dealership. And, that's the way it all went down. In total, I may have spent 3 hours looking, test-driving, negotiating, completing paperwork, and ultimately picking up my new car. I was dealing with a new salesperson (the one I dealt with last time had left), but the sales manager "remembered" me and I was treated like a long-time loyal customer. All good. As I mentioned, everything went extremely smoothly. And then, as I was shaking the salesman's hand to say goodbye before driving off the lot, he said to me "just one more thing". OK? "In a couple of days, you'll receive a survey asking you to evaluate your experience here. It's really important that you give us all "5's" on the questions. If there's anything that was a problem, please let me know now so that I can take care of it."  Hmmm. I responded by saying "no worries", which was true for my experience,  but wow, what abuse of the feedback process.

Clearly, my shiny new salesman's (on the job for 4 months) performance is evaluated, at least in part, through customer feedback. After doing a bit of homework, I learned that there are also financial consequences for the dealership that are tied to the customer feedback that the manufacturer collects. All well and good, but don't poison the methodology of collecting feedback.  Learn from real customer feedback and teach your sales staff what it takes to truly satisfy your customers. 

Sadly, my experience is not an isolated incident.  I shared my story with some friends and colleagues who indicated that they too had similar experiences - different dealerships, different manufacturers, different geographic locations - same "ask" for perfect scores on the follow-up survey.  Shameful-- putting your customers on the spot by asking for perfect scores at the end of a sale will not lead to happier customers nor any meaningful feedback.

Jeff

Presentation at New York Spa Alliance's Annual Symposium

Earlier this week, I was pleased to have been a speaker at the New York Spa Alliance's Annual Symposium.  The topic of my presentation was:

Guest Feedback 2.0
The voice of the consumer in 2010.  Online reviews, social media, and programmatic approaches.    

The presentation slides will be made available on NYSPA's web site in the near future-- we will add a link from this blog.

- Jeff Robbins

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Information about the Symposium:

The Debate: Wellness vs. Indulgence & The Bottom Line" features leaders of the spa and spa hotel/resort development world nationally and internationally. The conference will be a place to hear projections and predictions by industry experts and to participate in strategic discussions on all aspects of spa ownership, operations and marketing. Participants will be provided with an excellent and fun opportunity to network and mix it up with leading movers and shakers of the industry.

This Symposium examines the very core of spas, health resorts and related industries. Do guests want more health oriented treatments? How are spas redefining luxury? Are health and sustainability selling points? These are the kind of questions that need and will be discussed at the symposium, with a community effort essential in furthering the advancement and quality of our industry collectively.

Other Speakers Included:
Deborah Szekely, Founder, Rancho La Puerta and The Golden Door
Mark Keiser, Vice President, Managed Development, Starwood Hotels - Real Estate Group 
Dr. Mark Liponis, MD, Corporate Medical Director, Canyon Ranch, Author
Dr. Dale Atkins, PhD, ("Dr.Dale") Noted Psychologist, Author, Speaker, Television Personality New York
Susie Ellis, President, Spa Finder, New York
Jeremy McCarthy Director Global Spa Development & Operations, Starwood Hotels and Resorts World Wide