Simple three click booking experience with OYO

For today’s consumers, safety is the topmost priority. Therefore, hygiene-focussed innovations that enable social distancing will continue to be a top focus for the tourism and hospitality industries. Shreerang Godbole, SVP & Chief Service Officer, OYO Hotels & Homes, in an interaction with TTJ, shares that their goal is to enhance customer-centricity across OYO’s customer journey and to achieve this; they are working towards re-imagining the whole customer journey.

Tell us about OYO’s initial reaction to the pandemic globally and in India?

2020 was tough. The pandemic is the single biggest challenge we have ever faced. However, we did have a head start on being aware of the full impact of COVID-19 as our China operations were impacted significantly. When it comes to India, in the early phase of the pandemic and related lockdown, we did see our numbers dropping. And that’s when we started working towards strengthening our resilience, preparedness and our commitment to serve the communities we live in.

We launched ‘Sanitised Stays’ initiative to ensure a higher standard of hygiene and sanitation across OYO properties, tied-up with 24+ state ministries as well as local authorities to offer some of our properties to asymptomatic individuals, front liners and stranded tourists as pay per use quarantine, self-isolation facilities & accommodation at affordable prices, among other initiatives.

However, most of all, to ensure that we meet the expectations of our evolving consumers, we started listening to them - their worries, aspirations and requirements and then implemented it across the length and breadth of our consumer experience journey. For instance, owing to these insights, we launched several initiatives such as ‘Sanitised Stays’ and ‘Sanitised Before Your Eyes’ with Sonu Sood, who is not just our brand ambassador but also an OYO hotel owner for some time now.

According to you, what would be the actual timeline to achieve normalcy and recovery?

So far, post-unlocking, our occupancy has recovered to 40 per cent of preCOVID level with room nights sold increasing 30 per cent m-o-m. This is a small but significant green shoot for us.

In November, the festive season came as a breather for us and the industry at large with rising consumer confidence to travel. Currently, we are witnessing that the intent to book is at almost 100 per cent the levels when compared to pre-COVID for consumers on the OYO platform and the traffic is at over 50 per cent of pre-COVID levels and this continues to spill into the holiday season. There’s an uptick in bookings across leisure destinations like Goa and Himachal Pradesh for December 30, 2020 and January 01, 2021. However, with the rising cases across certain states, travel may take a step back in these regions.

Having said that, the pandemic isn’t over yet and the bounce back highly depends on government regulations and consumer willingness to travel in the coming days. To do our part, we continue to strengthen our preparedness to welcome travellers back safely and seamlessly.

With SOP’s put into practise almost everywhere, yet the threat is still alive, according to you what is now most needed to reassure passenger safety and security postCOVID?

Besides hygiene, with consumer optimism on the rise, the industry needs to enable seamless consumer experiences - making the decisionmaking process more convenient for consumers. This requires companies to rethink the customer journey from the very beginning - starting with discovery until the post-booking phase. It’s about being on this journey with your guest right from the moment they think about travelling or choosing to stay with you.

When we recently conducted our consumer survey, we understood that a majority of respondents (57

per cent) wanted to travel for leisure after spending months in lockdown and out of these, 61 percent had already decided their next travel destination. So, how can you be a part of this journey?

At OYO, for instance, we rolled out Traveller Assistance on our app. This feature gives users access to statewise COVID-19 guidelines as well as enables COVID-19 testing for those who book destinations where carrying tests were/are necessary. This makes the decision-making process simpler and gives customers the confidence to go ahead with their desire to travel safely, responsibly. Similarly, stemming from real-time consumer insights, we also launched initiatives such as Sanitised Before Your Eyes (an initiative wherein the guest can request hotel staff to sanitise high touchpoints right in front of their eyes) and Contactless Check-ins (guests can check-in from anywhere without the hassle of physical checkin formalities at the hotel reception on arrival) to boost consumer confidence.

Such efforts combined with the flexibility of cancellations, offering value for money, quality stays and seamless experiences give customers the ease of mind to travel safely.

Tell us about the immense challenges faced by the hospitality industry. What does the vaccine announcement mean for the industry?

