Turning Your Back on the World

A great many things have been happening lately, and I have devoted little time to writing. In my day-to-day comings and goings, many people comment on the drastic drop in the frequency of articles.

I must admit that I feel guilty about it, but time is a precious commodity and, unfortunately, I do not have much of it to spare. That does not mean that I do not think of many things to share on the Blog. In fact, there are many experiences that regularly deserve a mention in this forum and that I would like to share.

Trying to include them all at once in a single article would not be fair, but neither would keeping those experiences to myself and not sharing them.

A particularly thought-provoking anecdote was shared with me by an executive at a major hotel chain.

Our customer profile does not typically book online. They prefer to do so through traditional channels. Proof of this is that our online sales account for just X%.

A reflection undoubtedly born of this company’s discouragement and inability to understand “its customer”:

• Making assumptions with statements like these without even asking the customer.
• Taking it for granted that there is no point in engaging with the customer, as they assume failure before even trying.
• Turning their backs on the world
• Misleading their shareholders, who are undoubtedly missing out on a very significant part of the market.

In short, fortunately not everyone thinks this way, and not all customer profiles are like this.