Using Data to Delight Guests: How Hyatt Wins Customers

Data is what makes it possible for Hyatt colleagues to provide a personalized experience that guests do not forget. Thanks to the relationship with Informatica, Hyatt can relate the data together and give colleagues the means to act on it across all Hyatt hotels worldwide.” - SriHari Thotapalli, Director, Customer Data Management, Hyatt Hotels 

At global hospitality company Hyatt, everything the company – and its more than 100,000 colleagues – does is driven by its purpose: to care for people so they can be their best. 

That means that Hyatt not only listens to their guests’ needs, but takes the time to get to know them. The company is committed to anticipating what customers expect when they arrive at any one of the more than 600 hotels, across 12 brands and more than 50 countries. 

Founded in 1957, Hyatt has become a leading hospitality company catering to all types of accommodation needs. From residential to luxury, resorts to upscale boutique-style lodging, Hyatt has become one of the fastest-growing hotel chains with brands like Grand Hyatt, Andaz, Hyatt Regency, Hyatt House, The Unbound Collection by Hyatt and more. 

At Informatica World 2016, Hyatt’s story was featured in a customer success session, appropriately named “Living Total Customer Relationship at Hyatt.” SriHari Thotapalli, Hyatt Director of Customer Data Management, shared the company’s Master Data Management (MDM) journey. He highlighted MDM’s essential role in improving customer experience and refining customer intimacy, from both a rational and emotional perspective. 

To show how data enhances the guest experience at Hyatt, Thotapalli shared a story. 

Last year, a housekeeper noticed that a particular guest who frequently stays at the Hyatt in San Francisco routinely used a blanket to do yoga on the balcony. So, as someone who cares, the housekeeper brought a yoga mat, towels, and water to her room. Caught in the routine of travel, this guest was touched by the thoughtful gesture that was so specific to her needs. And the same housekeeper shared this guest’s preferences so that it could be added in the central MDM system. This ensures that her unique details could improve her experience across not just this hotel but all Hyatt hotels globally for her next visit. 

The result? A few months down the line, as she checked into a Hyatt hotel in Saigon, the front desk agent was able to see her preferences and placed a yoga mat in advance in her room. 

As customers, every one of us looks for moments when companies make us feel valued. 

Hyatt is a company of listeners. Its colleagues not only win customers’ hearts by showing how much they care about them, but by simply noting and securely sharing guest preference data, they also deliver a more personalized experience that helps each guest to be their very best. 

To build the data management system to enable this—across 600+ hotels—each with varying systems, a loyalty program, and other complicating factors—Thotapalli relies on Master Data Management, Analytics, and Data Governance. The challenge is in building a solution that caters to users across geographies and across the company—from sales, marketing, real estate, finance, and hotel operations, among others. 

Clean customer data benefits global systems as well as local systems within the hotel, like the property management system, food and beverage system, and local human resources and finance systems. Hyatt’s system captures as many inputs as possible at multiple customer touchpoints (like requests for a rollaway bed or extra hangers made at the time of reservation), and this data feeds a customer hub and an enterprise data warehouse for real-time integration—a critical thing for Hyatt, according to Thotapalli—so every system around the world has a consistent view of the customer. 

Traditional email and other marketing campaigns are also supported by this clean, consistent and connected data, driving more relevant and personalized customer experiences. Because Hyatt systematically captures things that are important to each guest across touchpoints, they have a rich source of information about customers that delivers actionable insights to their teams worldwide. 

Thotapalli discussed how Hyatt‘s investment and efforts have paid off in a short time frame. By gaining a deeper, more individualized understanding of their customers, they have experienced measurable benefits, including additional revenue as well as cost savings on loyalty and promotion offers. 

During a live webinar on September 21, 2016, at 11 AM PT, Tom Smith, Area Vice President of Hyatt and SriHari Thotapali, Director of Customer Data Management at Hyatt, will discuss how Hyatt is transforming their customer experience with customer data management. Join us for this live discussion by reserving your spot today. 

Like Hyatt, many companies across industries rely on Informatica MDM to strategically manage and securely share customer data across functions, channels, and regions. 

MDM has become the lifeblood of organizations that want to put their customers at the center of everything they do. In the age of customers, MDM helps companies delight their customers in many different ways and win their loyalty for life. 

Connect with me on Twitter at @MDMGeek and share your comments. I’d love to hear from you and continue the discussion on how MDM helps improve customer experience. You can also view Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian’s interview on Fortune.