Skiing Waves & Surfing Slopes – which winter resorts offer the best online customer experience?
Zurich, Paris, 9th February 2017
A recent study conducted by Atos, a leader in digital transformation, revealed that more and more ski resorts are recognizing the power of digital transformation by offering a consumer-friendly integrated online customer experience. The research looked at 14 ski resorts in Switzerland and Austria, and analysed the quality of a typical online customer journey, evaluating the website, mobile app and mobile website of the resort, with varying results.
Criteria included the following:
- research i.e. “Can I buy tickets online / via an app?” “can I plan my route via GPS?”
- travel to resort
- skiing i.e. “Which lanes and slopes are currently open?”, “what’s the level of snow?”
- eating experience i.e. “Which restaurants are open and can I reserve online?” and
- return journey
On the positive side, almost all of the ski resorts give customers the opportunity to buy ski passes online and also have some kind of mobile offering. The resort of Zermatt came out with the highest ranking overall, due to its comprehensive offering across all digital channels, including its website, a mobile app and social media. In addition to the standard information on the website (map of the slopes, weather information and online ticket shop) services also include a detailed travel timetable, a free Wifi network and a separate “Skiguide Zermatt” app with GPS navigation and a restaurant guide.
However, in most other cases the range of functions offered on the resorts’ websites do not meet customer expectations and requirements. For example, web content is often poorly structured and grouped. In terms of mobile, content is often a miniaturised version of the website making navigation cumbersome and information difficult to read. Additionally, most of the mobile websites have significantly less content than the desktop version.
“It is encouraging to see that many resorts realise the importance of having a mobile offering for customers, whether via a responsive website or a proprietary app, “says Daniel Truninger, Customer Experience Expert at Atos Consulting and the Director of the research “However there is still great potential for resorts to create improve their customer offering, which ties up the experience before and after a day on the slopes and puts the customer experience at the heart of everything.”
To read the full report, go to http://ch.atosconsulting.com/skiresortstudy
Methodology
In November 2016, experts from Atos Consulting’s Customer Experience & Digital Marketing team evaluated the website, mobile app and mobile website of twelve Swiss and two Austrian ski resorts. Ski resorts with more than 150 kilometers of slopes were selected. This includes the ski resorts of Zermatt, Davos Klosters, Solden, Saas Fee, Flims Laax Falera, Gstaad Mountain Rides, Portes de Soleil, Arosa Lenzerheide, St. Anton am Arlberg, Adelboden, Jungfrau, St. Moritz – Corviglia, 4 Vallées and Samnaun.
