There is no doubt anymore that technology when used wisely can work wonders for your business. Technology has successfully disrupted a number of industries around the globe and continues to do so even today. I believe it won’t we unwise to say that in today’s world efficiency equals best use of available technology. In the article below we will take a look at how technology is affecting different aspects of internet businesses and how OYO Rooms is using technology to redefine itself !
Technology Taking Over Every Aspect Of Business !
In terms of use of technology companies such as Uber are setting the standards sky high forcing other companies in the B2C domain to reduce the transaction cycles.A lot of innovation happening around user experience design has left consumers more and more impatient thereby putting a lot of pressure on B2C companies to make transaction cycles smaller. With 4G becoming available in the country, the impatience levels are expected to go higher ! Today if you tell me that booking a cab is a 7 step process I would immediately think that when Uber can do this in 2 steps why can’t you ?
When it comes to your on field team as well, technology is becoming extremely important for them to be able to do their work efficiently. Being able to take decisions quickly, being able to create multiple combinations of the solutions on the fly are imperatives for any on field sales force today.
Besides this having intelligent analytics, have operations set up in a way that enables minimum response time are some of the must haves for any businesses in today’s times.
Every company that is now working in the B2C domain has technology deployed in all 4 aspects that we have mentioned above namely – consumer facing, for the field agent, analytics and operations. Success however lies in implementing this technology in a way the maximizes efficiency of your business therefore leading to higher customer acquisition and thereby profits. One such company currently redefining its value proposition around technology is OYO Rooms.
Redefining OYO Rooms Through Technology !
In a highly customer facing hospitality industry, for OYO Rooms the first focus was on creating a highly efficient hotel booking app for the customers. In the beginning of May this year, the company came up with an app that allowed hotel bookings to be done within 2 steps. When you open the app put in your search query, the app gives you all the required information about the hotels near you. All your profile information is already stored inside the app. All you need to do is to click on the book button to make your bookings. The company has thus reduced the hotel booking activity to a 2 step process when you put in your search query. Through the app the company has tried to provide a seamless way to access and manage your bookings ! Another company in the hospitality industry which has also focused on smaller transaction cycles for the consumers is RoomsTonite.
Behind the scenes of creating a 2 steps booking app is a lot of effort put into hotel standardization. To make the user comfortable to book a hotel without having to worry about hotel reviews requires a lot of trust to be created about the hotel aggregator. OYO Rooms has an intensive standardization process setup in which the their sales forces visits every hotel to collect data and pictures and to filter out only those hotels that OYO Rooms trusts to provide good services to their customers.
In order to make sure that the process of hotel standardization is handled in the same way in 90+ hotels and has over 1500+ rooms that the company works with, OYO Rooms has also come up with an app for the standardization process. Sales reps across cities are given tablets which have an app that provides parameters on which the hotel can be evaluated. The sales reps when at the hotel make sure that all the checklist is checked for as a part of hotel standardization process, pictures and customer reviews are recorded as a part of this process. Customer reviews have a lot of weight assigned when evaluating a particular hotel. Coming up with such an app has immensely helped the company to set up stricter quality checks across all the cities that they exist in today.
India is surely going digital slowly and steadily but there are still certain hotels who do not maintain a digital inventory. This was hampering the efficiency of results that OYO Rooms could provide their customers and the company therefore has come up with a tablet app for hotel owners that allows them to maintain room status, room service requests etc through the tablet. The tablets are installed by OYO Rooms at hotel locations. This not only gives the hotel owners a better idea of their own inventory but also gives OYO Rooms better visibility and data about the hotel.
The basis for creating these apps has come from the experience that the company has managed to gather over the years and personal experience that the founder and the management team have had staying at various hotels.To put himself in the shoes of his customers, Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & CEO-OYO Rooms, stays in a OYO Rooms Hotels very frequently. One of the main problem that Ritesh came across was the customer experience that was being provided by the budget hotels. Simple things such as the number for calling rooms service was not available in the hotel rooms. The company has now therefore come up with a solution to put up a tablet in each room in some of the OYO Rooms Hotels. Customers can now order room service directly via the app. Other information such as directory of various numbers inside the hotel as well as list of restaurants and places to visit around the hotel are also provided in the app. This is the first time in India that such services are being provided in budget hotels.
Clearly the company is making sure that they take care not only of the booking part but also the stay part of their customers. With the help of technology, the company is surely trying to create a differentiation for themselves. How their technology initiative works out for them will be clear in times to come.