IHG Food Delivery

IHG Food Delivery is a Grubhub integrated white-label booking solution that enables IHG® Rewards Club customers to explore local delivery restaurants and earn IHG® Rewards Club points when completing a Grubhub order.

The Problem

IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) franchises, leases, manages or owns roughly 4,000 hotels within the United States. Similar to other hoteliers, each IHG hotel is associated with a specific sub-brand to meet the needs of different traveler types. For example, travelers looking for a more boutique-style stay with seasonally-inspired on-property restaurants may be inclined to stay at either a Kimpton® Hotels & Restaurants or Hotel Indigo®, while on-the-go travelers may prefer either a Holiday Inn® or Holiday Inn Express®. Unfortunately, Holiday Inn Express®, Candlewood Suites®, and Staybridge Suites®, which comprise over 3,000 of the aforementioned 4,000 hotels, typically do not offer room service, and, in many cases, a restaurant within walking distance. Moreover, according to a GO Group survey, which surveyed more than 600 travelers to discuss how often they use room service, 75% of the respondents said they rarely or never use room service. Additionally, according to the Phocuswright "The Future of Room Service" white paper, which surveyed 800 travelers and hotel managers to reveal emerging trends in room service and food delivery, eight in ten respondents believe that room service is overpriced, antiquated, and an operational burden and seven in ten respondents preferred exploring local food experiences while traveling rather than traditional room service.

75% of travelers rarely or never use room service.

The Solution

Rather than continue down the traditional room service route, which, as noted in the Phocuswright "The Future of Room Service" white paper, can negatively affect hotel profit, IHG partnered with Grubhub to build a white-label food delivery booking solution. This solution, also known as IHG Food Delivery, enables IHG® Rewards Club customers staying at a Holiday Inn Express®, Candlewood Suites®, or Staybridge Suites® within the United States to explore local delivery restaurants within the proximity of their hotel and, as an added benefit, earn IHG® Rewards Club points when completing a Grubhub order. To earn points, IHG® Rewards Club customers must order through IHG channels, including the IHG® App, IHG website, and IHG® Connect, the on-property Wi-Fi experience. Once the order has been completed, IHG® Rewards Club customers will earn 500 points the first time they order and 250 points for each subsequent order.

My Role

At iSeatz, we serve as the bridge between hoteliers, financial services and ancillary suppliers. IHG Food Delivery is no exception. As noted above, IHG partnered with Grubhub to build a white-label food delivery booking solution. This required iSeatz to act as the intermediary between IHG and Grubhub. As a result, my role as Product Manager at iSeatz, was to work with IHG and Grubhub stakeholders along with our multidisciplinary team to make IHG Food Delivery a reality. I conducted market and competitive research, thoroughly defined business requirements and acceptance criteria, worked closely with our UX team to build a responsive prototype that adhered to the brand standards of both companies, coordinated with a diverse team across multiple timezones, prioritized the feature backlog, conducted user acceptance testing (UAT), and, after launch, worked with our business intelligence team to optimize conversion by IHG channel, and, whenever possible, identify improvements.

Key Takeaways

IHG Food Delivery taught me

• how to work with two clients with separate and sometimes competing agendas;

• what is considered personally identifiable information (PII) and the measures, specifically encryption, that safeguard personal data;

• what a UX team requires (assets, style guide, etc.) to successfully create a working prototype;

• how to build and maintain an internal location catalog that communicates with a React autocomplete component;

• how information is routed securely to and from clients via POST and GET requests;

• how to manage and communicate with a remote team;

• how to appropriately manage a rigid timeline and budget;

• what is required of each team member when abiding by the Scrum methodology.

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