I am comfortable with the assumption that if you are reading this you recall the big deal about big data in the early 2000’s.
If not, here is a brief descriptor of the event that occurred over several years. It started out simply enough and evolved into something huge. It went like this – BIG DATA. No one could clearly define what that meant, at least to me, therefore, no one could define what to do with all that data. The best explanation I have is in the form of a story. Names have been omitted to protect the culpable.
The father of a young 16-year-old female threatened to sue a major brick and mortar store for sending marketing material meant to focus on driving the sales of motherhood items; baby formula, diapers, etc. The father believed the store was promoting these goods because his daughter was of childbearing age and they wanted to get the edge.
Well, it turned out, the girl was with child. ‘Big data’ figured that out. AI at its earliest use case.
It showed how much data exhaust we all leave behind. Start your car and the chip in your key/fob transmits, turn off the ignition and the key/fob transmits your destination. Scan your frequent shopper card and enjoy the benefit of discounts on products you purchase regularly, and adverts for those products that are related. These are examples of how retail has figured out the best use.
Its all about the Brand
The hospitality industry, hotels, resorts, restaurants, etc. was among the first industry, if not the first, to focus on survey, voice of the customer, feedback, whatever you want to call it. Finding out what is right and what is wrong in specific instances, specific units, specific special events. Why? Loyalty to the brand. The brand is/was everything and enhancing the customer experience was and is the driver. In the case of hotels, how do we get more feet in sheets.
Now, let’s take a shallow dive into how hospitality uses big data. In my world, that of feedback management, capturing data is the intuitive part of our software. Reporting on the data is not. Our competitors do not interpret the data captured, but they do a nice job of capturing it and proving some kick ass raw data, but analysts are required to interpret. Enter the equation, AI, and the world begins to open – significantly.
Now words like ‘sentiment analysis’ and ‘focused recommendations, are becoming regular parts of hospitality management speak.
Until now, with the AI component capable of determining analysis on segments that in turn report back on sentiment analysis, recommendations, rating site analysis, and even the capability to respond to verbatim comments.
Now the question comes back to the age old one – do we buy or build?
I would challenge you to ask it in a slightly different way – what business are we in? if the answer is, hospitality – focus on that. If the business is feedback management and all it represents and can provide – build it.
We have built it so you don’t have to.
