According to Statistic Brain, more than 148 million travel reservations are booked online each year, and 65% of same-day travel arrangements are made from a smartphone. Given that the latest Nielsen data indicates two-thirds of Americans own smartphones, offering an app for your hotel’s brand will help to increase your bookings and boost customer retention.
But do you really need an app for your hotel or is a responsive website sufficient? Here’s an investigative look at the costs, benefits and other considerations every hotel operator should evaluate when deciding if an app will deliver a competitive advantage.
Confirm your website is responsive. Though automatically adjusting design and layout to fit a user’s device is one aspect of a responsive site, the ability to adjust functionality is a key feature.
For example, a responsive website should be able to detect a consumer’s location so direction and location requests are customized by geo-location. A responsive site might even allow customers to call your hotel directly from the site with the click of a button—regardless of the device in use. If you don’t have a website that is responsive in the sense of such functionality, you might fare just as well by beefing up the responsive benefits your existing site offers, rather than investing in a native app.
Consider if your customers and operations are suited for an app. According to The Next Web, recent findings show consumers spent 27% of their time engaging with retail apps. If you have the resources to have both a responsive site and a mobile app, it probably won’t hurt your business—but not all hotel operators have that option.
To forecast the likelihood your prospects and customers will make the investment in an app worthwhile, formulate your own audience analysis by considering some of the questions suggested by the design firm Entropy:
- Who are your desired users?
- What will they use the app and/or your responsive site to accomplish?
- What usage needs to happen to achieve your business goals?
For example, if the majority of your customer interaction takes place by phone or in person, or you operate a boutique hotel with just one or two locations, you might not need a mobile app. But if you have a high percentage of customers who book reservations online using a username and password login to access their account, an app could ease their experience and be a tool repeat customers will use often.
Mashable recently cited a study indicating the bearing purchase size has on app use. Generally speaking, the larger the purchase, the more a customer tends to prefer using a native app versus a mobile website. Mobile apps also tend to serve as loyalty-building tools for existing clients. Responsive sites often are utilized by new visitors and older customers who are more comfortable using websites compared to apps.
Will an app enhance your customer service? As the 2012 study by mobile advertising provider Telmetrics revealed, brand websites remain popular for travel users compared to other industries such as restaurants and automotive, where consumers rely more on apps.
That said, offering an app can help you deepen your customer service by acting as a communications channel for delivering “on demand” customer assistance while allowing you to gather more intelligence about your customer’s spending power, occupation, age and travel habits. Armed with this information, you can customize the communication you have with customers, whether through the app or site, to ensure your messages are tailored to their needs.
Do you have the manpower to manage a mobile app? Offering a hotel app that truly enhances the customer interaction with your brand requires that you have the manpower to manage and continually improve it whether that means in-house tech expertise or a marketing budget that supports outsourcing the technology to industry experts.
It’s been said anyone can technically learn to code their own app, but offering one that is truly a value-add to your business model isn’t any easier than offering a truly cutting-edge website. To that end, the utility of a hotel app might rest on what the app can offer customers so they have a reason to use it.
For example, if your app requires Internet access (and many do), it might not be any more beneficial than your site. Additionally, you must make sure you have an app that is appropriate to all mobile devices, including Android, Apple and tablet devices, and offers some type of functionality that leverages the mobile technology (such as a camera or similar)—and surpasses what the customer can find on your responsive site.
With smartphone saturation predicted to continually increase, it’s natural to think you’re missing out on a business opportunity without a native app, but having an app isn’t a guaranteed “win.” Because offering an app that will benefit customers and your business requires an investment on your part, the value it stands to provide your hotel ultimately rests on your business objectives, budget and customer behavior.
Kristen Gramigna is Chief Marketing Officer for BluePay, a credit card processing firm that help businesses accept payments via mobile devices. Kristen also serves on its Board of Directors. She has more than 15 years’ experience in the bankcard industry in direct sales, sales management and marketing.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or its parent company, STR and its affiliated companies. Columnists published on this site are given the freedom to express views that might be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to comment or contact an editor with any questions or concerns.