Adding an Edge | Hardly Square

Innovation in the Hospitality Industry

On March 3rd I had the opportunity to attend LINQ360′s innovation center’s grand opening in Las Vegas. The event brought a lot of press coverage and even the Mayor (Oscar Goodman) and Governor (Brian Sandoval) came to take part in the ribbon cutting ceremony. The innovation center, powered by Microsoft, brings together thought-leaders from all sectors of the global hospitality technology market. This is where truly integrated solutions can be developed and demonstrated for the benefit of world-class hospitality brands.

I was invited to the grand opening because Hardly Square is the design agency of record for LINQ360. We designed their branding and web presence. We’ll be working with LINQ360 and each of its members to help keep them ahead of the curve as branding, marketing and technology advance.

I sat down with the president of SuiteLinq and one of the founding partners of LINQ360, Craig Ziegler, to get a little more information about LINQ360, SuiteLinq and how he sees branding, the user experiences and technology progressing in the days to come. If you’re from Baltimore you may have known Craig as the CEO of Gr8, one of the most accomplished marketing communications firms in the area.

Bio

Craig ZieglerPresident of SuiteLinq and a founding member of LINQ360

With over twenty-five years of experience building brands and shaping product strategy for clients in a variety of industries, Mr. Ziegler is a multimedia innovator with roots in the earliest days of the interactive revolution. His is the driving vision behind the SuiteLinq and LINQ360 concept, growing SuiteLinq from its origins to its current position as an influential force in the hospitality industry. Achieving true and meaningful cross-media connectivity between hotels and their guests is the heart of the SuiteLinq solution as well as the core concept behind the new LINQ360 Innovation Center, powered by Microsoft. Mr. Ziegler forged the relationships that enabled SuiteLinq to become a valued contributor to Microsoft’s hospitality strategy worldwide making it one of the youngest companies ever named as a Microsoft Global Alliance Partner. With Microsoft, he then helped unify fellow next-generation hospitality systems innovators around the LINQ360 idea, bringing them together in a unique collaboration that promises to deliver a new level of service to the hospitality industry, starting now. Mr. Ziegler’s vision has landed him seats on numerous boards including: HP Thought Leaders, NASA/Goddard Incubator board, The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), Economical Advisory Board – Office of the Mayor, Baltimore City and the Nevada Development Advisory Board (NDA).

Interview

In general, how do you see brands evolving in the future? Where’s it all going?

Ziegler: I’m not sure I can tell you where it’s all going with any real specificity, the advent and adoption rate of new technologies and the immersive quality of social media in today’s world tells me that a brand will need to transcend its physical self and morph to a more ubiquitous and free flowing almost organic definition. From the way it might change (color, shape or even definition) based on the context in which it is consumed. At the end of the day a company or product brand needs variety and distinctive characteristics.

How does SuiteLinq cultivate a brand experience? How do you promote interaction between your brand (or client’s brand) and the user/customer/guest?

Ziegler: Our hotels and resorts are vibrant and dynamic environments that are full of guests looking for information, fun things to do near the property and exciting entertainment offerings. SuiteLinq is the in-room interactive portal that is the ideal accompaniment to a hotel’s marketing and guest experience creation activities. Deployed on a customized touch-screen computer and/or the LCD HDTV, this highly intuitive service gives guests access to a variety of features, information, entertainment, food and more from the comfort of their guest room. The SuiteLinq rich-media portal is designed to engage guests with the hotel and all of its on-site amenities while giving them the basic online services they expect.

We can white-label components of our interactive interfaces so that clients can customize the look and feel to match their brand standards. Color schemes, rich media elements, and lots of other content can all be determined by the client.

Our mission is to provide a property with the digital tools to extend their brand experience onto new interactive platforms, enabling them to marry their established offline brand value and services with the digital services we provide to create one consistent experience for the guest—whether they are interacting with a human or hardware.

The SuiteLinq portal enjoys extremely high daily usage rates and guest satisfaction scores. It is an ideal means for hotels and affiliated sponsors to reach guests at the exact moment when they are looking to make purchase decisions for a highly predictable set of goods and services: dining, entertainment, search, shopping, gaming, and more.

Are you taking any steps in getting your users to interact with each other?

Ziegler: With so many people already interacting via their own social media tools, the need to facilitate that same type of interaction in the hotel on our platforms really isn’t there. Our platform allows a guest to access any of the many different social outlets while they are on a SuiteLinq equipped property regardless if they have a laptop or smart phone with them. It is important to note that there are related opportunities in conference attendee communications and collective buying that we are evaluating for possible integration with the SuiteLinq platform.

However, Microsofts Surface offers peer-to-peer interaction. Surfaces installed in restaurant and bar’s tables can facilitate guest interaction. Guests at one table have the ability to buy other tables drinks and chat via their Microsoft Surface table. Some pretty exciting technology.

What strategies have you put in place to learn from your users/customers/guests?

