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PERSPECTIVE
Awe has an amazing capacity to bring people together. It helps us feel more connected to people and humanity as a whole.
Awe trigger experience where people feel as if their social network has expanded and they also feel closer to people already in their network.
Immersive digital transformation provides us with novel opportunities to create and explore affective experiences with a transformative potential mediated through awe.
Awe can be triggered by vast, iconic, stunning, and unique experiences.
In light of a need for accommodations, creating an unexpected element (e.g., striking views or new knowledge) into the customer experience may also stimulate awe.
Awe and the feeling of interconnectedness lead to the development of social consciousness, which will turn into favorable social behaviors.
The effect of awe and working with people is shown to make them happier and contribute to greater life satisfaction.
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AND EXPERIENCE PARTNERSHIP
Digital transformation has resulted in a paradigm shift “characterized by hyper-connectedness and collaboration of consumers and organizations across the gamut of value chain activities: co-design, co-creation, co-working, co-production, co-marketing, co-distribution, and co-funding. This paradigm shift has moved hotels from the service industry into the experience industry.
Digital transformations have impacted consumer patterns, behaviors, and habits. Customers today want hotels to work with them and understand their digital journey.
Mobile devices, apps, machine learning, automation, and much more allow customers to get what they want almost exactly at the moment they need it.
Customers expect relevant content about what they’re doing anytime, anywhere, and in the format and on the device of their choosing. It’s their digital journey that now dictates your hotel’s strategy.
For hotels, the experience market will require them to create co-working spaces that enable them to build new partnerships with customers.
Digital transformation has made consumers more open to new experiences.
Awe experiences may bring with them a host of physiological, psychological, and social effects. For example, studies have found that feelings of awe can be accompanied by heart rate changes, “goosebumps,” and the sensation of chills, and there is some evidence that we may even decrease markers of chronic inflammation.
Virtual Reality technology will allow hotels to further tease apart the essential components of awe experiences, determine which stimuli are most effective at eliciting awe and probe the psychological consequences of eliciting awe.
Many hotels today feel that customer expectations are higher than ever. Digital transformation has provided customers with access to detailed real time information. And decisions are made in a very small window. If it takes the customer more than 7 seconds to identify high-value information about your hotel chances are they will go somewhere else to find that information.
COLLABORATION AT THE HEART OF EXPERIENCE PARTNERSHIPS
Hotels today have to set out a strategy where everyone should collaborate towards common goals. Become specific with your hotel’s vision for digital transformation. Create digital frameworks with room for flexibility. Empower employees to take on ownership and responsibilities with digital transformation.
Through effective collaboration, start identifying the digital frameworks that stimulate the awe experience. Invest in digital platforms that stimulate ongoing collaborations with employees, customers, clients, and the community.
WORK FOR THE GREATER GOOD
In Digital Transformation for Hotels, I talked about ‘Work as a team play as a team, and the importance of building a relationship and making friends first.
And in Digital Transformation and Value Innovation, I talked about ‘Always be innovative and that technology is not what will drive experience customers to hotels. It’s the value that the technology delivers that will attract experience customers.
Hotels collect, produce, maintain and share large amounts of digital data.
For most hotels, digital data has been stored in data silos. A data silo is a set of data that is controlled by one department and isolated from the rest of the organization. And data in data silos is stored in a standalone system that is incompatible with other data sets in the organization.
Data silos served their purpose at a time when consumers were not accustomed to real-time data.
Today data lakes are a new and smarter approach to managing and supporting information like real-time data by storing all pieces of information in one single interface.
The success of data lakes lies in the knowledge of actionable data to achieve the desired outcome for hotels, and access to the right data to achieve this outcome.
Some of the many important advantages of data lakes will include;
- More secure data layers will help hotels protect critical and sensitive information
- Optimizing the workflow by identifying and replacing faulty data sets
- Enabling real time decisions through the scalability of data
- Facilitating faster user insight
- Identifies and processes new datasets quicker
With an agile approach to data lakes, hotels will initiate a process that works for the greater good.
An agile approach includes discovery and solutions improvements in collaboration with the hotel team and their end-users (customers). This represents a dynamic and flexible process that will enable hotels to adapt to new customer behaviors and patterns.
Data lake technology today is cost-effective and adjusted accordingly to national and international regulations of data flow.
Digital transformation partnerships not only enable greater profits but also creates other important advantages such as well:
- Improves customer retention
- Improves customer satisfaction
- Increases success in cross-selling and up-selling
- Lowers the cost of customer acquisition
- Reduces operating costs
We are no longer for the ideal customer we are now looking for the ideal digital experience that triggers an awe experience. Your digital experience partners will reward your hotel abundantly.
Over to you
The hotel industry is always changing, especially during a time of crisis. Make sure to future-proof your business and continue attracting new guests by investing in these solutions.
Ready to take your hotel’s digital transformation to a new level?
Hire a digital transformation coach for a new and bright future!
Contact Are Morch – Digital Transformation Coach today!
Related article: 5 Cost-effective Steps to Start a New Innovative Digital Transformation Shift for Hotels
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NOTE
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About Are Morch
Are Morch is a digital transformation coach helping hotels open their digital front door, reimagine their processes and culture, and transform experiences in a fast-paced world!
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