CCO of Wyndham on Scaling Innovation Across 9,000 Hotels
And we also continue to make it more and more empathetic, which has been a lot of fun because you can train the AI to act like somebody you would expect to at the front desk. We've made it so empathetic and so engaging. We've actually had guests ask our AI out for a date.
Speaker 2:That's how you know your AI is doing a good job.
Speaker 1:That's how we know.
Speaker 3:From Hotel Tech Report, it's Hotel Tech Insider, a show about the future of hotels and the technology that powers them.
Speaker 4:Today, we're speaking with Scott Strickland, the chief commercial officer at Wyndham. Scott oversees the intersection of guest revenue and technology for Wyndham's 9,000 hotels and well over 20 brands. We talk through the tech stack in detail, and Scott shares some great best practices on nurturing relationships with vendors.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for joining us, Scott. Really excited to have you on the podcast. To kick things off, I would love for you to introduce yourself, tell us a bit about your role and your organization.
Speaker 1:Hey, thank you so much for having me. Scott Strickland, Chief Commercial Officer here at Wyndham Hotels and Resorts. What's that mean? What's a Chief Commercial Officer actually do? My daughter asks me that occasionally, sometimes too.
Speaker 1:That means I'm responsible for the intersection of technology and guest revenue. So breaking that down, that means all the traditional technology you think of in a hotel company, from back end systems to our central reservation system to our websites and the like. The securing of all that technology and then the marketing the sales the distribution the loyalty programs the communication. Everything that goes into getting a guest to choose our hotel, I'm also responsible for. So ultimately, it's the end to end flow of how you get a guest to choose our hotel and then ultimately to come back.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for the intro. I am also curious how you ended up at Wyndham. You have a varied background. You haven't always been in the hospitality space. So I'm curious how you got where you are.
Speaker 1:It is a long and winding journey. How did a guy who was at Black and Decker or Dinan Moran's or in private equity end up in hospitality? When I first interviewed here, my current CEO, Jeff Pilate, asked me something similar. And I said, actually don't know anything about hospitality, Jeff. He said, well, how much have you stayed in hotels?
Speaker 1:I said, oh, you know, I'm a Titanium member and a Diamond member and all these. He said, Okay, well, know quite a bit, Actually in terms of what you want from a hotel stay and then he said but I don't need hospitality experience what I need is M. And A. Experience mergers and acquisition. What I need is an experienced person who has implemented a large system successfully before.
Speaker 1:I said I can do that. And the reason you needed that is because when I joined Wyndham we had 16 brands. We now have 25. And that didn't happen entirely organically. So we go out there, we acquire a brand, and then we need to put them onto a system.
Speaker 1:And that's what we needed to figure out how to do very quickly and with minimal disruption to any of the hotels or the brands that were on those prior systems. So that's how I ended up. Jeff took a chance on me based on the skill set and some of the things and activities I've completed in the past.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm curious to hear your thoughts on a bunch of things related to Wyndham's tech stack, and especially what you just mentioned, that migration process or onboarding process. I'm sure you have a lot of expertise to share there. So my first question is, from your point of view, overseeing so many brands, so many properties, what would you say is the most critical piece of technology in your tech stack?
Speaker 1:So that will depend on your perspective. So for example, if you're our franchisee, one of our small business owners who has a hotel, let's say you own a Days Inn, then for you, the most critical piece of technology is the property management system. It's what you use to check that guest in and out. Because if you aren't able to check a guest in and out, then right away their guest experience is poor. And if you're not able to know something about that guest, Adrian, welcome.
Speaker 1:I see you stayed with us before in a queen room. Would you like that same room, or would you like the queen bed again? I guess I would. You're not able to start to build that relationship and actually demonstrate hospitality. So from a franchisee standpoint that's definitely.
Speaker 1:From a franchisor from a Wyndham standpoint our most critical piece of technology is our central reservation system because that is the system that puts our product our hotels on the shelf. Now there's a lot of shelves out there that we put that product on but that's the technology that puts it out there so bring that to life. One of the shelves we put it on is our website. So it's the system that feeds our website with the availability. Of all of our hotels another shelf that we put that product on is of course the OTAs such as Expedia or booking.com.
