Advanced booking engine tactics
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This document discusses tactics for increasing direct bookings by focusing on calls to action, streamlining the booking process, and optimizing booking policies. It notes that OTAs currently control around 40% of the market but 52% of OTA visitors click on property websites. The presentation recommends using invitations, quick booking widgets, individual unit calendars, and exit intent, price comparison, and cart abandonment tactics to convert more OTA visitors into direct bookings. It emphasizes having strong calls to action, refined room selection processes, policies that make closing easy for customers, and testing new conversion optimization techniques.
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Advanced booking engine tactics
- 1. ADVANCED BOOKING ENGINE TACTICS To Increase Direct Bookings
- 2. ABOUT ME Jeff Hebrink Customer Success Consultant 5 Years at rezStream Celebrating 20 years of marriage in October 2 Boys – Josh-17, Alex- 10
- 3. AGENDA 01 | Please Come In 02 | Keep Them Moving 03 | Coffee Is For Closers 04 | New Stuff
- 4. OTA’S MARKET SHARE 2017 39% 2020 41% Commissions: 15-30%
- 5. OTA’S GOOD NEWS 52% of OTA visitors click on the property’s website
- 6. 01 | PLEASE COME IN Invitations…
- 8. CTA WITHIN THE HEADER AND/OR NAVIGATION
- 11. 02 | KEEP THEM MOVING
- 12. NO NO #1
- 13. NO NO #2
- 14. NO NO #3
- 15. HERE’S HOW IT SHOULD LOOK
- 16. HERE’S HOW IT SHOULD LOOK
- 18. • DON’T • Require 100% • Take no deposit at all (Skin in the game) • DO • Explain when it gets processed • Explain if it’s refundable and how Deposits • DON’T be so unforgiving it scares people away • DO, Allow for a credit to be used in the future Cancellations • DON’T require additional fields unless it’s imperative • DO Clearly communicate policies/restrictions • No pets, no smoking, street parking, etc. Additional Fields/T’s & C’s
- 19. THE NEW STUFF
- 20. EXIT INTENT – NEW TACTIC
- 21. PRICE COMPARISON – NEW TACTIC COMPARES PRICING VS. OTA’S
- 22. CART ABANDONMENT– NEW TACTIC RETRIEVE ABANDONED BOOKINGS
- 23. CONCLUSION 1. STRONG CTA’S 2. REFINED ROOM SELECTION 3. EASE OF CLOSING 4. TRY THE NEW STUFF
- 24. FEEL FREE TO REACH OUT ANYTIME!
Editor's Notes
- Hello everyone. Welcome to the webinar. This one is called “Advanced Booking Engine Tactics to increase direct bookings”
- Why listen to me? Well, rezStream has been providing reservation software, booking engine, website design and marketing since 2005. We’re able to track data of where guests come from, how they interact with your website and how they enter your booking engine and what gets them to convert into an online reservation. (Go through data on slide)
- I’m pretty sure we’ll wrap this up within 30 minutes or so so you can get back to your busy schedules. The agenda for today: Please come in We’ll review the calls to action that need to be in place on your website to entice the visitor to enter your booking engine Keep them moving Here we’ll discuss the elements of the booking engine and how to keep the guests moving through the buying journey Coffee is for Closers Here we’ll discuss the key elements to DO and NOT DO to capture the purchase New Stuff Things you likely aren’t doing that you need to start considering.
- Before I dive in, I wanted to share some data points on OTA’s with you to make sure we’re on the same page of why direct bookings are imperative to your business. First, What’s an OTA? Stands for Online Travel Agent. Examples include Expedia, Booking.com, TripAdvisor Here, you see a couple of years ago, OTA’s covered 39% of all online reservations! Next year it’s projected to hit over 40%. Now’s the time to try to think of ways to capture some of that share back.
