Closing the Gap Between Perception and Reality
One of the biggest phenomena’s disrupting the hospitality industry, and luxury hotels are online review websites. Consumers no longer just leverage the reputation of brands, to drive their decision making. Peer to peer recommendations are being deployed by consumers to influence their purchasing decisions. During the course of their customer journeys online.
In order to lower the level of uncertainty and narrow the gap between perception and reality when making purchase decisions.
This was demonstrated using data from Google Trends in the blog post the data driven economy. And will also, be demonstrated in the next blog post through the use of machine learning and business intelligence tools to measure consumer sentiment and to derive insights in relation to online reviews of luxury hotels.
Consumers are educating themselves and forming tribes around issues that are important to them.
Tribes: People say their most credible source of information about a company and its products is “a person like me
Earned Advocacy WOM: The influence of peer to peer conversations as a result of positive interactions with a brand resulted in (75%) of non-users making a decision, and or overcoming concerns related to the brand.
Trust: (59%) of consumers recommended companies to a friend or colleague
Moment of Truth: 75% of peers influence purchase decisions at the moment of truth
In 2013, TripAdvisor and Yelp had 270 million verifiable reviews loaded on their websites. The rise of review websites such as TripAdvisor, TrustPilot, Glassdoor and Which? Is the direct results of inversion of influence. As social media becomes more ubiquitous, the power to influence brand perception, has shifted from a small number of elites to consumers.
This shift is termed the “inversion of influence”, and the ability of organisations to harness “social capital” that is “earned” media is one of key drivers of growth, for brands on the internet and via social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter & LinkedIn
In 2018, technical and academic experts, are viewed as the most credible sources of information. Outperforming Board of Directors and government officials.
Online comparison websites, travel planning websites are well-established tools digitally savvy consumers deploy from their arsenal of most trusted applications. To close the gap between perception and reality.
The applications increase the degree of trust, between buy side and sell side actors. Through lowering the level uncertainty and scepticism, that may occur when consumers engage with unfamiliar brands.
