Stephan Chase

Vice President of Customer knowledge,
Marriott

A frequent business traveler to any Marriott hotel has customer knowledge vice president Stephan Chase to thank for the amenities. From loyalty program rewards to 24-hour room service to free high-speed Internet access, all of this stems from Chase's obsession with knowing everything possible about what business customers want.

"I'm not often surprised by anything our customers want, and I'm rarely surprised by who our best customers turn out to be," Chase says. "We have a small department, but I think we have a lot of impact on many different customer touchpoints. Where our team really helps Marriott and helps our customers is in seeing the virtue of learning from our best customers and then using that learning to make changes in their experience. We use customer information in the customers' best interest."

A ten-year Marriott veteran, Chase has spent most of his tenure initiating customer intelligence programs and then finding new ways to spread that information throughout the organization. Not only has it led to better customer experiences, his team has led the hotel company into new methods of measuring customer value, marketing ROI, and, most recently, loyalty. In fact, during the past year Marriott doubled incremental revenue from its loyalty membership thanks largely to his team's effort in streamlining the company's direct marketing.

For all his work on such detailed formulas as net present value (NPV) and loyalty measurement calculations, Chase believes loyalty in the hotel business is best defined as "when someone goes out of their way" to stay at your property. He is particularly proud of the fact that Marriott Rewards members will travel an average of 17 miles to stay at a Marriott. He is obsessed with these details, which he says define true customer intelligence as well as loyalty program success. Loyalty is not price, or convenience, he believes. It is a virtue.

"What we aspire to here is to be the kind of department that explores what customers are likely to do," he says. "I would love to know more about the passions of our guests. What do they really care about? Not just for today. What are they going to care about tomorrow?"

— John Gaffney