TrustYou’s acquisition of real-time messaging specialist Checkmate last week fills the missing piece of the data puzzle that it is building in a bid to be the “company that knows everything about every guest when it comes to feedback” and, in turn, “the data platform that powers the booking process”.
CEO and co-founder Benjamin Jost said with guests using more messaging to communicate pre-stay and on-site with hotels, Checkmate’s on-site review platform allowing hotel guests to communicate on messaging apps was the “blank spot” which has now been filled.
“We want to be wherever guest feedback happens.”
He explained, “If you look at the traveller journey, a customer searches and books a hotel online, then he goes to the hotel, stays and leaves. He uses guest feedback when he books – reviews, scores and rankings – and he books based on feedback, price and location.
“Then pre-stay and on-site, he communicates with a messaging product – that’s what Checkmate did, be it Whatsapp, Messenger or WeChat. Guests are now messaging more than emailing at this stage.”
With that on-site piece incorporated into the data that TrustYou is collecting, Jost, who said “we have more eyeballs on our data than TripAdvisor these days”, added the company is now able to scale meta-reviews and influence the booking process with pre-stay, on-site and post-stay data.
Asked why it didn’t then move into the instant or assisted booking piece which other meta sites are doing, Jost said, “It’s a very different play. We started in 2008 as a meta-search site and people could book with TrustYou but we realised that even with a compelling product, we couldn’t compete in marketing, so instead of competing with everyone, we thought, why not build a data platform that everyone can build on.
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