Optimal customer experience through enhanced incident insight
citizenM
- Customer case
- Research
- Data consultancy
citizenM aims to prevent, reduce, and resolve incidents in its hotels more efficiently. They established an Incident Management Product Team to consolidate scattered initiatives and make the working method scalable and future-proof. They asked us to examine the current process and map the desired situation.
Incidents can range from a broken lamp and a leaking shower to issues with the reservation system and a malfunctioning lift. citizenM aims to resolve these tasks quickly and effectively to maintain room availability and provide guests with an optimal experience.
Approach
Within the Incident Management Product Team, we began by mapping out the KPIs. We developed a suitable strategy and monitored dashboards with weekly analyses. We also assessed the current quality of incoming data and dashboards. An important question was: Which incidents consume the most time and are there specific trends?
To improve the process, it was crucial to map the current situation. We achieved this by:
- Mapping all customer feedback (Voice of the Customer)
- Visiting the workplace and making observations (Gemba Walks)
- Conducting a baseline measurement to identify bottlenecks and optimisation opportunities (Value Stream Map)
For the Value Stream Map, we brought together various teams including housekeeping, hotel support, and maintenance. We discussed the incident process and lead times, identifying bottlenecks, systems in use, and associated roles. We then compared these findings with hotels in Asia and America, considering local differences to determine the scope of the problems.
Ultimately, we identified various opportunities and challenges related to automation and internal collaboration. Together with citizenM stakeholders, we held a brainstorming session on the optimal approach and future state of the incident management process. Additionally, we formulated various hypotheses and solution directions, linking these to KPIs to make improvements measurable.
Some examples of solution directions include:
- Simplifying logging through digital touchpoints to facilitate incident reporting and resolution.
- Reviewing SLAs and promoting collaboration through a data-driven feedback loop, conducting thorough research into problems.
- Standardisation via e.g. templates and the addition of subject labels.
- Training hotel teams in dashboard usage and reporting for better transparency and efficiency.
Outcome
The low hanging fruits have already been implemented. Additionally, several projects have been initiated, such as:
- Establishing a data-driven feedback loop.
- Investigating further causes of incidents (Root Cause Analysis).
- Improving logging quality and implementing a new front-end for incident reporting to ensure users always have a single source of truth. This ensures that employees can log an incident within 1 minute, all tickets contain the required information and, as a result, 80% less handling time.
- Automating incident reporting and directing them to the appropriate teams.
Through the setup of the Incident Management Team, citizenM has gained greater insight into incidents and can resolve them more efficiently. This will reduce the number of rooms out of service, shorten incident resolution times, and enhance the overall guest and employee experience.
Want to know more?
Do you also have a research problem that needs to be solved quickly and pragmatically? Zev would be happy to assist you.
Business Manager+31(0)20 308 43 90+31(0)6 13 06 48 84zev.posma@digital-power.com
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