In the hospitality business, making that personal connection is crucial to attracting and retaining customers. Customer loyalty is paramount for Pamela Barnhill, President and COO of InnSuites Hospitality Trust (IHT) and InnDependent Boutique Collection (IBC) Hotels.
IHT has two divisions: InnSuites Hotels & Suites and InnDependent Boutique Collection (IBC) Hotels. The network comprises more than 6,450 hotels with more than 600,000 rooms and suites.
A key customer-centric initiative for InnSuites Hotels & Suites was the launch of its loyalty program called InnDependent InnCentives, which is a free nights-based program for guests that book Independent Hotels on ibchotels.com. The program launched in July 2013.
Barnhill talked to Loyalty360 about its customer-centric approach.
Can you talk about your company's efforts around CX, customer loyalty, and customer engagement and how they have changed and/or progressed in recent years?
We are making it a point to connect with our guests through various initiatives and through InnDependent InnCentives, as well as request full guest information from our branded hotels and OTAs and Wholesalers. Full guest information belongs to the hotel, not to an intermediary.
How important is listening to your customers and how do you leverage those insights for any of your CX/customer loyalty/customer engagement initiatives?
We make it a point to engage and follow-up on customer feedback to improve our operations and customer relationships.
What trends do you see or foresee related to digital customer engagement?
As the feedback becomes more immediate, we are forced to communicate and improve with more urgency than ever before.
What does customer experience mean to you / your organization?
We are in hospitality. The guest is everything.
There a lot of metrics, studies, benchmarks in the market around CX. What are the ways you measure that have led to such great success?
We have found it is easy to get lost in the numbers and we are better off communicating with our guests to drive our repeat business and customer satisfaction.
We hear a good deal about alignment within the organization to increase the efficacy / impact of the CX efforts and that successful organizations are “committed” to such efforts. In your opinion, what does this commitment mean to you?
A lot of communication among our team members is the only way to create common alignment.
What makes your loyalty program / customer loyalty focus unique?
Half of the world’s hotels are independent. InnDependent InnCentives hotel loyalty program is dedicated to servicing all independent and boutique lodging globally is an easy nights-based program that also allows for easy Facebook and Google log-in.