April 5, 2017, Santa Clara, CA – Driving website traffic and encouraging direct bookings is no longer enough. Hotels are leaving money on the table by not pursuing abandoned carts or incomplete reservations. According to a recent survey by SalesCycle*, 81% of consumers abandon their travel booking. The good news is that same survey says that 87% of those consumers would consider returning to complete that reservation.
Milestone’s new Revenue Recovery Module, an add-on component to the award-winning Milestone CMS, enables hotels to utilize three different tactics to capture revenue that might otherwise be lost. This technology and strategy is exactly the type leveraged by OTAs to drive bookings on their websites.
The site abandonment feature promotes direct bookings by identifying an “exit intent” and prompting the customer to finish the incomplete reservation. If the customer starts to exit the window they’re making the booking in, a pop up message can present a last-minute incentive or reminder, and encourage them to remain in the booking funnel. By simply re-enforcing a ‘book direct’ message, a hotel can keep people within the booking funnel and reduce cart abandonment. These are quick, simple messages to remind the potential guest about your best rate guarantee, complimentary breakfast, free wi-fi or other direct booking advantages.
The booking abandonment feature captures visitors who start a booking, but do not complete it. The consumer is sent a series of customized emails, designed to encourage them to return to the site and complete the booking. Sending the first automatic email to guests who have abandoned a booking should ideally happen less than an hour after they abandon their booking. Guests can opt-out of the email reminders at any time.
People often abandon a booking for simple reasons. They might have left their credit card in downstairs, they got distracted, or just hesitated at the final hurdle, and a quick email reminder helps close that gap and enable the booking.
The third option is for those who are just browsing and are not ready to book, but want to save a particular special package or set of dates to review later. An email reminder option is offered to the customer. They choose a date and an email is sent as requested to encourage them to make the reservation.
Milestone tested the new module on two of their customer’s websites and generated excellent results. In two months, the hotel websites averaged 13 recovered bookings, $18,200 recovered revenue and 385 visitor email addresses for their email database. Results will vary based on many factors, but there is no doubt that reaching back out to those consumers that are familiar with your brand is profitable.
“Revenue recovery is an exciting add-on to our family of products designed to drive conversion,” said Anil Aggarwal, Milestone CEO. “At Milestone we understand that, ultimately, websites must be more than just beautiful, they have to convert to revenue – the revenue recovery module continues in that great tradition of Milestone products and technologies.”
To learn more about the Revenue Recovery Module features and pricing, please contact us at [email protected], 408-492-9055 or www.milestoneinternet.com.
*https://blog.salecycle.com/stats/booking-abandonment-why-people-abandon-their-booking/
