To entice guests, you have to know about them – their demographics, their likes and dislikes, and what they consider a great experience. You can use your online booking engine to collect this data, and if not surprise them, at least delight them. If you don’t have a direct online booking engine, you need one.
NB: This is an article from WebRezPro
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Not only do direct bookings come without commission fees, they’re crucial for building customer relationships. Keep reading to learn how to use your booking engine data to get to know your guests – and get more bookings!
Clicks
How many people click on your booking engine, and when do they do it? The answers to these questions give you valuable information about how effective your website is and which dates are most popular (when you may want to raise prices). Fewer people could be clicking on your booking engine because it’s shoulder season, your value proposition isn’t attractive enough, or that “book now” button is too hard to find.
Conversions
While website traffic data lets you know how well you attract and maintain interest, conversion data from your booking engine tells you how many of those people actually buy. You need data from all stages of the marketing funnel to let you know if and when people are dropping out. WebRezPro allows you to track customers through the entire booking process so you can identify at what point bookings are abandoned. Potential guests drop out for a variety of reasons, many of which you can do something about.
If customers are bailing at your booking engine, it might mean the booking process is confusing, visually unappealing, or seems insecure. Choose a modern booking engine that demonstrates robust security measures, simplify each step wherever you can, and ensure your booking engine is optimized for mobile to offer a seamless experience on any device.
However, the terms of the offer can turn potential guests away as well. Are you priced too high or too low? Do you offer flexible cancellations?
For some guests, price may be the deciding factor, while for others it isn’t as significant. It pays (literally) to know how price sensitive your guests are. Take a peek at the packages and rooms that are booked most often. Are they the inexpensive ones or the ones with the most extras?
Make sure your online booking channels (including your direct channel) integrate with your property management system. This not only prevents manual, error-prone data duplication, it ensures your availability is always up to date wherever guests book. No more assigning ten rooms to your direct channel and ten to your OTA, then turning away bookings on one channel while you still have rooms on another.
You can offer an upgrade too if all your standard rooms are booked. WebRezPro’s booking engine can display close matches that don’t fit the guest’s exact parameters but may still be of interest, making it less likely that the guest can’t find an appropriate room.
