Booking

IDSPIRATION STUDIO · WORK · BOOKING.COM

Help partners make progress, not just get messages.

How Booking.com rebuilt its partner experience around the milestones that matter to partners, not just the ones that matter to the business.

Prior role · Q1 2017 – Q2 2018 · Strategic experience design

Booking.com partner experience workshop sketch
−22%time to first booking
−14%partner churn
+13%net promoter score

Measured within four months of launch. Results as reported; some project details withheld for confidentiality.

01 · THE PROBLEM

Personal didn’t scale.

Booking.com’s partner base grew from about 225,000 hotels in 2012 to nearly 1.5 million accommodation partners by late 2016. A model built on 180+ local offices and account managers couldn’t keep up, and hiring more salespeople wasn’t efficient.

The challenge was to be personal at scale: to give every partner, through digital channels, the feeling of working with a dedicated account manager.

02 · WHAT WE FOUND

Most interaction wasn’t driving value.

Low unsubscribe rates hid real frustration: in focus groups across regions, partners said irrelevant messages were annoying. Half of product marketing messages weren’t clearly understood, and there was very little link between how much partners engaged and how well their business performed.

The lifecycle had also been drawn from Booking.com’s side. Partners care about their first reservation, their 100th, their first five-star review. The business was tracking clicks, sign-ups and product adoption.

Timeline of partner achievements above and Booking.com implementations below
Events above the line matter to the partner. Events below matter to the business. Seen across many partners, patterns appear: certain achievements lead to certain actions.

03 · WHAT CHANGED

Fewer messages. More relevant ones.

  • A partner-centric lifecycle, with onboarding tied to real partner milestones and a new measure: time to achievement.
  • A data framework that recorded every partner interaction, human and digital, to suggest the next best action.
  • Products grouped by the problem they solve, so outreach was framed as help, not promotion.
  • Account managers prioritized by partner need, not just partner size, with partners able to opt in, opt out or take control.

04 · WHAT IT MEANS FOR YOU

Three lessons for any business.

  1. Map their milestones, not just yours. Your customers’ progress is the best reason to get in touch.
  2. Silence isn’t satisfaction. Low unsubscribe rates can hide real annoyance. Ask.
  3. Measure benefit, not opens. Ask whether customers are better off, not whether they clicked.

Results describe a specific past project in a prior role, not a guarantee of future outcomes. Booking.com is named to identify prior experience and does not endorse this studio.