Speaker 1:Or our app. Or enabling our voice reservation agents to take a reservation if they want to. Or enabling even, and we'll get to this I'm sure, enabling our AI to take that reservation as well. It all is sourced from that central reservation system. So if that system's down, we're not selling anything.
Speaker 2:And for all of the brands within your portfolio, are they all on an identical tech stack? Or is there some variance based on brand or region?
Speaker 1:That is the beauty of Wingo. You inadvertently just unlocked our secret sauce there, which I'm so excited about. We are on one tech stack globally. So that means that we have a single central reservation system, a single website system, Adobe. And I'll list them off here.
Speaker 1:We have a single CRM in terms of salesforce.com. We have a single service system also using salesforce.com for that. We're running two property management systems based on the type of hotel you are. So we're running Opera Cloud for our full service hotels, then for our select service hotels, we're running Sabre Property Hub. We have one loyalty system with Fadeon.
Speaker 1:So as you go through our stack and you look at those critical components of the guest experience, there is one system. Why is that so important to us? Well, one, it keeps our costs in line. We're only using one cloud. You know, we're using Amazon Web Services in our cloud.
Speaker 1:So it keeps our costs in line and allows our costs to be elastic. Meaning, the more reservations we take, of course, we're going to pay more. But when we're taking fewer reservations, for example, during COVID, we were able to flex down our costs. So that's point number one. Point number two is because we're on a single system, we're able to innovate faster.
Speaker 1:Why? Why would that be Scott? It's because the way the interfaces work. If you only have one interface, you know, so let's say from your central reservation system to your website, you only need to write that interface once. If you have multiple website hosting systems, a brand website as we call it, then you're going to have to write that interface multiple times.
Speaker 1:And if you wanted to innovate and introduce something new out on your websites, you're going to have to do it in one, two, three, or four different systems. Whereas for us, we can make the change once, and then it'll flow through our entire stack. So that's also really important. And then thirdly, it allows our team to become experts. It's a lot easier to learn one system than it is to learn six.
Speaker 1:And that means it's much easier to apply the updates to those systems as needed. As we went through all of that, what you didn't hear from us was proprietary technology. Yes, we build our own brand website. Yes, we build our own app. But we build that on commercially available tools.
Speaker 1:So on our brand website, we're based on Adobe. We're part of the AEM, and we're moving to Adobe Cloud now. So we use Adobe just like everybody else. We've just got it configured a little bit differently. So that allows us not to worry about maintaining our code base or maintaining something custom.
Speaker 1:Instead, we let Sabre, or we let Adobe, or we let Salesforce release those new products to us on a periodic basis. And generally, know, you're well aware, that's about four times a year for those product release cycles. So yeah, we nailed it in terms of asking the leading question on what gets us so excited here at Wyndham about our technology and our stack.
Speaker 2:So I would think with a company working at the scale that Wyndham does, you may have the option to buy a system or work with a vendor, or maybe you consider building it yourself. How do you think about those trade offs? Has there been a situation where you've gone down the buy route but decided to build or vice versa? Or is your strategy always to buy?
Speaker 1:Our strategy is always to buy where it exists. Where it doesn't exist, then we will partner with a software vendor to co develop that system. And in some cases, we might own some of the IP on that system. But the vendor themselves will commit to maintaining and continuing to release on that system. For example, if you take Canary, great.
Speaker 1:We also did something with Salesforce and Sabre jointly, where we needed Salesforce basically to enable our voice reservation agents to know more about the customer. So we needed them. You know, Adrian calls in, we need to know it's you right away. But then we also wanted to know your preferences, even the last credit card that you might have used, your loyalty number, of course. If you were just on the web looking at a hotel, we wanted that to come across automagically, you know, so that we didn't have to continue to ask you a lot of those questions.
