Marketing Management

Accor Hotels Customer Journey

Group Assignment - Syndicate Group 5
Riasky Widar​ ​Dewanti - 29320087
Bella Nadhifah Agustina - 29320088
Fachry Arrazy - 29320090
Fadhila Afifah - 29320093
Reyner Farras - 29320097
Kevin Apriano Mulia - 29320101

Accor Hotel Customer Journey Map

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Introduction
We use customer journey mapping as a tool to see all the interactions that a customer has
with the services of Accor Hotels. Since Accor Hotels operate in three distinct segments
(luxury, midscale, and economy), we chose the economy segment as our primary focus
while creating this customer journey map. With this customer journey map, we hope that
Accor Hotels could improve its service or give them competitive advantages.

This customer journey map consists of six journey phase, which is recognizing needs,
information searching, evaluating alternative, decision purchase, stay, and post-booking
along with each activity, channel, experience, pain, an opportunity that will be elaborated
below :

1. Recognizing Needs
Recognizing needs is the first step in the customer journey phase. In this phase, customers
realize what kind of problems they have. It is crucial because customers need the
desirability to move further to the next step. Internal or external stimuli can trigger needs.
Internal stimuli are a personal perception of problems, for example, boredom. External
stimuli can be gotten from external factors such as advertisement, review from influencers,
word of mouth, etc.

2. Information searching
After customers discover their needs, they will find out more about the hotel. In this stage,
the information will be obtained through several search engines. Generally, they explore
the hotel website first to know about the prices and services and see the room's state.
Usually on the hotel website provides complete information regarding it. Besides the
website, currently, customers use Online Travel Agency (OTA) such as Traveloka,
Booking.com, and so on due to OTA gives experience to customers with competitive
pricing gives customers a wide choice of pricing options, promos, and discounts provided
as part of increasing customer loyalty, and reviews from other visitors to see people
opinions about the hotel rooms and services. The customers then used to search the
information from social media. For example, Instagram is a popular social media right now.
Many influencers, celebrities, and travel bloggers give their room tours and reviews about
the hotel.

In the "pain" stage, occasionally, customers will be confused with many hotel options in
some new OTA players with different reviews about the hotel. To minimize the confusion,
the hotel should focus on its platform by User Generated Content (UGC) in social media,
Youtube, website, and other online platforms to promote their hotel and brand.
Furthermore, the hotel can use viral content as one of UGC to create content that is easy
by people with a broad reach and to gain awareness. The hotel can develop its promotion
through an omnichannel approach to engage its customers, increase customer perception
and satisfaction, as a customer loyalty program on various platforms, transparent prices,
and various platforms.

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3. Evaluating alternative
At this stage, things have reached more to less to their conclusion. The traveler has chosen
their preferred destination and time of travel. Greater attention is paid to the price
comparison ratio to book the right or suitable accommodation. Although this stage could be
considered an offshoot of the research stage, it still is distinct in its significance. Here, the
traveler focuses on comparing the ranks, reviews, prices, facilities, services, promos or
discounts, and any other elements of the hotels they are interested in. They can compare
those options through OTA, youtube, review sites, travel blogs, alternative lodging
platforms.

However, In this stage, there is still much doubt in the customer's mind, like, could the hotel
give them a "special" thing like an airport shuttle until the room position they preferred?
Also, customers are still not sure whether they can book it or not at that time. At the same
time, maybe the customers want to have the best deal. So, it is hard for the customers to
make decisions at this stage.

The resolution that the hotel can give to the customer is first, Interactive chatting with hotel
staff suited to customer unique needs/ demands. So the hotel could check if it is available
or not before the customer makes a booking. Second is giving refund options or other
personalized features based on user needs if they are wanted to cancel the booking.
Furthermore, if the customer wanted the best deal, they could use "Trivago" websites to
compare the price between one OTA to other OTAs.

4. Decision making
After evaluating the alternatives, at this stage, customers have to choose their hotel.
Customers will reserve the best hotel that suits their needs in price, time, facilities, etc via
OTA, hotel website, or offline site.

Rarely in this "pain" stage, customers forget that they already booked the hotel because
they are swamped or forget the date. They will be disappointed for themselves, but not
angry with the hotels because it is their mistake.

So the recommendation is to remind their customers through email, WhatsApp, OTA, or

call the customer for just a sweet reminder if the customers look like they would not come
or forget to give the best services to the customer their stay.

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5. Stay
This stage is the hotel's physical experience and crucial part, and guests can begin to
share their experience online. First, guests must check-in in the hotel lobby, and a friendly
receptionist is an obligation because for the first good impression about the hotel and don't
make guests wait long when check-in, always prioritize the guest who is going to check-in.
After that, a guest gets a keycard from the receptionist. He/she going to the room hotel, in
this part, the staff must be conscientious about the cleanliness in the room and make the
room cozier for stay. After that, let the guest enjoy the hotel and experience all the facilities
like the gym, swimming pool, morning breakfast, bar. Moreover, After the guest does
everything and enjoys all the facilities, they can check out at the specified time. When
checking in, the hospitality here in the checkout is essential because it leaves a good mark
on the guest's mind about the hotel and does not let checkout ramble on, always prioritizing
guests who want to check out as well as guests checking in. All of this can be done in all
hotels within the Accor group.

In the "pain" stage, many guests feel inconveniences like a mismatch between guest
requests and what guests get, which is very annoying. Therefore, our group recommends
integrating OTA or other booking ways with hotel systems to minimize current mismatches
and always keep up the right services to leave a good impression and make guests come
back to enjoy the Accor group hotels more. Guest's stay is a significant phase for the hotel
trade because the guest decides whether the guest returns or not and whether they
recommend the hotel to friends and acquaintances and put useful reviews online.
Cleanliness of the rooms like we mentioned earlier in a hotel or good service in addition to
the obvious factors, this phase is critical for Accor Group because it is determining whether
positive or negative reviews are given – the handling of complaints is necessary. It should
be regarded as an essential touchpoint within the guest journey.

6. Post booking
This stage is after guests enjoy and stay at the hotel. They will review the hotel they are
staying at and determine whether they will return to the hotel or not, as written above. The
guests will review on platforms such as TripAdvisor, social media such as Instagram,
YouTube, and travel blogs. They will determine whether to fill in a good review or a lousy
review according to their experience. To get a valuable hotel review, the hotel must send
thank you notes to the guest by sending them an email. So that they feel the warmth of the
welcome and farewell at the hotel. To get a good hotel review, the hotel must say thank you
to the guest by sending them a personal email so that they feel the warmth of the welcome
and farewell at the hotel. Also, send a review form to the guest so we can get direct
feedback from our guest, what needs to be improved and what must be maintained.