IHG: Researching People

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13 | Research: People People Research The focus of our people research was to fully understand the people that stay at both Stay- bridge Suites and Candlewood Suites. Personal interviews with guests staying at these locations led to the creation of personas that provided insight into the interests, routines, and concerns of current guests. Through the process of creating these personas, we learned very specific information about our audience which assisted us in our the design process.

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Transcript of IHG: Researching People

Page 1: IHG: Researching People

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People ResearchThe focus of our people research was to fully understand the people that stay at both Stay-bridge Suites and Candlewood Suites. Personal interviews with guests staying at these locations led to the creation of personas that provided insight into the interests, routines, and concerns of current guests. Through the process of creating these personas, we learned very specific information about our audience which assisted us in our the design process.

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People research for Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites was almost exclusively conducted through first person accounts. We received information and profiles from IHG that we used as a starting point for our research. Because we were unable to travel

to franchises outside of the Savannah area, TripAdvisor was referenced to gain insight into past guests at various Staybridge and Candlewood locations. A key interest in our research was to differentiate between the Staybridge and Candlewood customers

based on information obtained from IHG. Below is some information about the “target customer” for Staybridge and Candlewood Suites according to this data.

Target Guest“The Neighbor You Like”

• Upscale travelers, 5+ nights• Predominantly male• Age 35-49• Enjoy family time• Relish in career• Striving for balance• Celebrate success• Self-Assured• Social

Target Guest“The Self-Sufficient Traveler”

• Value-seeking travelers, 7+ nights• Predominantly male• Age 35-54• Relaxed, casual lifestyle• Sociable, not overly outgoing• Value conscious• Independent• Do-it-yourselfers

Research Process

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After looking at this information, we began to develop our strategy for learning more about the Staybridge and Candlewood guests. We started by building questionnaires with the intention of distributing them online and physically handing them to current guests. However, we felt that the questionnaires were limiting and impersonal, lacking the human element—specific stories and real people—not statistics.

Knowing that people generally enjoy talking about themselves, we conducted loose interviews that attempted to maintain a natural conversation in order to discover how people live in Staybridge and Candlewood during their stays. Some people were more talkative than others, but overall,this approach was very successful. The guest experience at the downtown Savannah Staybridge is very different from

any other Staybridge franchise due to its prime, downtown location which attracts mostly tourists. The travelers who come through are mainly transient instead of extended stay. Since this is an anomaly, our focus shifted to the Staybridge and Candlewood properties near the Savannah Airport. After a few visits, we had gathered enough data to move on to the next step—creating personas.

Gather Information

Staybridge

IHG Data

TripAdvisor

Candlewood

Facebook Pages

Current Guests

Distribute Surveys

Build Questionnaires

Current Guests

Previous Guests

Personal Interviews

Demographics

Psychographics

A Day in the Life

Customer Lifecycle

Create Personas

Reasearch Process Flow

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PersonasPersonas are very important in design research and marketing, because while they are fictional characters, they represent a larger group of users within a target audience.A single persona is a fictional profile that is a synthesis of data collected from several different interviews describing behavior patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and needs. These goals and needs are useful in guiding design and marketing strategies. In the case of Staybridge and Candlewood, eight personas were created. Two personas represent the staff at both Staybridge and Candlewood. Four of the remaining personas are dedicated to Staybridge guests, and the final two are based on Candlewood guests.

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Martha — Candlewood Staff

“Candlewood is the red-headed stepchild of IHG.”

Martha has been at Candlewood Suites for a couple of years now, and she enjoys finally settling down in one location since she has spent the past 2 1⁄2 years on the road for IHG. She is as self-sufficient as the guests in her hotel. She would rather clean the exterior of the building herself than spend money on hiring someone. She’s in charge of her own local advertising and isn’t afraid to use a little elbow grease to keep the hotel running smoothly. She calls the Candlewood brand the “forgotten red-headed stepchild” of IHG. She develops family relationships with her guests and loves when they develop their own relationships among themselves. She knows her guests— and her guests’ pets—by name. She even knows how old John’s (in room 132) Labrador is. She lives in the area with her boyfriend and her dogs—whom she sees as her children. She says she’ll never have kids and that’s okay because she’ll always have her pets. She loves music and couldn’t wait to see BB King when he was in town ,and she uses Facebook to connect with her family and

friends.

