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by tgsovlerkhgsel 2440 days ago
This. I still (grudgingly) use them because they also seem to have figured out that its important that your booking process works and it's friction-free, and they often do have the best price.

But if I find an alternative that has the same width of offers and a booking process that doesn't feel like a drill sergeant constantly yelling "BOOK NOW YOU WORTHLESS SCUM, BOOK, BOOK, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR YOU IMBECILE, CLICK IT, BOOK, NOW, NOW" - what do they think will happen?
1 comments
sangnoir 2440 days ago
> what do they think will happen?

Booking.com A/B tests everything: the drill-sergeant-like funnel probably has higher conversion rates than any gentler variation. So to answer your question - they think you might not book through them without the shoutiness.

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rixed 2439 days ago
Conversion rate, yes. But the parent asked about customer retention, which is also quite important but much harder to optimise for...
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softwaredoug 2439 days ago
But does it have higher customer retention over the long term? Conversions are only one piece of running an online business
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sangnoir 2439 days ago
> But does it have higher customer retention over the long term?

I'm going to guess the answer is no - which is why organizations have to be careful which metrics they measure and incentivize on. Granted, this failing is industry-wide as the longest view on most orgs' dashboards is YoY. When that metric starts freefalling, it most likely will be too late to do anything about it, but most of the staff (up to the CEO) will have padded Resumes with amazing numbers for improved conversion/revenue which will get them to the next job.

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