Customer Action Plan Checklist

Goal of this protocol

Covering all bases in establishing the problem, finding the culprit, and correcting the issue to solve the problem quickly and efficiently. Ultimately, the goal is to rapidly identify problems and improve customer performance before it risks hurting the relationship or leading to the customer questioning our efficacy.

1. First, establish the problem (in order of urgency):

  1. Bookings are down
  2. Conversions are down
  3. Traffic is down

2. Establish necessary details

  1. Bookings are down
    1. Year over year
    2. Month over month
    3. OTA (online travel agent) bookings are up, direct bookings are down
  2. Conversions are down
    1. eCommerce
    2. Lead generation campaigns
  3. Traffic is down – determine which:
    1. Organic
    2. Email
    3. Social
    4. Referral

3. Determine where in the process is actually broken (in Google Analytics)

  1. In reverse order of previous list, establish your metric (YOY, month over month, etc), then compare current period to baseline:
    1. Traffic is down
      1. Acquisition>All Traffic>Channels
      2. Recommended process, as sources are lumped together to provide a big picture
        1. Referral
          1. Acquisition>All Traffic>Channels>Referral
          2. Is this worth worrying about?
            1. If referral traffic led to bookings that now are not: yes
            2. If a lot of referral traffic is no longer coming (but no ecommerce tracking): maybe
            3. If referral traffic is down but we know wasn’t converting to a booking, vacation guide: no
        2. Email
          1. Acquisition>All Traffic>Channels>Email or (Other), depending (“Other” is how GetResponse eblasts were categorized – MailChimp emails are counted under “Email”)
        3. Social
          1. Acquisition>All Traffic>Channels>Social
          2. Major stumbling blocks
            1. TripAdvisor traffic is often lumped in here
            2. Facebook traffic does not often convert at rates of organic or email traffic
        4. Organic
          1. Acquisition>All Traffic>Channels>Organic
          2. If down compared to baseline, check:
            1. Primary dimension: Landing pages
            2. Is this worth worrying about?
              1. If organic traffic to landing pages is down: yes
              2. If organic traffic to blogs are down: yes, but not as urgent
          3. Troubleshooting for organic
            1. Check behavior
              1. Is bounce rate up?
              2. Are number of pages viewed down?
              3. Is time spent on site down?
              4. Is yes to any, check (in order):
                1. Page speed of pages that are in worst shape
                2. How well content is written
                3. Tools to check:
                4. Behavior>Site Speed>Page Suggestions
                5. Google Page Speed Test
                6. Yoast SEO Plugin
    2. Conversions are down
      1. Vacation Guide/Lead Generation
        1. Check conversion rates of channels:
          1. Acquisition>All Traffic>Channels
            1. If organic is down, check which landing pages are not converting (or if no blogs are converting traffic to leads)
        2. Check conversion rate of landing page(s)
          1. Conversions>Goals>Funnel Visualization
            1. Minimum: 15%
            2. Less: improve page
            3. Higher: get more traffic to page
              1. Look at pages performing well, look for opportunities for improvement across the board
                1. Conversions>Goals>Reverse Goal Path
      2. Ecommerce
        1. Check which channels may be down
          1. Acquisition>All Traffic>Channels
          2. Check conversions: Ecommerce
          3. No information? Damn. Move on
        2. Check which pages eventually lead to Ecommerce conversions
          1. Behavior>Site Content>Landing Pages
            1. Check Ecommerce conversions of individual pages
            2. Major pages
              1. Home
              2. Rooms
              3. Specials & Packages
            3. No information? Damn. Move on.
        3. Check page value, see which are low
          1. Behavior>Site Content>All Pages
            1. Check Page Value of individual pages, especially:
              1. Home
              2. About
              3. Rooms
              4. Specials & Packages
              5. Accommodation Types pages
            2. No information? Damn. Don’t you wish you’d fixed these Ecommerce tracking issues before you needed to scramble for a reason their eCommerce conversions are down? Move on.
        4. Check total Ecommerce conversions
          1. Conversions>Ecommerce
            1. eCommerce conversion rate of total traffic
            2. Which products (units) are most popular
            3. Revenue earned
    3. Bookings are down
      1. Are booking conversions down? Check Ecommerce (above)
      2. Is traffic down? Check traffic (above)
      3. Is traffic up but bookings are down?
        1. Check the booking engine:
          1. Ones we recommend?
            1. ThinkReservations
            2. Resnexus
          2. UX (user experience – try to reserve a room/property up to the point of entering payment info and look for roadblocks)
          3. Page speed
        2. Check key website pages for CTAs or other on-page elements that may be affecting conversion rate.

Now What?

Action plan! Use the information gathered in the previous step to decide what to focus on:

  1. Behavior issues?
    1. Pages that get high amounts of traffic with high bounce rate:
      1. Check page speed
      2. Check that there are internal links going elsewhere on the site from these pages
      3. Make sure these pages are well-written
  2. Conversion issues?
    1. Improve conversion rate on:
      1. Landing pages not converting well
      2. Individual pages not converting well
      3. This applies to booking engine pages as well
  3. Solving behavioral/conversion problems will solve most of the other problems you encounter
    1. Improved behavior on site (including conversions) will lead to increased rankings. Seriously, it works.

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