Potters Resort Increases Bookings by 670 Percent with Vee24
Family-owned Potters Resort is a luxury seaside getaway in Norfolk, England. The 65-acre property has more than 350 accommodations, and 80 percent of its business comes from returning guests. As such, the company's model is centered on personalized customer experiences. Its call center and Web agents, for instance, are located on-premises.
"Often guests will know [our agents] by name and have coffee with them downstairs," says Jonny Goddard, Potters' Web development manager.
Despite its loyal guest base, Potters was facing increased competition from larger resorts and, as a result, has had to reach out to new customer segments.
A major plank in that effort has been a total revision of Potters' Web portal, in particular, its text-based live chat functionality. When asked what percentage of the resort's bookings came in via live chat, Goddard laughed. "Zero point zero, or something very close, I think."
Potters wanted something similar to Amazon's mayday button to help with managing a major challenge of its Web portal: suggesting the right amenities to the right customers from the resort's sometimes bewildering mass of offerings.
With everything from salsa dancing to Billy Ocean, clay pigeon shooting to bridge tournaments, reading a complete list of Potters' offerings would probably send prospective visitors' minds spinning. Its business model is based on targeting wildly different demographic segments during different seasons, making it difficult to hone a message for a general audience. Potters' hope was that a video live chat would guide customers to a more tailored experience.
Early in its search, Potters was deeply impressed by the offerings from Vee24, a live video assistance platform provider. When the Potters team talked to Vee24, it was in-browser, over Vee24's own technology—a kind of practical demonstration.
Key for Potters was that Vee24's video chat requires no software download on the user's end. It works natively within the browser. From there, agents can not only share a video feed of themselves with users, but also share their screen to demonstrate features, push rich content, and even (with permission) take control of users' systems to guide them if more help is required. Furthermore, it doesn't require a two-way video feed.
Potters implemented Vee24's solution in March of this year and has seen dramatic results. Within three months, it was reporting a 670 percent increase in bookings. Whereas before the text live chat was a dead-end modality, Goddard reports that it now directly contributes to 2 percent of its overall bookings each week.
Such results aren't unheard of, according to Jim Keller, chief executive officer at Vee24.
Keller says his clients average anywhere from 20 to 25 percent conversions in assisted sessions on his company's platform. "And they're doing it with a 15 to 50 percent lift in average order value," he adds.
It's still too early to say if Potters is seeing similar results. The program has only been in effect for a few months and the demographic data has not been parsed out beyond the overall boost in bookings, but Goddard expects that there will be some lift in value.
"Our Facebook [likes] hit 40,000. That's huge for a company of our size. Vee24 was a massive part of our increased offering."
THE PAYOFF
After implementing Vee24's live chat solution, Potters Resort saw these results:
- a 670 percent increase in bookings;
- bookings from chat rise from near 0 to 2 percent weekly; and
- its Facebook "likes" rise to 40,000.