XM Knowledge Base
HILTON + QUALTRICS
Making the stay
with real-time
insights
Hilton achieved
Improved approach to problem resolution
Hotel-specific identification of opportunities
to improve the customer experience
Real time insights into
guest experience
Overview
Hilton is a global hospitality brand known for trendsetting and innovation for more than a century — from being the first hotel brand to put TVs in hotel rooms to letting guests use their phone as a digital room key. In order to stay ahead in a digital world with rising customer expectations, Hilton led the industry in embracing a modern experience management program with the capability to collect, analyze and respond to guest feedback in real time.
The difference of in-the-moment feedback
Hilton is tasked with delivering a consistent, premium guest experience across dozens of brands and thousands of hotels in hundreds of countries. Years ago, they were at the forefront of using survey feedback to improve their hotel offerings. But today, consumers want instantaneous answers and quick resolutions to their problems. Hilton realized traditional post-stay surveys, with data that can only be acted on after a guest checks out, no longer cut it.
“Like every other hotel company, we were listening to guests after their stay experience,” said Jess Petitt, Senior Vice President of Commercial Strategy, Insight and Analytics at Hilton. “In order to really have an impact, we knew we needed to find ways to listen to our guests before, during and after their stays with us.”
Hilton is establishing a continuous listening program with Qualtrics that gives them actionable insights from before a guest books a trip, through their arrival and stay, and until they are ready to return.
Meeting customers
where they are
Through Qualtrics XM for Customer Experience and state-of-the-art messaging delivered by official Qualtrics partner Kipsu, Hilton is engaging directly with customers before, during, and after their stay. Guests are able to express questions or concerns via SMS text messaging in natural, two-way conversations. In return, Hilton’s team members are able to help multiple guests at once, prioritize the most urgent issues and take appropriate action — like relocating a guest due to a noise complaint or arranging an in-room amenity.
And over time, thanks to the AI-driven analytics of the Qualtrics platform, those messages will help Hilton do more than just reduce calls to the hotel concierge or to Hilton’s contact center. Eventually, conversations will be automatically analyzed to understand the content as well as effort, sentiment, and emotion behind them. Hilton team members will proactively receive insights into specific locations or points in the journey where guests are experiencing frustration.
Addressing insights at a corporate level
Increasingly, Hilton believes that their ability to deliver a differentiated experience depends on how they incorporate feedback from guests via messaging and surveys as well as conversations happening in other channels — whether that’s social media, email or calls to the contact center. The Stay Experience Platform, powered by Qualtrics, allows them to interpret unstructured data at scale, bringing insights from various channels into one view where they can see connections, build an understanding of individual guests and segments, and prioritize actions.
By ingesting select messaging data into the Stay Experience Platform, Hilton discovered towel quantity and quality was a major detractor from the guest experience — something they had never asked about in a survey. In response, Hilton developed a new company-wide towel program that is cost-efficient for hotels and improved the customer experience.
With a centralized platform for feedback, Hilton is breaking down silos across the enterprise, and empowering their team members to put the customer voice at the center of everything they do.
Becky Polebaum
Vice President of Enterprise and Customer Analytics at Hilton
By transitioning to Qualtrics, it’s modernizing how we listen to customers, how we analyze their feedback, and how we close the loop with them, resolving their pain points in the moment, while they are still at our hotels.
Hilton (NYSE: HLT) is a leading global hospitality company with a portfolio of 24 world-class brands comprising more than 7,600 properties and nearly 1.2 million rooms, in 126 countries and territories. Dedicated to fulfilling its founding vision to fill the earth with the light and warmth of hospitality, Hilton has welcomed over 3 billion guests in its more than 100-year history, was named the No. 1 World’s Best Workplace by Great Place to Work and Fortune and has been recognized as a global leader on the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices for seven consecutive years. Hilton has introduced industry-leading technology enhancements to improve the guest experience, including Digital Key Share, automated complimentary room upgrades and the ability to book confirmed connecting rooms. Through the award-winning guest loyalty program Hilton Honors, the nearly 190 million Hilton Honors members who book directly with Hilton can earn Points for hotel stays and experiences money can't buy. With the free Hilton Honors app, guests can book their stay, select their room, check in, unlock their door with a Digital Key and check out, all from their smartphone. Visit stories.hilton.com for more information, and connect with Hilton on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube.
Hilton.comIndustry
Hospitality
Region
Global
Company Size
Enterprise
Business Type
B2C