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On the continuous theme of providing the best guest experience through excellent customer service, we are discussing ROI (return on investment) from excellent customer service. As previously discussed, excellent customer service stems from hiring the right people for your business in order to provide the experience that guests are looking for.
The Basics of ROI
Many businesses struggle to determine the ROI of their business, however by engaging in this measurement and noting changes the occur over time, this can allow you to determine if you are meeting the intended results and can allow for a quick course of change if the numbers behind it all are not moving in the right direction.
Return on investment is the metric that allows businesses to tell what and what isn’t working through the business operation divided by its cost. Customer experience is the segmented evaluation of this measure to determine the overall experiences of guests in your establishment (pretty important!). By knowing the ROI of your business you will be able to better know what customer initiatives in place are working, and if other programs need to be implemented, removed or adjusted to better fit the needs of your customers.
Overall we want to measure ROI and commit to improve it because customer experience is compatible with customer loyalty! But you already knew that of course that’s why you’re reading this article.
ROI on Customer Experience
Don’t be discouraged, ROI is out there you just need to look for it. In order to get an accurate measure of ROI on Customer Experience, the first step is to measure and analyze it and its’ individual points in order to get an accurate depiction, and determine where ROI at its’ strongest and weakest points. This systematic approach allows for customer experience to be examined from its’ current standing, allowing for the pain points to be identified as ‘weak’ areas of customer experience.
This can be accomplished by mapping out all of the common areas that touch on customer experience within your business in order to get a detailed depiction, some of the targeted areas may include:
- Online (chat room, booking, reservations)
- Front Desk / Concierge
- Dining
- Room Service
- Check-in and Check-out procedures
By targeting your customer experience approaches, it is easier to determine which aspects need improvement. Overall these measures can improve efficiency and the lifetime value of your customers which will ultimately increase customer loyalty.
Measuring Success
As previously discussed, it is always complimentary to hear from customers themselves how they found their experience through customer feedback. However by measuring ROI of customer experience you are able to better serve customers and obtain the loyalty by going above-and-beyond their expectations, by pinpointing aspects and improving the overall experience. As always, ensure you are measuring ROI for the better of your business and your customers, not to compare against competitors within the industry which only results in a counter-productive trap. Performing better overall will show for itself and your business will see the difference in numbers.
What It Comes Down To
Always remember a good thing takes time, short-term results will not impact your customers to provide you with the loyalty and drive them to return. There are many ROI metric systems available that can change how you do business and measure customer experience. Positive ROI will take dedicated time from management and staff, but the results will highly beneficial for your business and customers. Remember that Braymark’s secret shoppers can allow you to learn exactly which aspects of your service need to be addressed in order to provide guests with the experience they are looking for.
