act3 is a communication strategy and design firm that specializes in telling stories.

This blog is our story laboratory, a way to poke, prod, and take a closer look at the stories we see, the stories we tell, and our own assumptions and knowledge about why stories work (or don't). The goal is to better understand what makes a story connect with people, and how to tell better stories.

Like any blog, it's an evolving concept. We hope you'll follow along.

August 11

How to bake the story in from the start

Chris Brogan had an interesting post yesterday in which he outlined a few ideas for what his ideal hotel would be like. He’s not interested in the hotel being fancy as much as he is in having a customized hotel experience — in other words, developing a relationship with a particular hotel so that they know who he is, that he likes thick down pillows and the room set at 70 degrees, and having those things already set up for him when he checks in.

The custom hotel room

As he says, “This is so easy, and yet, we’re doing hotels as if it’s 100 years ago.” Unless you’re willing to pay Ritz-Carlton prices, in which case you get treated like royalty.

But should you have to pay those kinds of prices to get treated like royalty, when the cost of keeping preference data on guests is now so low?

Imagine a new hotel chain, designed for those of us not on Ritz-Carlton budgets, that did give you the opportunity to personalize your experience like this. The options they give you could be as banal as pillow preference, or as interesting as leaving a selection of books on the nightstand that you’ve expressed an interest in, with the book “billed to your card if not in the room at checkout.”

Though there are undoubtedly costs of building such a system, and putting in that extra effort, they would be investments in developing the story of the hotel chain and cultivating advocates. It’s not hard to imagine satisfied guests sharing stories of their experience with friends and fellow travelers. It’s also not hard to imagine guests willing to commit their loyalty to one hotel chain, rather than making their lodging decisions based on location or the cheapest rate.

And as Brogan suggests, “I would skip Priceline if everywhere I traveled, I was guaranteed a room at a consistent rate range that I agreed upon. This means I’d give the money directly to the hotel.”

Though building this idea into the business plan of a new hotel would bake the story in from the start, any existing hotel chain could adopt the idea now, and begin the process of changing their story.

On the surface, this seems like a conversation about customer service, but at its core it’s a conversation about story: about creating an experience worth talking about, and developing relationships that lead to advocacy.

And it’s not a conversation that’s limited to the hotel industry.

:: Posted by Eric Ratinoff ::