Speaker 1:And we realized that didn't exist in the marketplace. So we partnered with our friends at Salesforce and built that integration down into Sabre, our central reservation system, as well as the integration into our customer data platform in order to consolidate all of that information and have it at hand. And guests love it because your time on the phone decreases dramatically. Our average handle time went down about 25%. So you're not on the phone as long.
Speaker 1:And we loved it, of course, because our conversion went up. Our guests felt more valued as well. So it was one of those that's a classic win win.
Speaker 2:And it sounds like you have really strong partnerships with these vendors as well. Do you have any advice or best practices on building maintaining a really good working relationship with a software vendor?
Speaker 1:Yes. And I've seen it done the wrong way, certainly. You need to treat them like partners. Treat them like they are basically part of your team. So for example, our Oracle representative, our Sabre rep, our Salesforce rep, my Adobe rep, even my agency, because we run our marketing agencies now in our purview.
Speaker 1:All those folks have offices here on campus. They have offices right here in the Wyndham Building. And they can come and go as they please, and they're badged in just like an employee. And that helps, you know, because then they're here, and there's a presence. We're not trying to hide things from them.
Speaker 1:We're trying to evolve together. Secondly, share your visions. Share your strategy. You know, we have top to top meetings, and we'll talk about where we want to go together. And we'll be open book on our strategy and say, this is what we need.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, let's work together and see what feature functions maybe you have or where you're going Adobe and how you can play into this and help us, know, with, for example, during orchestration or getting to know our guests better. So, you know, open up and be miserly with your information or treat them like the enemy. And then thirdly be good to each other and what I mean by that is you know they're part of our press releases. We offer to do case studies for them. We speak at some of their conferences.
Speaker 1:Quite often people say, I want to partner with my vendor, and all they really mean is I want to get lower prices. Well, no. You need to do something for them as well. And the more you can truly partner by doing some of those things, yes, the better prices you're going to receive, but more importantly, the better access you're going to receive. Let's take Salesforce, for example.
Speaker 1:I mean, we're a big company. Wyndham's a big company, but we're not a huge company. There's a lot of companies out there much larger than us. But somehow, because of our partnership, we're able to get access to their engineers and to their roadmaps and engage with them earlier than a lot of the other folks. And then that allows us, of course, to be more innovative.
Speaker 2:Going back to your tech stack, I'm curious if there's a vendor on the market that maybe you've seen and looks really compelling, something that might be on your wish list that you're considering adding to the tech stack but haven't yet? Curious if there's anything out there that has caught your eye recently.
Speaker 1:A vendor now a partner that we love that just joined our stack is snowstorm. And what they allow is travel bundles. Basically they have relationships they function a little bit like a GDS but relationships with cruise lines with airlines with hotels with rental car companies, and the like. And they allow us now to represent all of those companies on our website and sell a travel bundle. We launched yesterday, actually, our Wyndham Rewards Insider.
Speaker 1:And what that is is that's a paid loyalty service that gives you discounts on all those things I just named. It gives you discounts on airfare. Gives you discounts on car rentals. Get discounts on transfers. Discounts even on movie tickets.
Speaker 1:Because in effect, we're able to source that at scale. So Snowstorm, super cool. Now we launched yesterday, you know, with our loyalty program, and we're excited to see what some of the results are going to be. So somebody out there that is intriguing to me. Most of the AI companies I'd say are interesting my advice there would be is try to solve a specific business need as opposed to look on the I.
Speaker 1:Two. Somebody that I think that does that really well that we haven't partnered with yet but is always on our radar is people rain. And it's R. E. I.
Speaker 1:G. M. I believe PeopleRain is a really interesting AI enabled company that looks at your HRMS, you know, your your human resources management system, and allows people to basically self serve because they built a really, really cool AI model that can pull all that together. They do a lot more than that too, but they've been on our radar here recently. And when looking at some of these smaller companies, something else we've done, PeopleRain, just as an example, their CEO, Dan Turchin, he's a founder of past companies.
Speaker 1:So this might be his third, where he successfully identified a problem, built it out, founded it, launched, gone and done it again. Something else that we're really pleased with and continue to grow our relationship with is a company called Hapi, H A P I. And it's hospitality APIs, you know, but Hapi. Well, that's another serial entrepreneur, Louis Segergo. I believe most people will know.
