Autor: Marco Antonio Cosentino | Publicado: 2011-11-03T04:58:00-07:00




How committed are guests
to your brand?




31 October 2011
By Stuart Greif


HotelNewsNow.com columnist


Stuart.Greif@jdpa.com




Editor’s note: This is the final in a
series of columns from J.D. Power’s Stuart Greif that analyzes and provides
deeper insights into the company’s 2011 J.D. Power and Associates North America
Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study. 


In the 2011 J.D. Power and Associates North America Hotel
Guest Satisfaction Study, there are a number of questions asked related to how
committed customers are to each ranked hotel brand.

&nbsp;J.D. Power and Associates’ Customer Commitment Model




 
 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
 
 
 











J.D. Power and Associates includes a Customer Commitment
Model again in this year’s North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study. The
model is comprised of three components: brand image, experience and personal
style.

Experience is the cornerstone of the model and is based on
the actual hotel guest experience and the corresponding overall satisfaction
levels captured in the study. 


 
 
The brand image component reflects the image guests have of
the hotel brand where they stayed and includes questions that gauge how
environmentally responsible, prestigious, trend-setting, customer-focused,
exciting, modern and impressive a brand is in the estimation of guests. It is a
reflection of how the brand markets, promotes and positions itself as well as
how guests experience the brand. 

The personal style component is defined as guests’ inherent
view of their own sensibilities and style (e.g. “Am I more a frugal, hip,
environmentally conscious and/or luxury-minded person?”) 
All three components together measure customer commitment as
a guest’s perception toward a hotel brand. Clearly, there are other elements at
play within the guest experience, such as the strength of a rewards program and
how that plays out on property with dedicated check-in lines, loyalty/member
floors, reception areas and other benefits reflected in expectations and
satisfaction levels. The three components we use are the key drivers at a high
level. 




The Customer Commitment Model provides an additional way to
think about and look at hotel performance in addition to measures around
loyalty, advocacy and satisfaction that the study also explicitly addresses
across brands and across the industry. 


Differences in commitment across
segment scales








While a guest’s experience always has
the largest impact on customer commitment regardless of segment, there are some
differences across scales as displayed in the graphic above. As the importance
of Experience increases, the importance of personal style decreases, while
brand Image remains relatively consistent across all seven segments. Personal
style plays a smaller role than brand image in economy/budget and extended
stay, but a larger role in upper upscale, upscale and luxury. 

If a luxury guest who views himself as a bastion of style
were to stay at an economy/budget hotel, for example, his sense of personal
style from generally staying at luxury properties (34% on average) and where he
values the importance of brand image (21% on average) makes it unlikely he
would become highly committed to the economy/budget brand even if he was
surprised at the positive experience.


Why commitment matters
















Highly committed guests are more
satisfied overall; have higher rates of advocacy/loyalty; and are more likely
to use a hotel’s restaurant and recreational facilities. Satisfaction is much
higher among highly committed guests than among medium- and low-committed
guests. Advocacy and loyalty rates are also much higher among highly committed
guests, who are more likely to use various hotel services, eat at a hotel
restaurant and experience fewer problems during their stay. 

Satisfying guests, as well as creating highly committed
guests, helps drive the bottom line and generate repeat business and positive
word of mouth.

Guest commitment by brand














In the J.D. Power and Associates 2011 North America Hotel
Guest Satisfaction Study, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts created the highest
percentage of committed guests of all the brands officially ranked in the
study, with 42% of respondents reflecting high levels of commitment. Four Seasons
was followed by JW Marriott Hotels &amp; Resorts and The Ritz-Carlton, each at
36%. While levels of commitment were higher on average as one goes up segment
scales, it is important to note that Hampton Inn &amp; Suites and Drury Inn
&amp; Suites in the midscale, limited-service segment had higher scores than
many brands at higher chain scales. Likewise, in the airline industry, it is
the so called “low-cost” carriers such as JetBlue Airways and Southwest
Airlines that scored highest in satisfaction and commitment. 


What are you doing to earn commitment?
As
you begin to analyze whether your hotel and brand drive guest commitment,
consider the following:
• Do guests stay with you out of a sense of inertia, or is it because you have
truly earned their business? 
• What are you doing to earn guests’ business and love? 
• What products and services in your own life have won your commitment versus
those which are exchangeable commodities?


Equally important, how are you performing relative to others
in the market? Your own guest-tracking data can provide some direction, but
without a competitive market context, it’s difficult to determine whether you
are gaining ground or falling behind. You might not know, but your guests and
those of your competitors certainly do. They don’t care how you are doing year
over year relative to your own performance. They care about what you do to win
their hearts, minds and wallets versus the competition, which is right across
the street, down the road and, in the digitally enabled world of review sites
and social media, just a click away. 


In short, allow me to end this week’s article with the same
question I posed at the beginning: How committed are guests to your brand?


Stuart Greif is VP and general manager of the global travel
and hospitality practice for J.D. Power and Associates. Headquartered in
Westlake Village, California, J.D. Power and Associates is a global marketing
information services company operating in key business sectors including market
research, forecasting, performance improvement, training, Web intelligence and customer
satisfaction. 


The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of HotelNewsNow.com or its parent company, Smith Travel
Research and its affiliated companies. Columnists published on this site are
given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is
to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community.
Please feel free to comment or contact an editor with any questions or
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No advertising or other promotional use can be made of the
information in this release without the express prior written consent of J.D. Power and Associates.
.





TAGS: J.D. Power and
Associates, Stuart Greif,
Associates North
America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Study, commitment,
guests,
satisfaction,
experience,
brand image,
personal style