Hand Picked Hotels

The Client:

Luxury hotel chain operating across the UK

The Brief:

Hand Picked Hotels’ organisation of data at that time meant that not all opportunities to maximise customer spend or identify key value behaviours were easy to identify.

It was realised that opportunities were potentially being missed and we were asked to assist in closing these gaps to give more insight for marketing decisions and to help develop evidence-based and effective strategies.

As part of the wider strategic review, we worked with the Operations Director to produce a thorough understanding and profiling of the current customer base, split across the main business sectors:

• Room revenue (retail and corporate)
• Functions
• Spa and leisure services
• Food and beverages

The analysis needed to be both at the individual site level and for the total group.

The Challenge:

The exploratory analysis formed a broad structured investigation into how customers behave and interact with Hand Picked Hotels. The spa loyalty scheme was too complicated and therefore not producing the desired results; block wedding bookings meant data was only held on the single booker – opportunities massively lost on marketing to the whole party. The customer making the booking may not even be the visitor attending, so potentially wasted marketing efforts with them.

Key objectives of this investigation were to:

• Understand where and how the value lay within the customer base
• Unearth actionable insights, allowing Hand Picked Hotels to score a number of quick wins by making immediate changes to contact or communication plans.
• Provide a good key basic understanding of the customer journey from initial enquiry to current value and potential.

Our Approach:

The analysis explored all aspects of the customer interaction, including:

• Were there common purchase cycles for Hand Picked Hotels customers?
• Did some customers always visit at the same time of the year?
• Where did customers travel from?
• Why did they visit – business, pleasure, events?
• How did value get generated from the customer base?
• Were there many repeat visit customers?
• What can be learnt about a customer’s first purchase that may help to predict their future value to the business?
• How much of the total value was provided by the top customers?
• Did any customers come back after not visiting for a long time?
• What was the likelihood for reactivation?
• What knowledge could be gained from previous communication activity?

The Output:

Consolidated data from across the business to differentiate leisure and business customer behaviours and potentials.

Identified cohorts of customers with specific growth strategies using our unique proprietary tool, Value Spindles.

These included:

• Converting corporate customers to leisure ones and vice-versa.
• Distinct strategies to propagate the top 5 customer behaviours that generate the most revenue.
• Converting wedding guests to returning visitors.
• Created mini clusters based on the customer’s affinity to the brand and particular hotels.
• Developed a bespoke likelihood model to predict potential for repeat bookings.

Business Impact:

Hand Picked Hotels was left with clear strategies to maximise opportunities within their 5 main groups of customers.

Their customer data was segmented and ready to draw from to inform and design future marketing strategies and customer growth plans.

We have since worked with Hand Picked Hotels on further projects.