Closing the sale when mobile doesn’t.

The age of Mobile is upon us and is growing up every second of every day. Online bookings are increasing and there are thousands of articles and statistics that will show you anything you want to know.

Here are some quick statistics about mobile that are important for our purpose.

Mobile shoppers equal an astounding 41% of the total online shoppers in travel.

Ok, now we know that statistic. Keep that one in mind. Let’s look at the next one:

Out of that 41% of mobile users, 23% actually booked using the device for leisure travel in general, leaving 18% that did not. (nearly half). That number is even lower for vacation rental bookings.
Why didn’t the rest of the 18% book? All of the articles and strategies today tell us that we should solely design our strategies around the digital age, solely around online bookings and to solely tailor our mobile strategies to meet this demand. Yet, half still do not book online using their mobile device?

To answer why half are not booking, we are going to focus on consumer booking habits and consumer buying perception. This is the grey area and the white elephant in the room that you will not see many articles address.

First step – identify your consumer booking habits and trends. There are many touch points that the consumer uses to research their travel, mobile being one of them.

Second step – identify this journey of the traveler and ensure that you have every booking channel and option available for them to use, depending on their personal preference and where they are in the journey – make it easy for every customer. 

Examples of the booking channels from the top:

  • Booking engine on your website
  • Third party booking engine and availability
  • Mobile booking engine
  • Voice channel
  • Social medial channel
  • Email channels or RFP

Third step – identify where in the customer journey did the journey end without that customer booking you?

  • Was the customer contacted from a lead?
  • Did the customer try to book but couldn’t?
  • Can the customer contact you at any time?
  • Did the customer trust you?

In today’s world, mobile devices are a primary source for potential guests to research your property. But many times, before they’re ready to book, these customers want clarification on your property or to ask questions (or guestions, as we like to call them).

So when mobile doesn’t close the sale, features like click-to-chat, contact us or simply a number to call you can increase your conversion ratios. This allows you to never miss an opportunity by having a real, live closer on the other end of the line to answer those questions, sell your property and finally close the sale. After all, a smart phone is still a phone!.
Want to talk to a real person about your guest’s journey? Just give us a call at
877-817-REAL (7325).