- Let’s face it, the majority of us do not like the OTA’s. They take a lot of your money, right? Here’s the good news though…………………52% of OTA visitors use the OTA’s more of a search engine. They go there to just get an idea of WHO is in a certain area. Then they will go try to find that properties web site to learn more. THIS is our opportunity to capture their attention and make sure they don’t go back to the OTA robbing us of 15-30% of our revenue.
- OK, let’s talk about how to do that… #1, Please come in
- We want to invite users to stay with us. How to we do that? With calls to action. What is a call to action? A call to action is an instruction to the audience designed to provoke a response. (an invitation) On lodging websites, simply put………….that is the book now/reserve now buttons. We CAN NOT assume that everyone will use our website the exact same way. That means that some people visiting our website care most about the history. Some care more about the pictures and experience. Some may only care about the price. Therefore, it’s our responsibility to make sure that we’re making our calls to action to book now as convenient and easy as possible for any visitor to access when THEY”RE ready. Not when/how we think they should……….but when it’s convenient for them.
- There are a couple of things that don’t change on a website regardless of what page you are on. The Header, the navigation and the footer. First take away today………………….make sure that your header and/or navigation have a Book Now call to action. These locations do not change, they are consistent on every page and you are inviting the visitor who is in their buying journey, regardless of what page they are on to easily and conveniently find your call to action to continue their buying journey. I see this on MOST websites currently so hopefully you’re already doing this one.
- Ever notice how when you visit Expedia, Booking.com, Airbnb or any of the OTAs they always start by asking your arrival/departure, # of guests? This is called a Quick Booking Widget. It’s not a coincidence guys, and this very tactic should be used on your websites. It’s a quick and convenient way for people to enter their preferences and see what you have to offer. This widget doesn’t force people to navigate within your website they way you want or think they should. Some people do their research within a booking engine because it gives them the rooms, rates, pictures. Take away #2 is to make sure you get a QBW on your website that’s on every page to increase guests entering your BE and ultimately making a purchase decision. By offering a quick booking widget on every page of your website you’re providing another Call To Action to entice the guest to book when it’s convenient for them.
- I saved this one for last because I think most properties get it wrong. This is for properties that have unique rooms to sell. I rarely if ever see an individual unit calendar on a room detail page. Let me give you a practical example of a guests experience……………………. A guest is searching online or on an OTA for a property in their desired location. They come across your website and they start researching. They read about you, your history and check out your pictures. Now you’ve got that fish on the hook. They make their way to your rooms pages and they are looking through the various room options. You’re starting to reel that fish in right?!?!?! Now they come across a room, they love the décor and the amenities and the view. They are ready to pull the trigger. But wait………………….They have to click on the book now button in your header/navigation or they have to enter their dates into your quick booking widget. Do you know what happens next?!?!?!?! Your booking engine then displays ALL THE ROOMS you have available for their dates. They now have to search a second time for that room they just got done falling in love with. What if it’s not available? What if the picture(s) they fell in love with aren’t the same on the booking engine? They literally just went through the entire research process, found what they wanted and now you’re forcing them to search for the same thing all over again. Imagine going to a department store and spending hours looking for that perfect outfit and once you found it the store told you that was a display model only and made you go into the back warehouse and search through a ton of shelves to find your outfit again. That’s insanity right? How many people do you think abort your booking process because you’re making them start their search all over again?
- We’ve covered the first step in the online booking process which is getting them into the booking engine. We now know we need strong CTAs and we need multiple entry points with a QBW and individual unit calendars. Now let’s go through Step 2 which is the guests experience when selecting a room. I’d like to go through a few examples of what we call “no no’s” and then show you a couple examples of ones that are spot on.
- So, here we have a well priced room. Nice description that entices me, good photo. So, what’s wrong with this one? The no no here is forcing us to click to add the qty. It should be defaulted to 1 already. I shouldn’t have to click the drop down, then click the qty and then click the add button. That’s 3 clicks. I’ve already clicked 3 times to add the arrival, departure and # of guests. So I’m at 6 damn clicks just to add the dang room. That doesn’t count the initial click of getting into the booking engine. What’s really confusing as well is the property offers individual units, they aren’t unit types. So there is literally only ONE OF THESE….So it has me thinking the quantity is for something else.