Speaker 1:You know, Louis was the founder of Hot Sauce back in the day. So he took this company, Hot Sauce, sold it to Amadeus. Now he's unhappy. Great. That means he knows how to solve business problems.
Speaker 1:That means he knows how to hire people, you know, on his teams who also have that same vision. So that's a way to help filter a little bit of the wheat from the chaff as you're out there working at some of these companies.
Speaker 2:I would love to learn more about what Wyndham is doing with AI in general. If you could share a bit about your ethos on AI and what you're planning for the future.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. This is fun. Okay. So let's take one of the more obvious use cases. We talked a little bit about our guest engagement platform with Canary.
Speaker 1:We were in with Canary. We were AI before AI was cool. Seriously, about three years ago, two and a half, three years ago, yeah, we were doing generative AI and responses. So again, you know, you're checked in. You're there texting.
Speaker 1:You wanna know what a nearby restaurant is. That was via an AI chat bot that was providing those responses back to you. And was learning from the way you were interacting with it. It's continued to evolve you know we have releases every month and so our LLM there has continued to grow. That chat bot if you will that people are using when they're on-site you know can tell you everything from when the pool opens or what time breakfast is.
Speaker 1:But it can also tell you. What we have downstairs you know in terms of amenities. But you may be interested in it can also recommend like I said nearby restaurants talking about the weather. We continue to expand. The overall model and we also continue to make it more and more empathetic which has been a lot of fun because you can train the AI to act like somebody you would expect to at the front desk.
Speaker 1:We've made it so empathetic and so engaging, we've actually had guests ask our AI out for a date.
Speaker 2:That's funny. That's how you know your AI is doing a good job.
Speaker 1:That's how we know. That's exactly. We're like, wow, we nailed this one. So really, really proud of our partnership there and what we've done. So that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:You know, a lot of people are doing that now. We were doing that early on. And the reason we were able to do it is because of our standard stack. You know, we standardized our data. We standardized our tech.
Speaker 1:So it's really easy, quote unquote, you know, to be able to put that AI on top of it. Something we just launched is we call it Wyndham Connect Plus. This is our omnichannel platform for reservations and guest engagement. So what's that mean? Know, that's a that's what some buzzwords speak.
Speaker 1:But what this is is this is our AI that's facing the guest when they're thinking about or booking a reservation or modifying or canceling. So it allows you to learn more about the hotel, of course. It also will book that hotel, and it's voice interactive. So book the hotel, modify, or cancel the reservation for that hotel. It will do that via voice.
Speaker 1:It will do that via chat. It'll also engage with you on Google Maps, Google Connect, Apple Maps, and the like. When you pull up a hotel and you click text the hotel, which is a new button. If you haven't seen it out there, you know, on Apple or Google, there's been the button out there for a while in terms of call this hotel. There's now a button for text.
Speaker 1:And we've enabled that for sites that are on Wyndham Connect Plus. So you could text the hotel and you can learn about the hotel and ultimately book if you choose to via that channel. So that's our our latest AI deployment. It's got a really cool voice too. It speaks a 100 languages.
Speaker 1:Quite literally, it speaks a 100 languages. So you're able to engage with it in your preferred language. And it's really good at intuiting tone and what you're trying to get through, you know, as part of this. So that one's pretty cool. We also use an AI for personalization in terms of defining an offer for a guest.
Speaker 1:So let's say for example it sees me I'm out there surfing on the sites and I seem to. Be really swayed by points because the last reservations I made there was some sort of points bonus offer going on. Our data model will learn that. And then we will send out promotions to me that are uniquely based on points whereas maybe there's somebody else who's looking for. The best price offer Okay great so it's going to send you a promotion based on the price not based on points.
Speaker 1:It goes a little bit further because a lot further actually and it looks and it says well you know what Scott opens his email at. Usually 05:30 in the morning just. Silly but that's when he first gets on any looks through his email so I'm gonna put this in his inbox about 05:15. I think that might be an optimal time or I'm gonna put it in about 05:40 so he's just cleaning out his inbox and you'll see it and bang he'll respond. So it'll learn that behavior as well.
