Price vs quality; how do you choose?
Here’s a great example of how we all do things in “real life”.
Happy holidays
A recent survey of UK adults for a travel industry consortium found that nearly 70% valued word of mouth over price.
The big barriers to holiday bookings include hidden prices or extras that only appear at the final stage of booking.
A lack of contact options to find out more detail about a holiday or venue also rated a a real issue, whilst 35% of people still have trouble actually booking the holiday, having battled through all of the above.
Beach holiday anyone?
For many the above issues are know issues. Those who choose to bury their head in the sand and chuck cash at driving traffic will gain nothing in the down turn, except some difficult questions from their CFO.
Samson vs Goliath
But those who embrace the challenging market place and deliver what customers want will build loyalty now and reap the rewards as the market grows. Small firms such as Sovereign.com, with whom I jsut booked, will no doubt be best placed to take on the mass market firms like Expedia.
They have a reasonably easy to use site, great value products but more importantly a person on the other end of a phone who can tell you all the things you need to know.
What next?
The approach needed varies by company size and budget, but firstly you need to know what you customers really want, so run a survey or read their feedback or call them up and ask.
Secondly you need to provide what they want effectively; small companies can afford to employee a few people to answer phones, large companies need to invest in intelligent content presentation, driven by FAQs, search and call centre input.
Thirdly, and this has been proevn time and time again, don’t hide prices or try to trick you customers. If value is not the key decision point for them, then show the cost upfront and sell them the dream.
It works, I know as we have just parted with the better part of £3k for a holiday in Tenerife of all places.