Story
With the Omni Suite, Inside Labs created a unique technology platform that combines all of a destination's digital systems and puts the relationship with the guest at the focal point. In this Q&A, inside labs co-founder, Kristian Paasila, answers 10 questions related to the platform and explains how the Omni Suite helps to create better (digital) guest experiences.
Digitalisation is fundamentally changing guest expectations within tourism. What current and future expectations do guests have of tourist destinations?
Consumers today are used to having all kinds of products delivered to their homes like ordering a taxi directly to them or going through online check ins at airports with their smartphones. Expectations of user experiences have risen significantly: uncomplicated services that work and offer added value are now considered standard. The same convenience is now expected from a holiday experience too.
Online platforms such as booking.com or Airbnb play a central role within the tourism industry. They significantly contributed to the fact that travel can now be booked very easily via websites or apps. They made prices comparisons possible which in turn increased transparency and convenience for guests as well. The possibility to directly rate services with reviews and pictures further increases the power and expectations of consumers.
What challenges do these new guest expectations pose for destinations & service providers?
Basically, the big winners of the developments described above are the customers. Who the big losers are, still remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that a clear shift is taking place with regard to customer data. All the data that guests provide when booking and later leave behind during their visit is now largely held by large international platforms.
The decisive question for me is: who has access to the guest data? Because only those who know the behaviour and needs of the customer (such as booking times and frequency, behaviour in the region, etc.) can use it to optimise the guest experience and market products. This intelligent use of customer data turned the big international providers into the market leaders they are today.
For many destinations & service providers, this situation translates into an enormous loss of intangible value in the form of data. In a worst-case scenario, in the future, all guest data from service providers and destinations will lie with international providers beyond the reach of destinations and local providers.
In this case, tourism organisations and service providers become pure infrastructure providers who have to surrender to the conditions of marketplaces such as booking.com. They would lose the relationship with the guest and in the end, they may even be asked to pay to access their own guests.
Destinations, mountain operators and other service providers need to be aware that this shift has already begun and that their position in the market could rapidly change. In this case, the platforms win and the players within the destinations lose.
What options do the stakeholders of a destination have in this situation?
Tourist organisations and service providers have a decisive advantage on their side: they know the products & offers in their area and can develop and improve them best.
I am convinced that destinations which are close to their guests and strategically design this crucial "last mile" for them can create an enormous added value for their customers. The destination has an opportunity to make the stay more enjoyable, improve products, sell more experiences and to foster long-lasting loyalty.
The future job of destinations as experience designers will be to continuously optimise the guest experience before, during and after the trip. To achieve this, destinations need new tools.
How did the idea to develop a platform like Omni come about??
When we started inside labs, we basically identified three areas of action:
First, we found it extremely difficult to use collated guest data from the various peripheral systems (access system, rental, PMS, DMS, etc.) to really improve guest relationships.
Secondly, there was no digital way to interact with customers on a segmented level or personalised manner to offer them appreciation in the form of targeted information, tailored offers or rewards for particularly loyal guests.
Thirdly, the focus of developments was often very much geared towards desktop & web access. However, the customer, since a while, had already been on the move with their smartphone. Especially during their stay within a destination.
Therefore, we wanted to ensure from the beginning that we developed a user-friendly and simple mobile solution that could keep up with the familiar user experiences of the likes of Airbnb, Uber, etc. This is still the fundamental ideas behind the Omni Suite today.
What is a digital engagement platform like the Omni Suite? ?
Engagement as a word has the meaning to engage with something or to feel connected to something.
On one hand, we strongly engage with the customer and get to know their preferences and habits better throughout the process. Engagement also means that we think along the customer journey and try to anticipate the guest's wishes before they do so we can propose the right targeted offers to them.
On the other hand, we also want to promote the guests' engagement with the destination and its offers and service providers. Guests should feel part of a community. The goal is to intensify the relationship between the guest and the destination.
This requires much more than just front-ends like a good mobile experience or website.
What the Omni Suite as an engagement platform definitely is not: is a pure information platform like a website or a marketplace that is geared towards only processing transactions.
How is the Omni Suite Platform built??
Basically, the Omni Suite consists of three parts.
