Interview with Inmaculada Martínez, Corporate Director of Customer Experience at Ilunion Hotels

Ilunion Hotels achieves EFQM 600 Excellence Seal: An unprecedented milestone in European hospitality

During Fitur, we had the opportunity to talk with Inmaculada Martínez, Corporate Director of Customer Experience at Ilunion Hotels, recognized for their strong commitment to accessibility and inclusion. Inmaculada stands out for her strategic approach and leadership in digital transformation and improving results through agile methodologies. With over 20 years in the sector, she has driven customer experience both externally and internally, leading innovation and business strategy projects in the hotel industry. Her career includes key roles in chains like NH Hotel Group and Barceló Hotel Group, and she is also the founder of Consulting IMR, demonstrating her ability to navigate complexities and lead to success in high-performance environments.

The interview, conducted in a context of recovery and constant challenges for the tourism industry, allowed us to delve into the current and future trends shaping the hospitality and hotel management landscape at Ilunion Hotels.

Xavier López, CEO of EISI SOFT, and Inmaculada Martínez, Corporate Director of Customer Experience at Ilunion Hotels

What challenges has Ilunion Hotels set for itself in 2023 that you feel proud of? 

2023 has been a year full of milestones for us. We started the year with the EFQM 600 Excellence Seal, being the only European hotel chain to achieve this seal. It made us very happy and further raised our level of demand. Additionally, we began to materialize one of the elements of the company's strategic plan, which is the customer-centric culture. How did we materialize it? First, we opened a listening process to the customer and our main stakeholders, doing it in a very diverse way through focus groups, interviews, accompaniments, one to one. In the end, we sat down with almost 1500 people. 

This has helped us achieve another of our milestones, which is the customer journey of Ilunion Hotels, created jointly with our customers, consisting of 32 touchpoints. As our minimum policy is a bit limited, we expanded the customer journey to build our blueprint based on the 32 touchpoints, which helped us identify where we might have process frictions that are very important. To end the year, all this exercise that came from active customer listening, we worked on with initiatives across the entire company. We have a clear roadmap of what the customer wants, both ours and the competition's, and what we need to do to meet and exceed their expectations, creating those "wow" moments. 

Ilunion Hotels has always been a benchmark company, not only for the values it represents but also in the execution of projects. Regarding customer experience, how do we prepare the establishments to maximize guest experience personalization? Which operational processes have a direct impact on the customer experience strategy? 

Our biggest challenge is physical personalization, where we have to ensure that data travels transversally throughout the company, and when the customer arrives, the same information is available to the housekeeping, reception, F&B, or maintenance departments. Which processes are key? All those related to the customer. Personalization information of complaints, incidents must be deployed transversally. This is the big challenge, and that's where we focus. How can we personalize? By closing the loop. 

What is the role of EISI HOTEL in the entire excellence strategy from a business perspective?

We have mentioned it many times, for us EISI HOTEL is a partner, for many years, accompanying us in the EFQM 600 excellence process. It ensures that all our processes are parameterized, that we can monitor each of them, because we are human and make mistakes, but what we have to avoid is that the error reaches the customer, and that's where you (EISI HOTEL) come in, hand in hand, helping us. Also, I think it's a fantastic impression when you have this strategic vision, and we come to you with some disruptive projects that sound out of the box, and you never tell us, "no, you're crazy," but rather, "come on, okay, let's see how we do it, and we'll take it a little further." I think this makes the difference when you also have such high levels of demand as ours, for which you are key. The example is this project of operationalizing the customer experience, in which we have high expectations, and we know it will turn out great.

Finally, what challenges will be the most difficult for us to address in 2024? 

I think we have three, which are challenges and also opportunities; we must always put it positively. The first is the challenge of how generative artificial intelligence physically lands in all hotel spaces to elevate that customer experience. The requirements gathering done this year is great, but we need to move to see clear examples of all this technology implemented. The second point is moving from personalization to hyper-personalization with the key element of making real-time decisions, and for that, we need the data transversality we mentioned. And the last, which for me is the most important, is that all solutions and elements we design and implement are fully accessible to a diverse world, where everyone can access them, enjoy them, and also work comfortably because the world is very diverse, and we must create solutions for everyone. You know, a world with everyone included.