- Look this one over and think about what might be wrong. I’m at the point where I’m trying to pick my room for my wonderful experience at your property and you’re showing me about 10% of the page dedicated to the room and the other 90% of the page dedicated to general info and scary things that can turn me away like Cancellation restrictions and T+Cs. I’m already sold on the property because I’m trying to book a room. And don’t give me the fine print until I’m fully committed. I won’t scare easily at that point. But here you are giving me the fine print when I’m selecting my room choice. Just something to consider.
- Look this one over and tell me what you see is wrong with this at step 2 of the booking process where a guest gets to pick the room. Imagine if you went to Google and you typed in the search bar “Lodging in Denver” and the search results came back and the first option was a business who closed down and the website didn’t work. Maybe that’s a bad analogy here but in this example, you’ve reviewed the properties website, you’ve navigated to the booking engine. You’ve entered your arrival/departure dates and the first thing that is being presented to you is a room that isn’t available for your selection. Last time I checked, I’m entering dates to see WHAT IS available, not what isn’t available. Imagine if this property had 15 rooms and the first 10 were sold out. This booking engine is going to display 10 unavailable rooms before it displays the first available room? That’s crazy. We’re trying to get people to book direct. Not push them to get to the OTAs to find available rooms where we have to pay 15-30% in commission.
- We’ve covered some Non No’s. Here’s a great one. We see the Room name, the unit is available. Clean description. Nice bulleted list that’s clear and concise. I see the rate name, the price and what the rate includes. The call to action is clear. Good job on this one.
- Room name, clean description, bulleted list of amenities, ability to see multiple pictures, Price and the Call to action to continue is easy to understand. Other thing I love here is the booking engine is showing me very clearly what step I’m on and how many more I have. Many people book on the go, on a cell phone or while they are at work. It’s very important they know how many steps and what step they are on so they can commit to finishing the buying process without being left to guess how much longer it’s going to take and abort the entire process. Remember, keep them moving…
- We’ve covered the entry point, we’ve covered the room display and how it should and shouldn’t look. Now let’s talk about closing the deal to ensure an increased conversion rate which relates directly to more direct bookings. - Final step – Obtaining contact and billing information Arguably the most important of all steps Let’s look at things that some of us get wrong.
- Just wanted to list some do’s and don’t’s on the final step of the booking…
- Finally, Let’s talk about some things you may not be using that can help drive conversions.
- This here is pretty slick. There are tools out there that track your mouse cursor. They know when your mouse is being raised toward the X button to close the browser tab and they can automatically throw this “WAIT DON”T GO OFFER” as I like to call it in guests face as a last ditch effort to continue the process. By clicking on that call to action the promotional discount will automatically be applied to your rates so the guest doesn’t have to enter anything promo code manually. The beauty of this feature is that it doesn’t show to everyone, only those that are about to leave your website during the booking process. Absolutely love this one and we see a good portion of conversions by taking advantage of this for guests who were intending to leave.
- For those of you that are using OTA’s. We have price comparison. This is something we’ve seen widely with larger hotels. Now, it’s slowly starting to make it’s way to B+B’s as well. It gives the guest the confidence in knowing they are getting the best price from booking direct. It is a snipit of code that is inserted on your website or within your BE.
- We’ve covered the exit intent where you try to get someone to book before they actually leave. This one, called cart abandonment, is for if they actually do leave. Here’s how it works User must put in email during booking process. Usually that’s after they have chosen a room and dates and were ready but for whatever reason, they decided to leave before clicking the book button. Stores email and sends canned templated emails in an effort to get the guest to return to the BE and complete the process.
- So, with that, we’ll wrap this up. We chatted about strong calls to actions, refines room selection, ease of closing, and finally some less used tactics that hopefully you’ll give a try.
- Here is my email, direct dial information, as well as a site to register for a product demo or discussion. Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or just want to run anything by us. Thank you so much and enjoy the rest of the day!