Best Western Hotels & Resorts has always placed a high priority on customer loyalty, listening to its customers, and rewarding them. That formula has proven to be a great success over the years.
Tammy Lucas, VP, Advertising & Marketing for Best Western Hotels & Resorts, talked to Loyalty360 about the loyalty program’s progression.
The loyalty program drives about 40% of the revenue to your Member Hotels. Can you talk a bit about this fact and what it says about your loyalty program’s progression?
Having a successful rewards program that drives so much revenue to the brand is incredibly satisfying. Best Western Rewards® is focused on offering our guests the greatest value of any loyalty program in the industry. While many other brand rewards programs are devaluing their programs by increasing the points needed to redeem for a free room night, we are doing the opposite. Our point thresholds have not changed in years, and we take the approach that we want free room nights to be achievable for our guests, especially knowing that it’s the No. 1-requested award.
We also focus on strong promotions and achievable elite tiers, again, making our rewards program something that is a strong value proposition and in reach for all customers. Another area of key importance is our passion and dedication to delivering strong customer service throughout our guests’ journey, no matter where the interactions are happening within our brand. We believe that these are just some of the reasons why Best Western Rewards has been recognized as one of the top three hotel loyalty programs by U.S. News & World Report three years in a row, and has won Loyalty360’s North American 360-Degree Platinum Award, along with awards from Colloquy, American Express, and a Loyalty360 Platinum Award for Best Customer Insight in Loyalty Marketing.
Can you talk a bit about Vīb® and GLō℠, and your enhanced mobile digital platform?
One of the big reasons for our brand refresh was to show the world that Best Western is continuing to evolve to meet the needs of today’s travelers globally. That is why Best Western decided to move forward with Vīb and GLō, our new boutique hotel types. They were designed with today’s traveler in mind – very contemporary, stylish, streamlined and tech-friendly while being affordable as well.
Our digital platform is something that we will continue to evolve to, again, meet the needs of today’s travelers, and ensure a seamless, elevated guest experience. Last September, we launched our new mobile website, giving smart phone and tablet users an experience that’s cleaner and simpler to navigate. We’re also working on an entirely new bestwestern.com that will make the process of booking a room on our website as seamless as possible. Booking direct at bestwestern.com is always something we want to enforce with our customers, as there are so many added benefits to doing this, and with an enhanced experience. Look for our new bestwestern.com launch this summer.
What are BW’s main priorities for 2016?
Best Western has a lot to focus on in 2016, but that’s what makes it such an exciting time to be a part of the brand. Our main focus will be continuing to stay focused on meeting the needs of our customers through the rollout of the brand refresh, exciting and unique promotions, and an enhanced digital platform experience. As always, we will also continue to deliver on a strong customer experience for our guests with our Service Promise Guarantee which is rolling out this spring to our properties. This service promise further demonstrates our commitment to providing exemplary customer service.
With all of the exciting initiatives Best Western has embarked on, including celebrating our 70th birthday, 2016 will truly be a year to remember.
How does BW feel about the recognition via the RevPAR index in the past four years, and what does this mean to the brand?
Having a RevPAR index average of 110 for the past four years is just more proof that it’s a wonderful time to be a part of Best Western® Hotels & Resorts. We have always been very focused on activating business for our member hotels, while also balancing the needs of our customers. This number reflects the continued dedication and commitment to excellence from everyone in the Best Western family, and it speaks highly of the trust our customers have in our brand.