Background
As ubiquitous as online reviews have become since the early days of Tripadvisor and Yelp, the Hospitality Industry has only recently embraced them. In 2007, Marriott found mixed results during research, however a revised concept was well received during qualitative and quantitative research in 2010. That prompted a limited beta in late 2011 and 2012 to gauge overall interest, usage and engagement, and any impact on business KPIs.
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Pilot Results
Response to the public beta was encouraging and these are a few of the insights which guided subsequent work:
- Users expect to interact with reviews, to sort or filter them, mark as helpful, include photographs, and easily compare hotels
- Users expect Brand representatives to monitor and publicly respond to their feedback
- Quality and length of reviews vary; most provide adequate level of analysis, but negative reviews tend to focus on one or two key issues
Our Vision: Rich Hotel Summaries
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As traditional review sites have set expectations for features and user experience, we knew our own Rewards members would be our competitive advantage. We would build rich summaries for each hotel with dynamic reviews, photos, and we'd include related travel or destination information, all while attributing the Rewards member and their status.
And per our earlier personas, we knew we had to focus on simplicity for Bernard, browsing and comparing hotels for Margaret, and filtering and sorting for Jake. |
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Key User Problems
#1: Hotel DiscoveryHow could users quickly and easily find a specific hotel?
We limited the pilot to a few hundred hotels located in 11 key gateway markets. To find one of these hotels, users first clicked on a participating city, then browse through pages of corresponding hotels. Users could refine results further with the core platform's filter and sort UI.
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#2: Writing A ReviewHow could we reduce friction in writing a new review?
To write a new review during our pilot, users had to first navigate their way to their desired hotel and click a button on that page. Fixing hotel discovery would certainly reduce some friction, but we also wanted to make that user flow more intuitive.
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Solving #1: Hotel Discovery
Sequential FilteringWith 3,500 global hotels, we needed a streamlined way for users to find their specific hotel. To complicate things further, we observed a high rate of confusion between hotel locations and even brands. For instance, confusion between a "Downtown Marriott" and a "Courtyard by Marriott".
To reduce confusion between hotels, we explored this widget where a user could sequentially filter down to a list of specific hotels. But it was terribly ugly! |
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Possibly a More Interresting Format
We considered another format to iterate on the idea while adding additional context and visual interest. We wanted Bernard to find the hotel he stayed at last and Margaret browse hotel ratings in specific geographical areas.
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Solution: Hotel Discovery
We ultimately landed on a search box as a simple and elegant solution. And users could search by either the hotel name or location. We retained options to both sort and filter results and even included average ratings and review total for additional context.
Solving #2: Writing A Review
Integrating With Core User Interface
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To author any new content on our platform, users would first click "Post", and then select the type of content they wanted to create (blog, discussion, album, etc). To reduce friction in writing a review, we added a new option to this menu that replicated our solution for hotel discovery.
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Call to ActionWe could still simplify further and reverse the user flow to begin with a CTA. This would give us an actionable url that could be hyperlinked across the site in discussions, comments, and posts (increasing awareness and engagement).
So the new page (/write-review) replicated the hotel discovery UX but now lead users directly to the form to author a review, instead of the hotel page where they had to click a CTA to write a review. |
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Solution: Writing A ReviewWith the new dedicated url, we added links, buttons and calls to action across the site. We even added a link to the main navigation during its redesign.
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Step 1:
Click The CTA 
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Step 2:
Select Hotel After Typing City or Hotel Name 
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Step 3:
Write a New Hotel Review 
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Results & Impact
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Sample Hotel Summary
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Activity WidgetWe'd been focusing on core features and driving engagement, but we also wanted to reveal a sense of activity and to show new user's that their reviews would actually be published. So we built this widget for the landing page.
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Email SolicitationsWe continued to iterate with monthly feature improvements, the largest of which was the coordination of personalized trigger email solicitations after a hotel stay. This included email design and implementation, a workaround for our platform's user authentication, and close coordination with a wide range of stakeholders.
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