The results: A significant ROI
The challenge: What’s the value of new technology?
Marriott was considering a million dollar technology upgrade. Large scale investments are always tricky. The expense is high, and the payoff uncertain.
That’s why, behind the scenes, so many digital experiences are patched and cobbled together. Teams struggle to keep the lights on, while managers struggle to justify what to upgrade and when.
This new technology had the capability to match customers to hotel rooms in innovative ways. But technology often fails to deliver.
What’s more, the investment was high. Marriott wondered: what would the payoff be? Would customers care? Would that translate into new bookings?
Solution: To find out, build a model of the future
We began by asking the question that really mattered: what did customers want?
We interviewed customers and built mockups to understand the ideal booking journey. How did they make choices? What put them off? What gave them trust and confidence to buy?
Soon we had a model of the ideal user journey, one that used some (but not all) of the features on offer. We were ready to make some predictions.
We took the model to Marriott’s analytics team. Together, we identified where customers were dropping out of their current booking process and found clues about how the new technology would perform.
Results: From business case to implementation roadmap
Now we had the full picture. We understood the customer need. We understood how the new tech could play a part. And we understood what performance Marriott could expect, if they did things right.
The results were surprising. Our model showed that 33% of customers dropped out because the journey was flawed.
Marriott could recover a proportion of that. The million dollar investment would yield between $13M and $63M in revenue.
What seemed like a risky proposition was now an opportunity - with a plan for success.