Speaker 1:And then it'll even test different verbiage for me. You know, should I put an X- does he respond more when it's in caps and an exclamation point? Or does he respond more when he's feeling like he's being let in on a secret. Or what sort of taglines can I use so it'll continue to learn that as well and test it on the end of respond and build it out? So those are three examples you know I rattled them off pretty quick there and I'm gonna pause and come up for air here but it's been really amazing to see how it can enable real change.
Speaker 1:Enable our guests to interact with us in ways they haven't before or solve business problems here. For us and allow us to take out a lot of cost in the organization as necessary to.
Speaker 2:Can you talk me through your strategy on the personalization piece a little more? Just because I hear this come up so frequently. Hotels are interested in doing more personalization. What are your main objectives? And is email the main channel that you're personalizing?
Speaker 2:Or how does personalization come up throughout the guest journey?
Speaker 1:Sure. And I think the way you ended that is the way to start, actually, which is the guest journey. So when we think about you coming out there and you're in that look mode. Okay how do we personalize. Us to you when you're in the look mode well what we do there is we'll try to highlight offers.
Speaker 1:Or highlight features that we know are interesting to you because either you visited our site before or you've opted in in the past or we've enriched our overall data model, we just happen to know a little bit more about you, Which we do via. In our customer data platform. Shout out by the way to Amperity we use for that phenomenal Starbucks Nordstrom's uses on this well just for example. So we're able to really. Really understand more about the guests during that look phase and then represent our hotels a little bit differently for them.
Speaker 1:Then when it comes time to book, you know, or convincing them to book, we're able to tailor a lot of those offers as necessary. Now after they book. Then we start communicating with them you know of course via email but also via our guest engagement platform. Via that text to the Hey yeah we're looking forward to seeing you on arrival. We then offer a manual possible personalization.
Speaker 1:Would you like to check-in early? Would you like to go ahead and request late checkout? Would you like to pay to check-in earlier or late checkout? Would you like a four pack of craft beer waiting for you when you arrive? That's actually one of the offers we have, and we're capable of generating.
Speaker 1:Would you like for us to put you in touch with Disney. You know or request Disney tickets as part of this you know the variation there is amazing. And can depend also on where the hotel is located. So we have a whole lot of personalization in terms of add on experiences that the guests can select or opt into as well. And then after you leave you know we've learned more about you we understand your preferences and we're able to reincorporate that.
Speaker 1:No into our offers in the future. And then of course at check-in you know you walk up to that front desk if you choose to. You walk up to that front desk we've- ideally alerted our front desk agent you know if you're a dining number. We put that into our property management system there's a big window that comes up that says make sure you greet them as a diamond member so. You're feeling a human connection.
Speaker 1:There as well or their diamond member make sure they get their welcome amenity in their room you know and you've integrated that in with the systems to make that happen. Jim so it runs throughout the process for us and enables a better guest experience.
Speaker 2:I'd like to zoom out a little bit we've talked a lot about your tech stack I'm interested to learn what one or two high priority business objectives are for you. And how does tech fit into that puzzle? How does technology help you achieve those high level objectives, which may not be around implementing software, but tech being a piece of the puzzle, how does that help you get there?
Speaker 1:Sure. So our objective, ultimately, within the commercial organization is to make sure guests stay in our hotels, to encourage guests to stay at our hotels and offer them ultimately a seamless experience. And technology of course is part of that entire entire journey. It's really the foundation of what we do when you think about the other pistons of the commercial engine, you have loyalty. You know, loyalty is what's going to convince people to come initially and then to return as a guest.
Speaker 1:Loyalty underpinning once again is tech. As well as, of course, the experiences it can offer the rooms, and the actual stays that loyal people are unable to. Then you have marketing. Well, a lot of marketing today isn't done on traditional linear TV. It's done on digital TV.
