The Customers Journey: Finding And Booking Your Property
Understanding People
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Understanding People 〰️
The Customers Journey: Finding And Booking Your Property
Understanding human nature and the behaviour of a potential booker gives you an edge when marketing your property. The goal is to understand every step in someone's decision making process so you can optimize the experience to be as good as possible. In today's article we are going to be going into detail about how you can map out your customers purchase journey and help you further understand key customer touch points.
What is a customer journey?
A customer journey is the path from the initial awareness of your property, all the way to advocacy. It is often divided into 6 stages that present touchpoint opportunities for property owners to connect with a potential booker and positively influence them in the direction of a sale.
Stage 1 – Inspiration (Awareness)
The first stage is the trigger point that initiates the idea of going on a trip. Have they seen an Instagram post that's made them dream or have they come across an ad whilst browsing another site. Your goal as a property owner is to find your target markets trigger points and then become one. Once the seed has been planted, the journey begins.
Touchpoints: User generated content, social media content, word of mouth, print marketing, PPC ads, organic listings
Stage 2 – Planning & Researching (Interest)
This is often a more thought out process, as we have found out from talking to staycationers. People spend time researching local areas, looking for properties, finding nice restaurants and meeting all of their psychological needs for a getaway. Several property tabs will be opened as the research starts to take place.
Touchpoints: Optimized website, property listings, blogs, content
Stage 3 - Comparison time (consideration)
Once the research has been done, it now comes down to the shortlist. Potential bookers will now compare properties against each other to see which one will be the best to book. Your goal is to have ticked as many of their mental checklist boxes as possible, to give you the edge over the competition.
Touchpoints: Social media content, engagement, reviews, high quality listings, modern website, easy user experience, simple booking system
Stage 4 – Booking & Paying (decision)
A potential guest has found the property they want to stay in and are ready to make a booking. This is the exciting bit, as you can imagine on the other side of the screen, a very happy family. The purchaser parts with their deposit and has a seamless booking experience. The booking confirmation lands in their inbox and they are overjoyed.
Touchpoints: Website, booking system, payment software, email
Stage 5 – The great experience (Fulfillment)
So, they have booked with you and are looking forward to staying at your property in your beautiful location. They have received their booking confirmation, travel details and guest information and they are full of anticipation, expectation and excitement. Time to exceed their expectations and make them a loyal customer forever.
Touchpoints: Customer service
Stage 6 – Sharing & Reviewing (Advocacy)
Your guests have left after having an amazing time. It is time to convert those happy emotions and memories into positive reviews and user generated content. Incentivize sharing their experience via a testimonial and or posting some pics on their social media. The goal is to create brilliant social proof, build a relationship with the guests and have them inspire their friends to stay at your property through their content. (replanting more seeds and starting the cycle over for a new guest)
Touchpoints: Thank you email, review request, user generated content, local search hashtags, social proof, loyalty schemes, surveys
Stage 6 - Retargeting (Retention)
It’s been a good amount of time since your guest stayed in your property. They are following you on socials and have a good overall opinion about your business. It is now time to retarget them with a deal that resparks their interest in making another booking. They have already had a great experience and know what they are getting when booking with you. Staying somewhere new is risky, so booking at the same time again next year sounds ideal.
Touchpoints: Email, message, social media, direct mail
This is a general purchasing funnel for staycation properties. The goal is to convert one customer and have their lifetime value be x10 by creating an optimized experience for them. You can try and map out your own customer journey on paper if it will help. I will note below some steps to do so.
Imagine a typical customer
Create the persona in your mind and get specific. Picture their journey from thinking about booking a holiday all the way through to being a loyal customer, what does that look like to you? What steps does this person take?
Map out the process
Note down the process for this particular persona to allow you to visualize roughly what they would do. Doesn’t have to be perfect, just get a feel and put yourself in their shoes.
List the steps to book your property.
From seedling idea to aftersales, right down the steps in order. Every interaction with your brand needs to be listed.
Get detailed
What are the exact actions, questions, obstacles, trust signals, incentives, emotions, answers, psychology necessary on your customers journey?
- What will encourage them?
- What emotions do you provoke?
- Are the answers easy to access?
- What’s the potential friction?
- Price psychology? Is it a good deal?
- How does it compare to competitors?
Try and list everything you can.
Repeat this again with another persona
Repeat this process for as many buyer personas as you can. The goal is to fully understand the customer's journey so you can give them everything they need to make a booking with you.
Optimize to meet their needs
With all of the notes you have written down, it’s now time to optimize your business to completely streamline the journey. Remove any friction, answer every question and fix anything that's broken. You want to get to the point where your customer experience is as close to perfect as possible.
Conclusion
I hope you have enjoyed today's article on customer journeys. At Hostimize, we aim to create the blueprint for all short term letting businesses by fully understanding the psychology of UK staycationers. We will continue to freely share any and all of our results for you to optimize your business and maximize your bookings year round.