“Mobile is not a channel. It is a fundamental part of our lifestyle. It’s how we communicate, how we spend time and, more and more, how we transact.” Will Kassoy
Mobile-first culture
There is no doubt that mobile has shifted the way people consume content, share experiences, communicate, interact, purchase, travel, interact with brands and manage their lives. In short, mobile has changed everything. With mobile taking over and simplifying everything people do in their everyday life, there is an expectation that everything can be available quickly at their fingertips, almost to the point that the off-line world needs to catch up with it. From a marketing perspective mobile has added a level of complexity that simply didn’t exist 20 years ago and today brands need to deal with these new customer expectations.
As Will Kassoy reflects on AdWeek, some brands treat mobile as another advertising or distribution channel, while others see it as a piece of technology that is self-contained. Large travel brands like British Airways, Skyscanner, Uber, Airbnb, Hilton, Marriott and many others, have probably understood what others haven’t yet, which is what Will Kassoy argues: “Mobile is not a channel. It is a fundamental part of our lifestyle”. Not only they have adopted a mobile-first approach, but they have realised that to offer a seamless guest experience they need to support the entire customer’s journey on the platform they have chosen to use, instead of asking them to interact with multiple pieces of technology or different touch-points at different stages.
Customer journeys, as they stand, are still very often messy. Hotels and serviced apartments are too often far to be not at the forefront of innovation and guests are forced to use many different touch-points during their stay: use a tablet to check-in; switch on the TV in their room to find out information about the place where they are staying in; they have to fill out forms and leave them hanging on the door to order in-room service; they need to call reception to book additional services, like spa treatments, and so on. The customer’s journey is fundamentally broken, even though guest satisfaction, rating and reviews are paramount in the hospitality sector.
[CONTINUES]
Read the full post on the Criton website