Historically, as we know it, the travel and hospitality ecosystem is a high touch one full of greetings and gestures. This year, with restrictions and fear around travel, we were among the worse impacted industries across geographies. The pandemic pushed us to buckle up, reinvent ourselves and implement all the necessary protocols and measures to enable social distancing, ensure hygiene and digitise efforts to eliminate processes that require physical contact. This was the biggest challenge as well as opportunity for the traditional hospitality industry.

At OYO, we’ve been a tech-driven hospitality chain since Day 01. However, as we are working to circumvent the realities of today’s world, we are now focussed on becoming a tech-led organisation vis-a-vis technologically enabled hospitality chain. We strongly believe this will help us establish a deeper engagement with our asset owners, customers as well as employees.

When it comes to recovery, even preannouncements about vaccines, there has been some strength in the markets - mainly owing to the gradual lockdowns and the relaxation of restrictions across several states. Having said that, a vaccine would definitely help all industries, including aviation, tourism and hospitality emerge faster out of a pandemic with a trajectory that’s lasted as long as COVID-19.

OYO had recently introduced the ‘Contactless Check-in’ programme to lessen human contact. What’s next in customer experience at OYO?

We aim to deliver great experiences to our consumers across both ‘discovery & booking’ and ‘fulfilment’ stages. We are therefore focussed on driving higher affordability, enhancing ubiquity, ease of booking through a simple 3 click booking experience, ensuring reliable quality, and owning end-to-end experience. Through these interventions, we are confident to achieve higher customer trust, loyalty, and conversion in the coming year.

The hospitality industry is based on personalised engagements. According to you, does the Contactless approach have the ability to re-define customer experience?

Yes, absolutely. It provides ease of mind to consumers while choosing to stay with a hotel. Organisations that are able to provide consistent hygienic and tech-enabled experience to guest’s right from check-in to checkout, will definitely stand a higher chance at recovering faster and more sustainably. To provide our guests with the safest experiences, besides Contactless Check-ins, we have also launched Yo! Help, our real-time 24*7 chat assistant, in order to nudge the customer to adopt self-serve product features rather than call for queries. In the long-term, such digitisation efforts to eliminate processes that require physical contact have the potential to re-define customer experience.

During the pandemic, how did OYO work to stay as a first-class customer product?

At OYO, customer satisfaction is at the heart of everything we do. And that’s why customer feedback matters the most. Besides our initiatives to drive a higher standard of sanitation, improving customer-centricity across the customer journey and tech-led innovations to eliminate physical processes, we have also taken a conscious decision as a brand to be more responsible.

In line with this, to ensure higher transparency and provide consumers with the most trusted and accurate ratings, we’re extremely delighted to share that all OYO hotels are now rated according to ISO standards under the QUALITY MANAGEMENT SYSTEM ISO 9001:2015. The scope of the ISO certification will include hotel display ratings on the OYO app, web calculation process, and feedback collection process globally.

In today’s world, safety and quality have become the topmost priority for one and all. This means all OYO hotels are now rated according to ISO standards, thereby giving our guests the power to make informed stay decisions.

Tell us about the tech or infrastructure investments needed by the hospitality industry to bounce back?

As we continue on our path from a ‘resilient brand’ to a ‘resurgent brand’, we have utilised the lockdown period to become a tech-led organisation vis-avis technologically enabled hospitality chain and also establish a deeper engagement with our asset owners, and customers. We have therefore utilised the past few months to focus and strengthen our core capabilities - proprietary technology, operational excellence, world-class revenuemanagement suite, data analytics.

For the hospitality industry to emerge stronger, hospitality players must use technology to deliver the best and improved customer and partner service. Having said that, players should maintain a balanced combination of service quality, technology and operating efficiency, our services can be taken to enough customers and partners. After all, tech without the right human intervention won’t be enough to drive change in a highly human-interaction driven industry like hospitality.

Can you tell us about the support needed for the Indian travel and tourism industry going into 2021?

As we take a leap of faith and step into 2021, subsidised domestic tourism initiatives, measures to improve financial health of the ecosystem due to the slump during the precautionary nationwide lockdown, and consistent synergy with players and industries (big & small) will pave the way for longterm economic revival of the tourism and hospitality ecosystems.