Speaker 1:It's done via Spotify. It's done via YouTube. You know, it's every channel that's available. You know, TikTok, of course, and all the social channels are also something going into. So again, marketing is intersecting with technology and using technology as both a way to deliver that message and to develop that message.
Speaker 1:We have our sales organization out there you know making sure that we're selling everything from. Of course triple A. Rates or rates for the Walmart trucker, you know, to help them select our hotel or for the Strickland family reunion. And all of that, of course, is enabled by technology too, because we want to make it easy for you to select us and for our teams out there to understand the possible candidates. So when we look at how the commercial engine works technology underpins all of it and also enables that guest experience.
Speaker 1:We think about business objectives for next year. Or this year as well it's to continue to drive up that direct contribution. What's direct contribution? Direct contribution is what we as a brand provide for our franchisees. And that is our direct channels.
Speaker 1:So we want to continue to drive that up. And how do you do so? Well, using those other three persons I spoke to, between loyalty, sales and marketing, you drive more people into our hotels. So it's absolutely critical to everything we do.
Speaker 2:Two other questions for you before we wrap up. I'm curious, based on your entire career, including your roles pre Wyndham, what would you say are one or two of the most important skills for someone to have to be successful in the hotel space?
Speaker 1:Certainly, one of the most important is leadership. Now, that's a nebulous term. And that doesn't mean you need to lead a team of a thousand. That doesn't mean you even need to lead a team of one. It could be that you're a thought leader.
Speaker 1:It could mean that you have innovative ideas or that you're staying abreast of the industry or whatever trends might be relevant. And then you're able to communicate those ideas, seek support on those ideas, be able to quantify the value of those ideas, convince people to follow those ideas. Those are the components of leadership. So certainly leadership is absolutely critical. Communication is critical.
Speaker 1:And by communication, I don't mean just talking or writing. It also means listening. And it's listening to your guests or listening to your franchisees And understanding you know what's going on and how you can help that or listening to the needs of the market. What are needs out there that perhaps aren't being addressed that now we could develop something you know whether it's a service offering or- a sales team or even a technology product that in turn we could drive.
Speaker 2:Well, I always like to finish with this question. What is one thing that you believe about technology in the hotel space that your peers or competitors might disagree with?
Speaker 1:Oh, is thought provoking. I believe that we can and should learn from other industries, That we should look at solutions that are outside of what is the traditional hospitality technology vertical and determine how we could make them work or what our analog could be. If we see, for example, in a factory that there is something that is automating a process, how could we automate a process for ourselves using a similar mindset within The guest experience or within the back office operations. So I think there's a lot of things that I've seen in manufacturing and supply chain and consumer packaged goods that we haven't even used yet here. Within hospitality technology that are coming.
Speaker 2:And are there any specific companies or industries that you kind of look to as a model?
Speaker 1:Oh, I think retail sometimes can be a really good model for us when you think about that consumer and their in store experience. I also believe that air travel is a good model in terms of the way the cap is a tool. You know, you go back ten years, we had physical boarding passes. You even printed them out at a hotel. Nobody does that anymore because the app has become ingrained.
Speaker 1:And once that app becomes so ingrained and so necessary, what can you do to monetize some of that or further enable the guest experience? And United and Delta do an amazing job there.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much, Scott. Such a pleasure to have you on the podcast. Really appreciate all the insights you shared, and thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us.
Speaker 1:And, Peesh, thank you for your time as well.
Speaker 3:That's all for today's episode. Thanks for listening to Hotel Tech Insider produced by hoteltechreport.com. Goal with this podcast is to show you how the best in the business are leveraging technology to grow their properties and outperform the concept by using innovative digital tools and strategies. I encourage all of our listeners to go try at least one of these strategies or tools that you learned from today's episode. Successful digital transformation is all about consistent small experiments over a long period of time, so don't wait until tomorrow to try something new.
Speaker 3:Do you know a hotelier who would be great to feature on this show, or do you think that your story would bring a lot of value to our audience? Reach out to me directly on LinkedIn by searching for Jordan Hollander. For more episodes like this, follow Hotel Tech Insider on all major streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music.
