Marriott’s CEO Arne Sorenson was recently quoted saying “We are in an absolute war for who owns the customer.” and highlighted the threat that tech giants Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. present to hospitality organizations. This war is over one thing – owning the user data.
As a consumer who wants to assert ownership over their own data, this notion of large companies fighting over your information may be unsettling. Mobile devices are the most personalized technology that any consumer uses today and as such they provide tremendous insights into daily life and a communications conduit between the user and the organizational relationships that they have opted into. It is important to recognize that it is a two-way street and that the consumer does have a say to some degree as to which organizations are allowed to have access to that data. This permission is granted freely by some and sparingly by others, but most expect that there is a trust that the organization you are sharing this data with is using it in a way that benefits you directly as the consumer in addition to this data benefiting the company you are sharing it with.
Creating real value for the end user is essential for organizations to maintain any sort of meaningful relationship with their customers and to continually earn the right to have the lines of communication that they have established. A carefully curated experience will resonate with the consumer and increase loyalty, however push too hard and organizations risk losing a customer forever.
We take developing trust and creating value to heart at EVOTEK so that we can better help our customers be selective in how they solicit data from their consumers, how that data is protected, and limit the interactions to high value, meaningful communications. We also leverage technology to help create more human to human interactions through staff notification triggers rather than simply bombarding a consumer with unwanted text or pop-up style messaging. Developing trust is the cornerstone to a consumer inviting an organization to join them on their customer journey. Maintaining this trust and remaining relevant is the only way to remain with that customer on their journey.
