Customer Strategy in Action: Hospitality Case Study

The situation:

A large hospitality organization relied significantly on referrals to grow its business. Competitive pressures and a saturation of the potential market had led to a decrease in sales and referrals. The organization wanted to:

1. Drive profitable growth by focusing acquisition resources on highest potential prospects and increase revenue streams from individual owners, and
2. Understand vacation-related needs of high-value owners and then tailor strategies to prospects with similar needs.

The solution:

My team and I began by interviewing existing high-value customers to understand their needs from the hospitality organization and vacationing needs overall. Based on the insights from those interviews, we created some initial hypotheses on how customers differed and what their needs were. Using this information, we created a survey and implemented it. The resulting analysis of the survey results revealed that the primary reason why customers did business with the organization was different than the organization had thought.

Based on this information, we helped the company re-define their positioning in the marketplace. This helped them ensure that their marketing and advertising efforts resonated with as many prospects as possible.

A deeper analysis of the survey results yielded five distinct customer segments based on consumer needs, motivations and requirements. Using this information, we created customer experiences across all touch points for each customer segment. We consciously incorporated points in the experience for the organization to request referrals and leads from satisfied customers. By implementing these experiences, the client further positioned itself as a unique experience in the minds of its customers and had the opportunity to increase referrals.

The result:

By implementing the differentiated customer experiences, the client achieved the following:

1. Increased customer satisfaction levels
2. Improved customer retention and usage levels
3. Increased high-quality referrals that resulted in more sales