{"id":16281,"date":"2018-08-22T10:15:55","date_gmt":"2018-08-22T14:15:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digitalmainstreet.ca\/?p=16281"},"modified":"2018-08-21T11:58:04","modified_gmt":"2018-08-21T15:58:04","slug":"want-to-deliver-great-customer-experiences-heres-what-not-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalmainstreet.ca\/fr\/want-to-deliver-great-customer-experiences-heres-what-not-to-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Want to deliver great customer experiences? Here\u2019s what not to do"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We operate in a crowded, competitive market, where most companies are vying for a similar audience. HomeAway is a vacation rental company owned by the Expedia Group with more than 2 million property listings across 190 countries. When thinking about how we could stand out, we saw an opportunity to compete on the ways people experience travel.<\/p>\n

Given technology\u2019s constant influence on consumer behavior, and people\u2019s reliance on smartphones and search to find what they need, we decided to create personalized customer experiences for today\u2019s shopper based on individual intent. These experiences would be customized, relevant, and seamless.<\/p>\n

On paper, this sounds easy. But it wasn\u2019t. We had a lot of foundational problems we needed to fix first. For example, our mobile experience wasn\u2019t optimized, and many of our campaigns weren\u2019t profitable, even though they were budgeted for. In short, we weren\u2019t at a great starting place. \u00a0<\/p>\n

We decided to approach the problem backward. We looked at what\u00a0wasn\u2019t<\/em>\u00a0working to determine what would. This approach taught us a lot \u2014 and delivered strong results. Here are three customer experience strategies we learned the hard way that helped us drive growth.<\/p>\n

1. Don\u2019t start out trying to define success<\/h2>\n

Success is subjective. It means different things to different people, and my team struggled to come to a consensus. What\u2019s less subjective is failure \u2014 that was something we could all agree on. So the first thing we did was think about what our customers definitely\u00a0don\u2019t<\/em>\u00a0want from digital experiences. They don\u2019t want irrelevant landing pages. Or annoying ads. Or a cumbersome checkout process.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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To ensure every interaction with our customers was exceptional, we needed to understand consumer intent and act on it in real time. Only then could we be consistently useful and relevant, and create value for our customers.<\/p>\n

We knew that customers hated landing pages that took forever to load, so we \u00a0improved our page load times to less than one second. We also increased the relevance of landing pages to be more specific by destination and property type. Because we know if you\u2019re keen for a beach holiday you don\u2019t want advice about neighborhoods in Nebraska. Finally, we implemented Google SmartLock, which takes the hassle out of having to log in each time you visit the site.<\/p>\n

2. Don\u2019t rely on media metrics<\/h2>\n

We don\u2019t waste our time measuring visits, cost per clicks, or average positions. These numbers alone don\u2019t help us grow. Instead, we measure our success via Tracked Performance and True Performance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Tracked Performance is a basic attribution set that lets us see when someone comes to the site and converts. It\u2019s what finance teams typically care about. True Performance helps us factor in things like customer lifetime value (CLV), search performance, and app downloads. It enables us to make long-term strategic decisions about what\u2019s working well from a marketing perspective.<\/p>\n

True Performance helps us identify valuable customer interactions, and then optimize media, assets, and messaging against those. For example, if we know people who book via our app have higher CLV, then we can use this insight to fuel our marketing campaigns and reach people who are more likely to download the app. This doesn\u2019t always mean conversion, of course, but when someone has downloaded the app, we have the opportunity to nurture them.<\/p>\n

The most significant benefit of True Performance is that it doesn\u2019t measure last-click attribution. Prior to introducing this metric, we were misattributing a significant amount of our clicks. Now, we\u2019re heading toward data-driven attribution, which helps us understand the intent, interactions, and signals that are driving long-term growth.<\/p>\n

3. Don\u2019t hoard your data<\/h2>\n

To make the best decisions about and for your customers you need to know what they\u2019re doing today \u2014 not three months ago. Thanks to technology, it\u2019s now possible to have dynamic conversations with customers in real time. By identifying customer behavior signals (through your website, app, or other channels) you can start to get a clear understanding of what kind of behaviors correlate with likeliness to convert, either now or in the future. This information should drive your bidding decisions and creative strategy.<\/p>\n

At HomeAway, all our segmentation is now based on real-time behaviors. If someone comes to our site, for example, we can say, \u201cthat person behaves exactly like someone who is going to convert in two weeks\u2019 time.\u201d We then know what types of content and messaging might be useful for this person so we can keep them engaged until they\u2019re ready to buy.<\/p>\n

To do this, we\u2019re leaning into automation and machine learning. It would be impossible to segment and reach our audiences effectively without this technology.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

We\u2019ve not only become better at finding the right customers, we\u2019re now also really good at not spending money on the wrong customers.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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One thing automation has helped us get right is who sees our ads. We\u2019ve not only become better at finding the right customers, we\u2019re now also really good at\u00a0not<\/em>spending money on the\u00a0wrong<\/em>\u00a0customers.<\/p>\n

How our personalized customer experience strategy paid off<\/h2>\n

Our goal was to redefine our marketing strategy so we could be smarter about understanding and reaching high-value customers. We knew that getting this right would ultimately impact our bottom line and drive business growth. And we\u2019re happy with the outcome. In 2017, our gross bookings grew by 46% year over year and revenue grew by 115% year over year. After those results, I think we all deserve a vacation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n