Volume 12, Issue 7
Dear Reader,
Hi from New York City.
My husband and I have returned from a week-long vacation on Isla Mujeres, a small island off the coast of Cancun, Mexico.
The 20 minute ferry ride to the island makes you feel like you’ve left civilization behind. Even better, there’s a bar-cafe on the Cancun side so you can get in the spirit with a margarita and nachos before you get on the ferry.
The island has grown in popularity over the years. As a result, the town is filled with restaurants and bars; most of which are packed along a pedestrian walk way. We were surprised to find a Citibank branch where we got Mexican pesos for US dollars from the ATM without a fee!
We chose a hotel located on a small, quiet beach about a 15 minutes taxi ride south of the ferry dock. So we spent our days relaxing on the beach and listening to the water lap against the sand. Unplugged from our computers and smartphones, we unwound.
Our beachside view on Isla Mujeres
The highlight of our day was breakfast at Mango Cafe, a local restaurant. It’s a favorite of locals and tourists for good reason. I always ordered their French Toast. It was soaked in coconut and topped with sliced almonds. Even better, they served a wonderful cinnamon flavored Mexican coffee.
The first floor walls of the Mango Cafe are decorated with license plates from across the US and Canada. Placed randomly, they create an Instagram-worthy shot. BTW, we weren’t the only ones to take advantage of the opportunity.
Actionable Marketing Take-Away
- Give visitors to your establishment a reason to take at least one photo to post on their Instagram accounts.
Heidi Cohen and Vicky the NYC taxi at Mando Cafe on Isla Mujeres
► Why AI Won’t Fix Your Tech Problems
Before you race to become an early adopter of the latest technology, ensure that your existing data is clean and connected across your entire business.
Without ensuring that your current tech stack and data are in top condition, you risk that the new technology will yield poor results. Even worse, these changes could put key elements of your business at risk to lose customers and money.
Returning from our vacation, we experienced examples of tech problems that AI could not fix.
► Segment Your Lists Appropriately and Correctly
Anyone who has ever taken a flight knows that your airline sends you an email 24 hours in advance to remind you of your flight details and to allow you to check-in online. It’s one of the most basic customer marketing emails for the travel industry.
As expected, our airline sent us a reminder email. The good news ended there.
No matter how we tried to log into our flight, we encountered problems. We tried using the button in the reminder email. While it worked for our outbound flight, we were unable to complete our check-in online for our return trip.
Cancún Airport, Terminal 3 courtesy of Cancún Airport Transportations
Then we tried logging in using our Frequent Flyer IDs. First we tried my number and then we tried my husband’s number. The check-in process failed for both of them.
After that we tried using another browser on the assumption that the initial one might have information in its history that caused the problem. But, alas, the check-in failed again.
We shut the laptop down completely and re-booted it before we tried to use our record locator on the airline’s website. Again, we were unable to check-in.
At this point, we decided to call the airline since we wanted to make sure that our reservation was still valid. We called the US 800 phone number so we could talk to the US-based business in English. As consumers, despite calling a toll free number, we had to pay for our mobile service to call the US.
After going through the multiple questions asked by our airline’s phone answering service, we reached a customer service person. Like many customers, we found this process extremely irritating since the questions treat the average caller like a 6 year old.
She confirmed our reservation using our record locator. Further, she explained that we couldn’t complete the check-in online because passengers leaving Cancun had to pick up their boarding passes at the airport after paying a Tourist Tax. Although our airline had included the Tax in the price of our tickets, we still had to complete our check-in and get our boarding passes at the airport 3 hours early.
None of this was stated in any of the emails the airline sent us.
The marketing-technology problem:
- The airline could have easily segmented customers leaving from the Cancun airport based on the departing airport code and send them a different email that reminded them of their flight and explained why they couldn’t check in online. Even better, this would have reduced calls and costs for their call center and made happier, less stressed customers, a win-win in any business.
Why AI Won’t Solve This Tech Problem
This tech problem involves how the airlines had set up their customer communications, something every business does. Based on our experience, it’s difficult to determine whether it was a problem with the communications technology, how the airline implemented it, or how their marketing department set up their emails. That requires more research.
What I know for certain as an experienced marketer is that this isn’t the only email that our airline incorrectly sends since other countries and/or airports have special exceptions where this type of email needs to be specifically modified.
Using AI won’t fix this problem. Since AI uses the existing output as the basis for developing its data patterns, so bad input will yield the same bad output.
► Connecting Your Databases
Hotel Lobby by dit26978 via Freepix.com
On our way home to New York City, we stayed a night at a Cancun hotel to be closer to the airport to make our early morning flight. While this approach may sound good on paper, it underscored another technology problem that couldn’t be fixed by AI.
While we chose a major US chain hotel to ensure a smooth transition, we arrived late in the day to find a very slow, long line at check-in. The bright spot for the hotel’s marketing or customer service team was that someone had the good sense to have a server provide people waiting in line with “Welcome Drinks”, fruit juice in fancy glasses with slices of fruit for decoration.
It took us over half an hour to speak to a check-in clerk. While he was able to confirm our reservation, check us in, and give each of us a bracelet that enabled us to use the facilities, he couldn’t assign us a room.
While the reservation system was working, the system that enabled the front desk to assign specific rooms based on current occupancy and other internal hotel checks such as cleaning, was down. We were told to return to the desk at least an hour later.
We kept our backpacks and headed for the outdoor bar to relax, The bartender was great at making beach holiday drinks. Even better, he was able to get us a table at the best restaurant in the hotel.
After dinner we returned to check-in. Fortunately by that point, they had fixed their technical glitch so we could get our room.
Why AI Won’t Solve This Tech Problem
At its core, the room assigning portion of the hotel check-in system requires human input. It depends on housekeeping and other hotel employees to mechanically input information, to allocate rooms based on availability and other requirements.
Applying AI to this problem would make the hotel’s problem worse.
Why?
Because AI uses past data to forecast future activity. This translates to AI assigning rooms based on the most common availability in the past which may have nothing to do with any day’s actual situation.
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Happy Marketing,
Heidi
P.S.: Want Heidi Cohen to contribute a quote or other commentary to your next article, presentation, video, research, or book? Then hit reply to this email and ask.
P.P.S: Did you miss our last AMG Newsletter?
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Photo Credit: Yucatan Map via Google Maps.
