Management; Smart Use Of Data Means Hilton Guests Stay Around.
Aug 11, 2004, 5:18 pm
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Management; Smart Use Of Data Means Hilton Guests Stay Around.
MANAGEMENT; SMART USE OF DATA MEANS HILTON GUESTS STAY AROUND.
Customer information is helping the hotel chain out of an industry slump, writes Tony Kontzer.
The system can even be used to identify that very rare unvaluable customer. One such frequent guest of Hilton's Hampton Inn brand, it transpired, hadn't paid for a single night over 107 stays. Once OnQ went live, it became clear this customer had logged a complaint each time she stayed at a Hampton property, taking the brand's '100 per cent guest satisfaction' guarantee to extremes. 'Let's just say we invited her not to be a customer,' says Harvey.
That customer probably never knew what hit her, and Harvey doesn't want guests to be aware of the technology that's augmenting their stays. Hilton's IT leadership is stacked with hotel industry veterans who have no trouble defining IT success in terms of how quickly guests get to their rooms and whether the rooms are what they asked for....
Conversely, the system may indicate that a non-HHonors guest looking at the last minute to extend his or her stay should be turned down, so the room can be held for an unconfirmed diamond HHonors member expected to show up that night.
'I'll run the risk of not filling 100 per cent of my rooms to make sure my diamond or gold customer is satisfied,' says Harvey.
http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher...31204&start=12
Customer information is helping the hotel chain out of an industry slump, writes Tony Kontzer.
The system can even be used to identify that very rare unvaluable customer. One such frequent guest of Hilton's Hampton Inn brand, it transpired, hadn't paid for a single night over 107 stays. Once OnQ went live, it became clear this customer had logged a complaint each time she stayed at a Hampton property, taking the brand's '100 per cent guest satisfaction' guarantee to extremes. 'Let's just say we invited her not to be a customer,' says Harvey.
That customer probably never knew what hit her, and Harvey doesn't want guests to be aware of the technology that's augmenting their stays. Hilton's IT leadership is stacked with hotel industry veterans who have no trouble defining IT success in terms of how quickly guests get to their rooms and whether the rooms are what they asked for....
Conversely, the system may indicate that a non-HHonors guest looking at the last minute to extend his or her stay should be turned down, so the room can be held for an unconfirmed diamond HHonors member expected to show up that night.
'I'll run the risk of not filling 100 per cent of my rooms to make sure my diamond or gold customer is satisfied,' says Harvey.
http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher...31204&start=12
