Educate your guests to book direct
What you need to do, and what nobody tells you, is change how your customers think.
You need to make them understand why they should take the time to book direct.
That they should take action
And how they will benefit from it.
You need to change how they book. A nice website will help… But it can’t change how customers think and behave.
But you know what can? Giving the customer the best prices, deals and free stuff for taking the time to book direct.
We call this booking education with some bribery
Let’s start by talking about the most important person in your business: your customer.
How Jack found and booked a room
Let’s talk about what happens when a customer — let’s call him Jack — books a room at your hotel
It was just another day at work when Jack needed to book that room for his next business trip
Hes looking at booking.com and seeing what is available and at what price, he narrows down a few places depending usually on price, location and review score.
But Jack is skeptical — he’s never heard of you. So he takes a look at your features, trying to see if you have the things he needs — he may need parking for his new company car.
Jack shares the link to your listing page with a few colleagues and discusses where they should stay. One of his colleagues mentions a competitor, but another points out that your hotel has free parking.
So Jack phones up, books the rooms he needs and gives you the booking
This is what you expect, right?
It is almost certainly NOT TRUE.
The reality: Jack is lazy.
He doesn’t care how he books
He sees a guarantee that he gets the best price on booking.com
He only looks at your website if he needs more information, he certainly doesn’t bother to look at your booking engine
”Your customers are clueless and you can profit a lot by teaching them to be better buyers.”
— Chet Holmes, The Ultimate Sales Machine
The story of our hypothetical Jack is based on a flawed assumption: Jack knows what he wants and he will choose to book direct.
Here’s the reality: Jack doesn’t know what the difference is for booking direct or with booking.com. As far as he is concerned it’s the same thing.
But to you the hotel it’s quite different
Booking.com is educating Jack right now about how its cheaper, easier and safer to book with them, what are you telling Jack?
And that’s why… education is sales.
You’re educating Jack to be a better booker
You’re trying to empower Jack to book direct
Without incentives, this can’t be done. No matter how cute your website, nor how seamless your booking engine.
You need to convince him that booking direct is worth doing, worth taking an extra few minutes of his busy day
Simply put: you need to sell.
The good news is that some really smart people have already figured out how to do this — how to motivate Jack to book direct and have him happy to do so.
What you can learn from the best chains
I recommend looking at CitizenM hotels
They are experts at converting the guest into a direct booking
This company understands … Not only are customers clueless, they also don’t see much difference between booking direct and on the booking websites.
They know that up to 50% of bookers visit the website before booking, so they educate and incentive the customer to sign up to their Citizen program where they receive 15% off and a free drink
The guest that arrives and hasn’t booked direct pays full price and gets no free drinks or perks
They educate OTA guests at the hotel that next time they should book direct and enjoy all the perks of being a member
When I saw this in action I realised I had stumbled into the techniques developed by the best salespeople on the planet.
Oh, sure, the VP of Sales for CitizenM wears nice suits, flies business class and sleeps in the Marriott penthouse suit. Meanwhile, you cook breakfast, check people in and do basic maintenance.
But your jobs — and challenges — are basically the same.
Why you need a direct booking strategy
Your thinking that… if you need to give customers 10% off just to book direct then it’s only a little bit more to 15% and you don’t have to do any hard work.
This is true and if you think like this then please stop reading now
Fortunately, lots of hotels do realise the importance
- They are your customer (not the booking websites)
- You can ask them to leave a review on tripadvisor
- You get them used to booking directly
- They get the best prices online, which increases your bookings in general, better word of mouth and less telephone calls
And most importantly, how do you do all this in an efficient, and scalable way?
You’ve got other things to do, I know!
That’s why we’re done philosophizing.
It’s all tactics from here.
Homework — preparing your direct booking strategy
Pretend I’m a potential guest who has narrowed down his search between your property and your main rival. Both places look equally good and he is on the fence as to where to book.
He has a few things he needs to find out, he will visit both your websites to try and find this information, perhaps it’s your check-in times or breakfast times but you won’t know this for sure and it doesn’t really matter.
He will find out the information he needs and will go and book on booking.com like he has done for years.
You’ve now got a few minutes to educate him on why he should be booking direct while he’s on your website.
Please send me your ideas and I will help you sell more rooms direct
Evan Davies — Co-Founder of The Booking Factory
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