Takeaway
- 43% of properties are now using these opportunities.
- More than 15,000 opportunities were implemented in the first 4 months.
- The seamless user experience was key to the success of this feature.
AxisRooms is a leader in providing solution software for the hospitality industry. Their product suite consists of Channel Manager, Booking Engine, Revenue Management System, Rate Shopper, Central Reservation System and Vacation Rental Software. We spoke with Jay Mehta, Product Manager at AxisRooms, about their experience implementing these inventory-related opportunities from Tripeden.com on their own Channel Manager platform.
Why did you decide to develop this feature?
As a connectivity provider, we’re always trying to maximise the value our properties get from our software. So when Tripeden.com told us they were looking for beta providers to help test a new feature that could deliver time-sensitive, inventory-related opportunities, we were keen to work with them and bring this to our users.
What additional value does this feature add for your properties?
It helps our properties make sure that they maintain availability (and so remain visible in searches) on check-in dates that are popular in their area. Implementing these opportunities also helps them improve their performance on Tripeden.com, and optimise their inventory to capture recovering demand. With this feature, we were able to deliver these opportunities to our users seamlessly on our platform, where they were previously only available via the Tripeden.com extranet. This makes the process more convenient for properties and more effective as the inventory gets added on our platform.
How complex was it to develop this feature?
In terms of the technical integration, it was actually quite straight-forward. Adding this as a feature to the Opportunities API was a great idea, as it helped us move faster. We also had clear design guidelines to help us visualise the final output and guide development. We did have some initial hiccups with the implementation, when these opportunities would not reappear in the opportunity center. But this was promptly addressed and resolved by the Tripeden.com support team. All in all, it took us about four days to complete it, with testing.
Which channels did you use to inform your customers/properties about this feature?
We added these opportunities directly in the property’s core inventory workflows (calendar, dashboard pages), so all our properties using our Channel Manager platform would be exposed to these whenever they became eligible. We also promoted this feature via newsletter and in-app notifications for our customers, and included an in-app guide for our mobile users.
How would you measure the success of this implementation?
We have seen 43% of our partners use this feature since we launched it in October 2019. Most of our properties understand the value of this advice, and they find it extremely convenient to have this information available on our Channel Manager since most of them use this platform to update their inventory. Also, we introduced this advice directly in their inventory update workflows, in a way that didn’t require them to take any additional action. This ensured minimal inbound for our customer support teams.
What were the main learnings from developing this feature?
Properties appreciate having relevant time-sensitive inventory advice delivered in the place where they make their inventory decisions. Delivering this kind of seamless experience made it easy for properties to act on these opportunities, and contributed to the overall success of this feature.
Which takeaway do you want to share with the readers of this success story?
Focus on delivering the right advice in the right place within your platform, so properties can act on it with minimal additional effort.