Ziegler: Our analytics tools give us a clear picture of the features that users like and which ones that need to be improved. We also periodically conduct physical and digital surveys to get deeper feedback about guest opinions of our services. We consider this feedback critical in helping to determine future product and content enhancements. We also review third party travel sites like Trip Advisor to measure guest satisfaction.

How does this interaction open up streams of revenue and brand loyalty for your company or clients?

Ziegler: Hotels tend to do a great job at pre-stay marketing. When you book a reservation online, the best hotels will market smartly to you in advance of your arrival and that usually includes promotion of their on-site amenities – the restaurant, the spa, etc. However, once the guest actually checks-in, the dialogue tends to be limited to a quick conversation with the front-desk staff—most of whom are trained in service, rather than sales. What we do is facilitate automated and customizable digital marketing features that reach the guest in their room and elsewhere—when they are most relaxed and receptive to such messaging.

This is really the ideal time to promote the dining options and more—when the guest is on-site and truly interested in buying such services. Layering CRM data into the process can make sure marketing is truly personalized. When marketing is relevant, people tend to value it rather than view it as an intrusion. That’s one important component of building brand loyalty in our eyes.

Among guest room features, high-speed Internet access, bed/pillow comfort and wireless Internet access are the three most important with shower pressure running a close fourth with 38% of all guests saying these features are “very important”.

How challenging is it to create a user experience that both young and old can operate and get value from? Do you have any tips or tricks?

Ziegler: We look at design needs from an audience and client perspective first and foremost. In general, most of our hotel guests fall squarely in the middle-age range. They are also predominantly white-collar workers and as such they tend to have a high comfort level with digital devices and interactivity already. That said, we try to make our interfaces highly intuitive so that anyone with even a basic familiarity with computers or digital television can navigate them easily. The key is in keeping the design elements simple and avoiding clutter.

Our SuiteLinq Desktop product is also touch-sensitive, so folks can navigate it with their fingers as well as with keyboard and mouse.

What is the most significant technology advancement in your field and how has it altered how you operate? What changes did you have to make to adjust?

Ziegler: Among the many changes in technology since we started SuiteLinq, the growth and penetration of various mobile platforms in the consumer market is the factor having the most impact currently. When we started the company, only about one-half of travelers brought laptop computers with them during a hotel stay. Now, we are starting to see the trend of laptops being replaced by smaller smart-devices like BlackBerry smartphones and iPads when people go on the road. These devices are great when you’re moving around, however, at the end of the day, when you are in your hotel room and relaxing, it is still the full-size interactive environment that you crave. When it comes to accessing hotel amenities, exploring local attractions, watching videos, working on business presentations, and more, you really want to do all of that on a 19” inch monitor using a standard keyboard and mouse, rather than a hand-held device. At SuiteLinq, we are developing the mobile solutions that integrate with our in-room appliances and are deploying relevant services on each platform. So for us, mobile is one more opportunity to delight the guest and add value to their stay.

So… eh hem.. What do you think of the branding job for LINQ360 (shameless plug)?

Ziegler: I think you nailed it. Just as your pitch to us stated, this brand is capable of “morphing” which I like a great deal. Together we’ll make the brand transcend across a number of mediums and multiple uses. Job well done!

What is SuiteLinq’s role within LINQ360? How do all the members work together?

Ziegler: SuiteLinq is one of the originators / founding members along with our friends at Microsoft, Cenium, and Red Rock Software and the only Microsoft Global Alliance Partner at the LINQ360 center. Like many good ideas, this one is the product of strong professional and personal relationships. For several years now, executives from four innovators in the hospitality technology space have talked together, off and on, about a common challenge. And that is: how best to serve clients into the future even as change happens “at the speed of thought”, to quote Bill Gates. Though each came from different backgrounds and areas of expertise, we share an understanding that collaboration is absolutely critical in meeting this challenge. So we envisioned opening an epicenter of excellence—a place where like-minded technology innovators, business incubators, academic institutions, and professional associations could have a permanent home to serve the hospitality industry for years to come. And what better place to build that home, than in the world’s greatest hospitality destination, Las Vegas, Nevada. SuiteLinq represent the guest-facing multiplatform interactive devices and services that can integrate with many of the LINQ360 partners’ products to create a connected traveler experience. As the speed of change in the hospitality technology segment continues to increase, we jointly arrived at the need for collaboration as a critical factor in driving the success of our clients into the future.  We realized that the challenges and opportunities are both too big for even our four companies to handle. So extending the LINQ360 opportunity to like-minded businesses and entrepreneurs, essentially creating a cooperative-collaboration facility, creates an ideal incubation center in the heart of the most dynamic market in the hospitality industry. This is a first-of-its-kind concept that we hope to replicate in other markets worldwide.

Anything exciting we should know about SuiteLinq in the coming months/years?

Ziegler: The convergence of “web” and television has been talked about and pursued for several years now by the at-home cable, satellite and telco companies. SuiteLinq intends to lead such innovations in the hospitality space. As consumer demands for digital content and services increase, hotels using SuiteLinq will once again be able to offer digital amenities that exceed guest expectations.