| HORSHAM, Pennsylvania;
February 22, 2012 -
LRA Worldwide, Inc. (LRA), the leading provider of Quality Assurance
audits and Mystery Shopping evaluations for the global hospitality
industry,
reported significant growth of its unique “Competitive
Competencies” benchmarking database in the past year. In 2011
alone, the Competitive Competencies
program added data from nearly 5,500 unique hotel stays, covering more
than 50
hotel brands.
Launched in the 4th Quarter of 2010, Competitive Competencies was designed to provide hotel brands with fresh benchmarking data on the functional and emotional elements of the hotel guest experience, based on the data gathering and observations of LRA’s corps of 150-plus professional hospitality consultants. Given LRA’s penetration in the industry, LRA is able to present pooled data to clients by a relevant competitive set by market segment, hotel type and region. “Our point of view is that traditional approaches to benchmarking have lacked actionable insights and real relevance to the guest experience,” said John Roberto, Senior Vice President of Quality Assurance & Mystery Shopping at LRA. “Competitive Competencies was designed to capitalize on the expertise of our consultants and provide up-to-date insights into industry best practices and standards, both on a functional and emotional level. For LRA clients, the Competitive Competencies process answers the question ‘how is my brand performing against its competitive set based on what’s meaningful to hotel guests today?’” “Client interest in Competitive Competencies data has been very strong,” said Rob Rush, LRA’s CEO. “We’ve even had a number of non-clients inquire about Competitive Competencies reporting, but at this point it is only available to our existing clients as a means to provide additional value to the overall insights we provide on their guest experience and brand performance.” Competitive Competencies data is gathered by LRA’s Quality Assurance practice, which will conduct upwards of 20,000 hotel audits in 120 countries in 2012. In all, LRA works with seven of the top 10 global hotel companies in the world, as well as many regional companies. About LRA Worldwide, Inc:  LRA Worldwide is a leading
research and consulting company in the emerging discipline of Customer
Experience Management (CEM). We work with our clients to help them
design and
deliver consistently exceptional customer experiences in order to drive
customer
satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy, and company growth and
profitability. In LRA’s 25-year history, we have grown from a provider of customized quality assurance evaluation programs for the hospitality industry, to a leading CEM consulting company offering a variety of client solutions. The evolution has been driven by our clients asking us one question – "How do we get better?" In response, we have built a range of performance measurement, research, training and consulting solutions to help them do so. Today, we are a growing company operating in more than 120 countries throughout the world, helping clients such as Starwood Hotels & Resorts, the National Basketball Association, Hyatt Hotels Corporation, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group and InterContinental Hotels Group deliver exceptional customer experiences. Every touch. Every time. For more information, visit us at www.LRAworldwide.com. |