Opportunities for Social Media

As the hotel’s GM, Martha struggles to efficiently market her hotel in a way that promotes brand recognition with prospective customers. Using her already ingrained familiarity with Facebook, Martha can explore a usable strategy for marketing her hotel via Facebook. She can use it to announce local events, rate specials, and hotel events to attract current and new customers.

Her familiarity with Facebook provides a gateway to introduce her to new social media technologies. She can start up a Foursquare location, a Twitter feed, a blog, and more—and link them together so that her customers stay current on hotel happenings.

Age: 38Profession: General Manager (Candlewood Suites)

Brand Associations

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Stephen — Staybridge Staff

“I see brand recognition as a serious problem.”

Stephen has been working at Staybridge Suites for 5 years as an Operations Manager. He has aspirations to one day own his own hotel. He enjoys his job and loves to interact with his customers. The longer the guest stays, the more like family they become. When it comes to the guests he deals with, the biggest problem he sees is a lack of brand recognition for Staybridge Suites. He gets tired of explaining what Staybridge Suites is, and has resorted to associating it with Holiday Inn. He is in charge of the location’s Facebook page, but doesn’t view it as a an effective marketing tool for his franchise.

Stephen’s interests, in his free time, include traveling and going on beach vacations. He also enjoys taking his favorite novels to River Street to read near the river and surrounding lively environment. Stephen loves a good adrenaline rush, like skydiving, when he gets a chance. He also loves to take his pit bull, Savage, on walks in Forsyth Park.

Stephen has profiles on Facebook, Twitter,

Flickr, and Myspace. However, he is only active on Facebook where he keeps track of and socializes with friends and family.

Opportunities for Social Media

Give Stephen a plan or tools to help establish better brand recognition and interactivity between guests through the use of social media.

Age: 29Profession: Staff (Staybridge Suites)

Brand Associations

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Scott — Staybridge Guest

“My girlfriend uses social media, but I feel it is impersonal.”

After graduating high school, Scott decided that he didn’t need to go to college. He knew that he only had one passion and that was flying. To reach his dream, he began by working minimum wage jobs at the airport until he was able to work his way up to becoming a pilot. Three of his four brothers are also pilots themselves. Now, he is employed with a regional airline and is flying 20-25 flights per week. Scott arrived at Staybridge early in the morning after he completed a flight. This was his first time in Savannah, so he wanted to explore the city. However, none of his coworkers felt like going out because they were all tired after the flight. Being a pilot, Scott loves to travel. His only form of technology is a smart phone, and being able to track the weather for flights is the only reason he has one. He also enjoys photography, black jack, poker and scuba diving. He doesn’t bother with any forms of social media because he sees it as impersonal. He poked fun at his mother who is on the computer for 9 hours a day and his girlfriend

back in Nashville, who is extremely active on Facebook. He thinks that technology is great and that it may bring people together but he also believes that it’s a poor substitute for a real conversation with a real person. He believes that people should physically go out and meet other people face to face. When he gets a break from work and gets to relax at home, he is not interested in hopping on the computer; he wants to talk to his friends and family in person.

Opportunities for Social Media

There could be a platform that informs Scott if any of the guests are going sightseeing so that he is able to explore the town when the rest of his flight crew isn’t up for going out.

Age: 40Profession: Pilot

Brand Associations

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Brian — Staybridge Guest

“I have been put up in Staybridge before and I love the rooms, service, and interaction with staff.”

