New value for pop-up windows.(global update: marketing)

TORONTO When Fairmont Hotels & Resorts set out to redesign its Web site, its aim was to expand its interactive capabilities. "It's great medium to build a relationship with customers. We wanted to interact with customers as much as possible. A lot of sites don't do that," says Jens Thraenhart, director of Internet strategy for the Toronto-based company.

As a result, the company devised a Web site that would have multiple "touch points," or places where it could receive immediate feedback as a way to improve customer service. Among the more innovative approaches devised by Thraenhart and his team was to create a pop-up window for Customers who begin an online reservation, but do not complete the booking. While the company has had success--meaning a 60% to 70% response rate--to its year-old pop-up window asking for feedback from customers who do complete a booking, asking customers to complete a survey about why they aborted a reservation was something no other hotel company was doing.

"We wanted to find out how people are using the Web site. We had no expectations because no one was doing it," Thraenhart says. "We didn't know if people would fill out the form at all, or if we would get nasty feedback. But nothing like that happened."

Instead, response has been tremendous. Since it launched in October, Fairmont has received around 70 e-mails per day regarding the uncompleted reservation. This is without offering any incentives.

So what are customers citing as their reasons for not booking? Showing a growing confidence in the Web, Thraenhart says few are saying they have security or privacy concerns, or even technical problems. Rather, most have said that they are still in trip-planning stages or that they were looking for specific offers they didn't see on the site. "From a revenue management standpoint it is also a great tool to see if we're pricing ourselves competitively," Thraenhart says.

Completing the process, Fairmont will contact the user within four hours of receiving feedback to ensure it doesn't miss an opportunity to get a reservation.