Omni Hotels deploys proactive chat throughout website, boosting AOVs, conversion rates, and CSAT scores

• Functional Applications - Remote Monitoring & Control Systems

• Sales & Marketing

• Training

Omni Hotels & Resorts, a luxury brand in a highly competitive market, recognized the importance of every site visitor as a cost-effective means for customer acquisition and revenue generation. They identified the leisure and business travel content of their websites as opportunities for new customer acquisition. Many vacation and retreat packages required human-assistance during the booking and checkout process. The company had been relying primarily on telephone, and some email, as the communication vehicles for customer service. Due to the high volume of inquiries, customers would sometimes wait to obtain the assistance required to book their vacation. Omni wanted to provide an alternative means of engaging with customers and prospects in order to improve customer service and conversion rates, while maximizing the opportunities each site visitor represents for the brand.

Omni Hotels & Resorts is a luxury hotel and resort chain that offers authentic guest experiences at 45 distinct locations across North America. The company provides a range of services from exceptional golf and spa retreats to dynamic business settings. Each Omni location showcases the local flavor of the destination while featuring four-diamond services, signature restaurants, Wi-Fi connectivity, and unique wellness options. Omni is known for its award-winning, personalized service, leaving a lasting impression with every customer interaction. The company has a heightened level of recognition and rewards delivered through its Select Guest loyalty program and the company’s “Power of One” associate empowerment program.

Omni implemented LivePerson Enterprise throughout the consumer sections of their website, providing customers with an alternative channel for service and support. Customers click on the dynamic chat buttons to receive real-time answers to questions regarding hotel packages, restaurant reservations as well as corporate and regional site promotions and discounts. Proactive chat invitations are deployed on the bookings and reservations pages to assist visitors who exhibit signs of frustration or site abandonment. Proactively engaging customers, as they require assistance, has enabled Omni to drive incremental revenue, as well as increase average order values on bookings. LivePerson Professional Services worked hand-in-hand with Omni to train the sales agents, ensuring they were comfortable with the new technology and able to deliver consistent, effective communications to customer inquiries.

• Omni discovered that customers enjoy having the ability to chat because their questions are answered in real-time, as the need arises. Omni also learned that customers feel they are able to develop a relationship with their chat agent, building a deeper level of loyalty and trust with the company.
• The chat program has become so successful in helping Omni build deeper relationships with customers, that they’ve also deployed chat in the Select Guest loyalty program section of the site in order to provide a “concierge” level of service and support for their most loyal customers.
• Omni added proactive chat invitations to the Meetings & Events section of their website to help facilitate the request for proposal (RFP) completion process. Proactive chat invitations are triggered as visitors linger too long on pages within the complex RFP or exhibit other signs of frustration or potential site abandonment. This unique, industry-first implementation of chat is helping Omni to speed time-to-market of RFP completion by providing an alternative, real-time communication channel for meeting and event planners who often have many questions throughout the planning process.

• Customers satisfaction rating scores (CSAT) have risen to 87 percent.
• Chats typically convert at 18 percent versus 3 percent for non-chatters.
• Within the Meetings & Events pages, RFP completion increased fifty percent within the first month of deployment and half of those are converting to prospective business.