Brian is a 42 year old Mechanical Engineer, who was put up at the Staybridge location in Savannah near the Hilton Head airport for 14 days by his company. He was at the Staybridge earlier as well for a period of 6 months and travels a lot for work. He keeps in touch with his family by phone and generally uses his laptop for work and checking emails. He is an outdoor person and he likes to work out and stay fit. His usual day includes getting up in the morning, going to work about 7:00 AM and coming back home around 6:00 PM. He likes to go to the Sundowner events to get a couple of drinks. He exercises once he comes back from work, eats dinner and goes to bed early by 10:30 PM.

Brian avoids being on the computer once he gets back from work. He likes to see new places and go out for different outdoor activities but doesn’t get a chance to do so as often as he’s like.

Opportunities for Social Media

Creating a tool that could involve the guests in their favorite pastime could lead to new relationships being formed within the hotel.

A platform where outdoor activities could be arranged or groups could be created.

A weekly “game night” where guests become involved in watching/engaging in the sports season together.

Age: 42Profession: Mechanical Engineer

Brand Associations

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Danny — Staybridge Guest

“I love my little sister, and I keep in touch with her and the rest of my family through Facebook & phone calls.”

Danny is a young computer network analyst from Tallahassee, Florida. According to him,

“This is a temporary job for me while I’m searching for a better opportunity in construc- tion management.” Danny enjoys the physical aspect of installing hardware in his current job, and he hopes to make the transition into construction management in the near future. He works the night shift, so his schedule is very different from most of the guests at Staybridge Suites. Danny’s company chooses the hotel for their workers, and Danny enjoys staying at Staybridge because it truly feels like a home away from home.

Danny dropped out of school and left home at seventeen, but he remains close with his family in Florida. He says, “I love my little sister to death, and I keep in touch with her and the rest of my family through Facebook and the occasional phone call.” His

spontaneous and outgoing personality allows him to make friends easily and get along with a wide variety of people. Besides Facebook, Danny also occasionally uses Twitter. His hobbies and interests include technology, computers, carpentry, tennis, and partying.

Opportunities for Social Media

Danny’s schedule could conflict with normal interactions with other guests, so social media could put him in touch with other 3rd shift workers or allow him to network with other business people so that he can jump-start his career in Construction Management.

Age: 25Profession: Computer Analyst

Brand Associations

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Gary — Staybridge Guest

“I get up shower, go to work, come back, watch TV or go out to dinner with my wife.”

As a customer representative for Rolls Royce, Gary has been at Staybridge Suites off-and- on for a couple of months. Gary and his wife, Nancy, usually travel together on these busi- ness trips since their kids are now fully grown and have children of their own. His interests range from going to bars and drinking with friends to football and classic cars. Gary is originally from Wichita, Kansas, and during long business trips he keeps in touch with family and friends back home via his com-pany cell phone. He always keeps his laptop with him, but he says he’s too old for social media such as Facebook and only communi- cates online through e-mail.

Gary’s company booked his stay at Stay-bridge Suites, and he enjoys the proximity of the hotel to his workplace as well as the free laundry and Sundowner events.

In his words, “I like the rooms, the service, and especially the free drinks at the Sund-owners.” He usually doesn’t get a chance to socialize with other guests because of his work schedule, but he occasionally goes to a Sundowner or a nearby bar to drink a few beers and relax. A typical day for Gary in-volves waking up, showering, heading off to work, and coming back to the hotel to watch TV or go out to dinner with his wife before going to bed. While Gary is at work, Nancy stays at the hotel reading and cross-stitching. She also enjoys shopping and exploring the different cities that Gary visits.

Opportunities for Social Media

Since Gary only uses e-mail and his cell phone to communicate, we could utilize e-mail as a jumping off point for introducing a social gathering or social media interface within the hotel.

Nancy could also benefit from social media with interactions with other guests.

Age: 56Profession: Rep. for Rolls Royce

Brand Associations

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Allison — Candlewood Guest

“The only time I saw a lot of the guests was during a fire drill, and everybody was downstairs.”

