Improving customer engagement with a highly personalized experience
Customer Company Size
Large Corporate
Region
- America
Country
- United States
Product
- IBM Operational Decision Manager
Tech Stack
- IBM WebSphere MQ software
- IBM WebSphere DataPower Integration Appliance XI52
- IBM WebSphere DataPower XC10
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Customer Satisfaction
Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - API Integration & Management
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Sales & Marketing
Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
Founded in 1991, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. operates and franchises more than 1,200 hotels, resorts and residences in nearly 100 countries under multiple brands, including St. Regis, The Luxury Collection, W, Westin, Le Méridien and Sheraton. Headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, Starwood employs approximately 181,400 people worldwide. The company is committed to delivering a more customized travel experience to help drive customer loyalty and improve customer satisfaction levels.
The Challenge
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. wanted to deliver a more customized travel experience to drive customer loyalty and improve customer satisfaction levels. However, with its existing booking systems, it could be challenging to meet customers’ requests. The system allowed a guest to select a room type and rate plan. However, each type of room could potentially be available in many locations, such as on different floors of a hotel, and guests could not easily provide guidance on their location preferences. In fact, when booking a stay on the web, guests’ only option for requesting a specific location, such as on a high floor or near the elevator, was to enter a comment in a text field. But if a hotel associate didn’t see the comment or didn’t speak the customer’s language, Starwood would not necessarily meet the request. Plus, the company had no way to track how frequently it satisfied these requests.
The Solution
Starwood first undertook a major room cataloging effort to gather detailed information about all the rooms in its 1,200 properties. The company then identified around 80 criteria that it thought would make sense to ask its hotels globally, and then of those, it figured out which ones it wanted to enable for the properties. Starwood implemented IBM Operational Decision Manager software to design and execute a set of business rules that allows customers to select room location, features and preparation through a web-based interface. The software also pulls membership data from the company’s Starwood Preferred Guest program so that member preferences load automatically. With Operational Decision Manager software, Starwood can create rules to offer guests only the appropriate preferences for each property. For example, if a property only has one floor, the system will not offer customers preferences related to higher floors or distance from the elevator. The solution also allows Starwood to suggest preferences to patrons based on their membership status. For example, the system offers platinum members certain preferences not available to the general public.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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