Revenue Management. 2nd Study Case

I promise my Touristologists to bring/give to this blog a couple of study cases in order to practice Revenue Management Framework. The other day, I gave the first but I promised two. Do you want the second? Here you have it! As I said in the first one…Feel free to reply the following questions as a comment to this post or send my an e-mail (you can use the one that appears in “About Me” ( skynetengineering@yahoo.com) I will love to reply to your proposals!

In this occasion we have a hotel that is very famous for its home-made desserts that every day it offers to their customers. One month ago they finished a native application available for the most important operating systems (I know that you know them!). They invested a good amount of money in the design but they are not getting the big results that they were expecting. A Touristologist was passing by and the revenue manager asks him/her for some advice in order to improve the situation. I understand that you are following Web 2.0 business model …. you know, the matrix talking about the three C’s content, commerce, community and how to deliver them in a customized, syndicated and pro-amized way and Web 3.0 framework (providing Interaction from the beginning to the end of the trip) - The Touristologist replied. 

 

Hmmm, I am sure that the first time I saw this matrix there weren’t these green marks- thought the Revenue Manager- I don’t know maybe it’s a clue.

Can you use the web 2.0 business model and the Web 3.0? Can you use interaction of all the departments as I recommended in this post?

Maybe this video will help you to connect the dots… By the way, it’s also a good example of versions of ME!

Please, give your answer using the short vision of a Revenue Manager…

 

I love Touristology’s games! What about you?

 

 

Practice service recovery or face the consequences!

I believed that everybody had watched this video…

After all, it has almost 13 million views on youtube. Furthermore, it’s used for a lot of lectures and consultants in his/her seminars around the world as a good example of both viral marketing and the threads that social networking sites can mean for enterprises.

 But, from time to time, I find a group that doesn’t know anything about it. So, I play it!

This video is NOT the story of a singer becoming famous through youtube. It’s a warning call to all the enterprises, organizations, famous people… about the necessity to be ready, to know how to deal with service recovery in social media times.

“The problem was they broke his tailor guitar, end of the study case” will say the usual student that already knows everything. You know the one who is answering text messages while you are explaining the main concepts. They proudly call it their multitasking ability. I call it a lack of focus. You will only see the whole picture if you go really deep. As Steve Jobs used to say “To be truly simple, you have to go really deep”

Anyway, of course if they didn’t break the guitar they will avoid the problem, but you have to remember that in Tourism as in other services like health and education you are in the  kingdom of servuction (a beautiful one, indeed!!!), where it is impossible to aspire to 0% defects. As we discussed here in this blog “In production you can implement a quality system that prevents creating the wrong products. Even if this happens you can review the product before delivering it and avoid the problem. But in services it is a dream to get 0% defects because the customer participates in the process and as he is not your worker sometimes he will do things the wrong way or just in his own way. On the other hand, if a problem appears you don’t have time to amend it. So, you will have bad quality service from time to time and then you have to practice... service recovery!” Apart from that, you can face malicious people willing to attack your on-line reputation, or good people having a bad perception or just a bad day and you become their scapegoat…

In all this scenarios, you have to use the old art and science of Service Recovery. Are you ready? No? You’d better be!!!

Do you have your people (and I mean, employees, collaborators and CUSTOMERS) ready? Are they educated, empowered with the tools and processes to react? This is my advice: Educate, train and empower your customers, collaborators and employees. As I always said “Help them to help you"

Can you detect when somebody makes a criticism about you on Social Networking Sites? Can you detect when an opportunity appears? Do you know what your customers, real or potential, are saying about your hotel, travel agency, tourist destination? Do you know how to get this information from the web and transform it into knowledge? You’d better!

My Touristologists are quite capable of doing that! They are experts in how to organize any enterprise inside a chain of value, in how to empower people through training, new technologies and the right processes. At the end of the day, isn’t this what servuction is all about? And... servuction is one of the things Touristologists master in!!!