For businesses today, data is sacrosanct. It’s the foundation that allows them to better understand their customers and deliver the experiences they value, remember and recommend. But data can sometimes be a dirty word, especially in the hospitality industry, writes Paul Hadida is the General Manager, Australia at SevenRooms,
Years of headlines dedicated to credit card fraud and data breaches have created a negative connotation with consumers. While it is imperative to safeguard data and treat it with the utmost care, data also has immense power for good, especially in helping personalise customer experiences.
When data – approved by the customer, and safeguarded and respected by the companies leveraging it – is used to its full potential, businesses and customers benefit greatly. Take Spotify, for example, which analyses its users’ data to recommend new, undiscovered music based on your listening preferences. Or Amazon, which recommends products you’ll love based on your purchases and search history. This is data used effectively to provide the meaningful and personalised experiences that consumers expect as standard today. The potential in the hospitality industry is less-heralded, but just as limitless.
Data-driven hospitality
Hospitality is a transient industry. As staff come and go, hospitality venues lose the insights those employees had on their regular customers; their name, favourite seat and even their anniversary. In an industry in which the experience is so crucial when those insights and relationships they foster are lost, a guest’s connection to a venue can diminish. Today, data, and the platforms that both store it and make it actionable, help provide a way for operators to navigate the transient nature of the hospitality industry.
Imagine a restaurant that could use your data to recommend dishes it knows you’ll love, avoid dishes you’re allergic to, and send you tailored discounts on your favourite wine for your birthday or anniversary. That’s not the future, it’s the now, and it’s what Australians are demanding. In fact, recent SevenRooms research found that 83 per cent of Australians would share their personal data with a venue for either health and safety measures or personalised experiences. This shows the incredible importance of prioritising a data-led strategy for restaurants.
360-degree insights, on- and off-premise
The way guests and restaurants interact has changed over time, particularly over the past decade. A once-traditional industry, guests would dine in at a restaurant, calling ahead to make a reservation on the phone, which the venue would log on a piece of paper.
Thanks to the proliferation of technology, consumers now have infinitely more ways to interact with a restaurant throughout the customer journey. Diners can now book a reservation online to eat out, order at-home delivery or collect their food from the premises, or order directly through their mobile phone instead of with a server. This creates major potential for a unified approach that capitalises on all areas of this guest journey across both on- and off-premise.
Having technology in place for each of those functions can enhance a restaurant’s ability to provide a high standard of service. But those venues that have one holistic, integrated system across the entire customer journey can benefit significantly. Consumers today want multiple options, from the experience of a lavish sit-down meal to the convenience of an at-home delivery service; the venues that can provide that seamlessly and centrally, win.
Direct is best
Having access to guest data is a crucial competitive advantage. Services like Deliveroo or Uber Eats provide both convenience and choice for customers. For venues, it gives them access to a broad customer-base, but competition is high and comes at a high cost both financially and through loss of data.
Third-party platforms act as a ‘middleman’, meaning the restaurants have no direct access to the customer. Crucially, therefore, they can’t access the customer data – a lifeblood for businesses looking to build relationships that are more than transactional. Though they play an important role, third-party platforms should not be 100% of an operator’s strategy. Through a direct approach, the venues – rather than the third-party platform – can own their guest data. Managed carefully, this data can provide a wealth of information to transform customer experiences.
With this data, restaurants can access insights about their patrons including their spending habits and dining preferences, and use it to curate tailored marketing and personalised offers. Just as retailers target shoppers with personalised promotions designed to increase loyalty and boost revenue, so too can restaurants through direct channels where competition and commissions are non-existent.
If the same household orders online every Friday night through a third-party, a restaurant has no idea that they’re a valuable, repeat customer. However, through a direct approach and leveraging their own data, they do. Armed with this information, the venue can offer a discount on their favourite dish the next time they order, or even invite them to visit the restaurant in-person for their next meal.
The venue can also recognise if a regular customer hasn’t visited recently and send them a ‘we miss you’ offer. If the restaurateur also owns a cafe in the next neighbourhood, the data can help identify which customers frequent both, so they can provide the most personalised marketing and memorable service.
Through digital-transformation, the hospitality industry is using data responsibly and innovatively to provide the meaningful, memorable and unique experiences that diners crave. Data is the future of the hospitality industry, but it’s already the hidden ingredient behind so many of our most memorable dining and drinking moments today.
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