There I was — on the stage, in Russia — about to begin my talk. The bright lights created a spotlight as close to 700 people in the audience gazed upwards in my direction.
Back-stage I’d had make up applied — supposedly for the cameras — but I’m sure it was to cover up the fact that I looked slightly like a zombie…
Less than a day earlier — back in Amsterdam — I wasn’t sure if I’d even make it to Russia for the talk I was supposed to be giving.
There’d been a delay in getting my travel…
At Booking.com, we’ve put a lot of work into improving how guests and properties communicate through our products. Guests have been able to directly contact a few select properties through our platform for some time. But with over a million property partners on our platform, a select few was not enough for us.
So over the past year, we’ve been working on a pilot version of a new chatbot — something we call the Booking Assistant — to allow our customers to get fast and relevant answers to any questions they have about their bookings.
Guests can still directly message…
At Booking.com, we’re pretty well known for our A/B testing and guest-facing platforms, helping millions of people each day to find and book their dream stays, wherever they go in the world.
Behind the scenes, however, we’re also designing for a completely different type of user. A user that’s entrepreneurial and diverse. A user without whom Booking.com couldn’t exist.
This article will explore how we design for our property partners. …