The mobile app is a standardised front-end. This is built on modules and is set up for each destination with its own branding. This allows us to offer a world-class mobile experience to all our clients. The Omni Suite can also be used for websites or other communication channels such as email or chatbots as well.
The second part is the technical infrastructure. That is, the servers and databases required to run the platform. We host data on Amazon Web Services servers and for each customer project, a separate database is created. The customer data belongs to the destinations, mountain operators and other service providers.
In addition to these two, there is a third business layer with seven different modules for commerce, marketing, data management, guest loyalty, feedback management and content management. These allow various data points, e-commerce offers, push messages, automated customer journeys, personalised content, new segments and much more to be cleverly combined into an overall experience for the benefit of the guest.
What are the Omni Suite USPs?
Before the Omni Suite existed, everything revolved around e-commerce. That's why the few existing solutions that could be an alternative were originally developed as marketplaces. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with that and it’s also not the goal to replace these with the Omni Suite.
What makes the Omni Suite unique is that we moved ahead strongly focusing on the customer's point of view. What kind of tool do we need to communicate with guests before, during and after the holiday experience and offer them relevant products and deliver unique wow moments?
Because of this starting point, we’re not just trying to collect as much data as possible. We specifically consider where we can collect information in order to more specifically improve experiences (for example, the use of the mountain lifts). The value of our efforts is only as great as the positive impact on the guest experience. With Omni, we can maximize the impact and quickly positively influence the experience in an efficiently and proactive way. The focus is on the digitalisation of the customer relationship, the reinterpretation of guest appreciation and state-of-the-art mobile commerce.
Why do you offer an app in the first place? Is it not a hassle for guests to download it?
Getting guests to download a native app is certainly a challenge. Nobody likes to download an app if it doesn't offer them any real added value.
But we are convinced that it is precisely through the use of these apps that we can maximise the added value for them.
Technically, native apps offer various advantages that web solutions can’t. There are a number of native functionalities that we can use to create unique guest experiences. These include existing user profiles with personal details and payment methods, easy access to their profile through facial recognition, being able to determine locations through GPS functions or the camera function for scanning QR codes.
In various "micro journeys" along the overall customer journey, these functions can be utilised for a better experience. A good example of this is a one-click checkout within the restaurant industry. With the app, I can simply scan a QR code in the restaurant. This opens up the drinks menu in the app. I can place my order then and there with just one click and pay with the credit card stored in my profile, Apple Pay, Twint or various other payment methods. Other examples where these functions offer great added value are picking up lift tickets or ordering food to your holiday home. Today, offering such experiences hassle free with a web-based solution is much more difficult or even impossible.
As mentioned earlier, the Omni Suite can also be easily combined as a CRM with other front-ends. Some of our clients have already integrated a website or the newsletter. However, it was important to us to offer destinations a world-class mobile app that offers the above mentioned advantages for the guest and remains financially viable for the destination.
How does the implementation of the Omni Suite work for a destination??
First of all, it is important for the destination to define which goals need to be achieved and implemented with this digitalisation-offensive. These goals can be, for example, the increase of guest loyalty, the introduction of a guest card or the development of new revenue streams. In addition, a destination should be prepared to adapt its offer and the associated operations to the new requirements.
We often help clients to create this basis, and this is where the cooperation with inside labs begins. In a time-limited preliminary project, the aim is to determine which functionalities should be used to achieve the recognized goals and to identify the (digital) levers that will have the greatest impact on a great guest experience.
After a successful pre-project period, we collaborate on a roadmap with the client for the coming months and years. Thanks to Omni's high flexibility, we are able to continuously learn from cases and optimise the guest experience together with the client.
What risks should be considered when implementing the Omni Suite?
If you want to focus on the customer relationship as the cornerstone of your business strategy, it is always important to approach the matter holistically. This means that changes will take place that affect the people, processes and the technology currently involved. If you only look at one or two of these components, a lot of potential is often lost. In the worst case, the project may not achieve its goals and may end early. We just have to keep reminding ourselves that the digital component is a new part of our organisation and is not going away anytime soon. Therefore - it's a marathon and not a sprint!
Do you have further questions about the Omni Suite or would you like to learn more in general? Then write to us directly via talkto@insidelabs.tech
We are always happy to hear from you.