Allison was interning at an advertising agency while staying at Candlewood with her husband, who was interning as a business analyst at a computer networking company. Allison’s usual day would start off at 6:00 AM with making breakfast for both of them and going to work around 7:00 AM. Her husband had to drop her off at a nearby train station, and Allison noticed that a lot of people from the hotel also used the same train station to get to work. “I never got a chance to meet any other guests, otherwise I could have carpooled with them.” After work, she would come back from the office, cook dinner or sometimes go out to eat, and watch a movie and hang out in the room.

She would have loved if there was a com-mon lobby area or a guest entertainment area where she could have mingled with other guests as well. During the weekends she would always go downtown to explore the city with her husband and sometimes his friend who was put up in the same hotel.

She regrets not having met other guests to make new friends. Allison also mentioned that when she was leaving the hotel, she had a lot of frozen food in the fridge that she didn’t know what to do with. Had she known anyone or made friends with others at the hotel, she could have shared it with them.

Opportunities for Social Media

There could be a place or a way to share guests resources. City tours and interaction with other guests could also be the possible touchpoints that the social networking strat-egy should cover.

Age: 23Profession: Design Intern

Brand Associations

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Chuck — Candlewood Guest

“I made fast friends with other guests at this hotel during their backyard barbecue.”

Chuck is a roofer working for an out-of-state company. He is 32 and has been with the company for 4 years now. The project they are working on has required them to stay at the Candlewood suites for over 2 1⁄2 months. He misses his family and friends back home, but is enjoying Savannah and the money he is making for the job he’s working on.

Chuck has enjoyed his stay at Candlewood. He knows Martha by name and has made fast friends with employees from other companies at the hotel’s gazebo and pool area. They’ve started to cook together at the barbecue out back and enjoy more than a bit of camaraderie as everyone is at a “home away from home.” Chuck rarely travels, but when he does, it’s usually for a similar purpose and for extended stays each time. He is not involved with any social media and his web presence is limited to his company email address.

Opportunities for Social Media

Since Chuck is not involved in any form of social media, and it is necessary for him to stay current on hotel happenings, the hotel could start an email list. The hotel can then use this to email specials and event announcements, as well as announcements about the hotel’s growing web presence.

With this information, he can stay involved in events that are happening during his stay at the hotel, like barbecues and pool parties.

Chuck would not only stay current, but he would also expand his own web presence in an effort to follow the hotel’s actions. Before long, Chuck will be on Facebook and will be writing Trip Advisor reviews, raving about his favorite IHG hotels.

Age: 32Profession: Construction (Roofer)

Brand Associations

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Key Findings & Conclusions

• Not all guests want to use social media.

• Many people prefer to get away from their computers at the end of the day.

• Creating more social events would be appealing to guests of both Candlewood and Staybridge and would allow them to make friends during their stay.

• Not much difference was observed between the Candlewood and Staybridge guests.

• Not all guests have a say in where their company puts them up for their stay.

• For guests that work late shifts, social media could allow them to connect with others, even at unusual hours.

• Some guests bring family members with them who are left alone in their hotel room during the day while their partner is at work.

They would benefit from organized activities that occur during normal working hours, allowing them to meet others in similar situations.

• Some Candlewood guests specifically requested organized ways to meet other guests so they could make friends during their stay.

• An organized way to share resources (such as carpooling or leftover food at the end of a stay) would benefit the hotel community.

Our interviews led to some insights about the Candlewood and Staybridge guests. Our personas show that there wasn’t a vast perceived difference between the lifestyles and personalities of the Candlewood and Staybridge guests. Also, the majority of the guests were not active social media users. They seemed to prefer e-mail, phone, and face-to-face conversations, and they

rejected the “impersonal” nature of social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and others. Many of the guests were traveling for business and had their stay booked by their company. Therefore, the individual guest didn’t have much say in choosing Staybridge over Candlewood and vice versa. However, they were happy in their respective hotels, so it is clear that once a guest stays at a Staybridge or Candlewood, they are apt to come back at least a second time.