You stayed with us monthly, then stopped. What happened?
Z
Guest Win-Back Research
Interviewer agent · 1.7K uses
Interviewer Agent
Why Guests Book Direct or Through OTAs
Every point of commission is margin, and price is rarely what decided it. Direct booking strategies usually amount to a rate guarantee and a member discount, because price is assumed to be the decider. Often it is not. It is habit, trust in the cancellation terms, the ability to compare, or simply where the search started. This conversation reconstructs the booking and finds the real rule.
Direct share grown
Commission cost reduced
The real channel driver named
Used 2,013+ times
What's inside this template
Start from this conversation and adapt it to your team — change any question, add your own logic, and connect the tools you already use.
Information it collects
Where the search actually startedWhat they compared and on which sitesWhether they checked the hotel site directlyThe role of price, points, cancellation terms and habitWhat would have had to be true for the other channel to win
Questions it always asks
The core fields every response captures.
Always reconstruct where the search actually started
Ask what would have had to be true for them to use the other channel
How it adapts
Follow-ups that change based on what people say.
If they booked through an OTA, ask what the hotel site would have needed to show to win it
If they booked direct, ask what nearly sent them to an OTA instead
Where it routes people
Different paths for different answers.
Send site and content gaps to the digital team
Route rate parity and cancellation policy issues to revenue management
Automations it can trigger
Actions that fire the moment a response comes in.
Post channel decision drivers to #digital in Slack weekly
Update the guest record in HubSpot with their channel decision logic
Alert revenue management when cancellation terms repeatedly decide the channel
SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001:2022 certified. Responses are encrypted in transit and at rest, and you own your data. View our Trust Center.
How this AI agent works
The conversation asks the traveler to reconstruct their last hotel booking step by step: where the search started, what they compared, what they checked, and where they finally booked. It probes price checks, loyalty points, cancellation terms, and habit as separate factors rather than lumping them together, and asks what would have had to be true for the other channel to win.
Getting started
- 1
Recruit guests who booked through both channels over the past year
- 2
Decide which trip types matter most to your direct strategy
- 3
Probe habit and trust separately from price so the findings are actionable
- 4
Route the results to the digital and revenue teams together
Template Details
- Agent Type
- Interviewer
- Category
- Hotels and hospitality
- Industry
- Hotels & Hospitality
- Business outcome
- Convert more leads
- Job to be done
- Interview customers & users
- Journey stage
- Discovery & research
- Replaces
- 1:1 interviews
- Integrations
- Slack, Hubspot, Email
- Times Used
- 2,013+
Forms collect fields. Conversations capture context.
Static forms force complex situations into rigid dropdowns. Perspective captures structured data and the reasoning behind it — so your team makes better decisions, faster.
The static form
yoursite.com/intake
Category *
Select...
Details
Describe your situation...
Submit
Result:Category: "Other"|Details: "It's complicated"
No context. No follow-up. No next step.
- Channel mix data shows where the booking landed and nothing about what the guest was choosing between, which is why direct booking strategies default to rate guarantees that frequently change nothing.
- Asking guests whether they prefer booking direct produces a stated preference disconnected from behavior. Most say direct and book through an OTA anyway.
- Standard research rarely asks where the search started, yet that single fact often determines the channel before price is ever compared.
The AI conversation
"Tell me more about the timeline — when did this start, and is there a deadline your team is working against?"
Extracted & structured automatically
Category
High-priority
Urgency
Deadline: 2 weeks
Sentiment
Frustrated but hopeful
Next step
Route to senior team
Triggered: Slack alert sent| CRM updated
Right team. Full context. Instant action.
- The conversation reconstructs the booking session in order, starting with where the search began, which is frequently the decisive moment and is invisible in every other dataset.
- It probes price, points, cancellation terms and habit as separate factors rather than collapsing them, so the finding routes to the team that can act on it.
- Asking what would have had to be true for the other channel to win produces a concrete threshold rather than a general statement about competitiveness.
What is direct booking research?
It is research into how guests choose between booking directly with a hotel and booking through an online travel agency. The commercial stakes are straightforward, since commission is pure margin, but the decision is poorly understood because it is fast, habitual and largely invisible to first-party analytics. Reconstructing the session is the only reliable way to see it.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Explore More Agents
More hospitality templates for competitor choice, loyalty tiers and post-stay feedback.
What were you looking at when you decided?
A
Competitor Hotel Research
Interviewer agent · 941 uses
Did the tier actually decide this booking?
M
Loyalty Tier Survey
Interviewer agent · 2.1K uses
You were in every fortnight, then stopped.
A
Restaurant Win-Back Research
Interviewer agent · 946 uses
Who else was in that decision?
R
Competitor Restaurant Research
Interviewer agent · 2K uses
Did anyone offer you a dessert?
R
Restaurant Upsell Research
Interviewer agent · 921 uses
Related Articles
How hotels win direct bookings by understanding the actual decision.
Best Hotel Guest Experience Software in 2026: 8 Platforms Compared
Eight guest experience platforms compared by what they actually capture.
Read article
Restaurant Customer Feedback in 2026: From Comment Cards to Conversations
Why restaurant feedback collapses into stars, and what a conversation recovers.
Read article
Toast's AI Strategy: How the Restaurant Platform Learns What Operators Need in 2026
How a hospitality platform uses conversations to understand its operators.
Read articleForms are costing you business
Replace drop-off, poor qualification, and missing context with AI conversations that capture structured data and real understanding. Set up in minutes.
No credit card required • Cancel anytime