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Innovation in airline distribution - the first conference organised by Travel Technology Research in cooperation with Flight Global and a number of sponsors. Setting the scene with a video interview of Montie Brewer, summarising the difficult environment why airlines have problems to become profitable.
In these tough times, the golden solution quoted a lot was the customer. Good news, finally airlines and at last seemingly suppliers have started to think about the customers - the one person who should normally be at the centre of any business. Changing the view from viewing trips with customers to customers with trips is only one of the descriptions used, yet when talking about innovation in airline distribution, everyone was keen to give a hundred reasons why no change is possible.
The Amazons of this world store everything related to their customers according to the customers’ profile. You want to check your purchases 2 years ago - you will find it here. With regard to airlines, Amadeus is proud to announce that after their 250 million Euro investments they can now enable the one view of the customer - summarising everything related to their ONE TRIP.
So others come in and try to develop the story of the transparent customers - offering data warehouses, web history and other potential little pieces of the puzzle - the travel technology history of fragmentation to be continued. They promise the world around knowledge of the customer, offering great excuses for airline marketing, distribution and IT departments to offer some big projects around data warehouse, customer relationship management and other buzz words. Yet the origin of having a history built around the customer profile will not be solved given the current distribution landscape. So we will know which colour of pyjama our customers wear yet will it help us to earn more revenue or more customer loyalty to know that they wear a red pyjama?
Why not start at least with the basics, eating the elephant in slices, before trying to eat it all and knowing you will never get anywhere - at least for another decade to come. And it will cost a lot of money, making the margins and the profitability yet more difficult to achieve. Why not just follow some simple rules:
1. Ask them (your customers)
- be pragmatic. Listen to your customers and communicate with them, do not try to theoretically just analysing them. You will misinterpret.
- listen to your staff - the ones close to customers and understanding their needs. the ones being innovative and solution oriented.
- ask your customers if they would like a reminder to check in online or mobile, if and what offers they would like to receive, what they are missing, what they like about you - real time, via online chat when they are on your website, via integration in twitter or facebook . Or like Aer New Zealand - when subscribing to the newsletter they ask the question
- “are you a New Zealand expatriate” when subscribing to the newsletter!
- interact and communicate - as your customers do on facebook, twitter, linkedin, with their families or friends and in business all the time - yet airlines refrain from ensuring that their customers know what’s going on, reassuring them with their check in that the flight is on time, or giving well ahead information about delays and their reasons and the options behind; yet airlines refrain from even making use of social media and quite often do not use it to at least monitor their customers’ feedback... Just because they are afraid of how to handle negative feedback? Isn’t it better to know about it and tackle it than having it anyway but ignore it?
- just check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmpusDIYww0&feature=player_embedded - it says it all!
2. Watch trends and take them seriously
- customers want choice - this is why Car Trawler and Holiday Autos achieve higher conversion than integrated one brand only car rentals, why agencies still do have a good reason to exist - if they only used it properly, and why airlines could be much more innovative if they only had some vision and some courage instead of fighting internally for power
- customers want control and information - it should be easy in terms of thinking through the details and integrating it in a web booking option, follow up notifications and in terms of modern technologies allowing for self services
- yet where is the WOW factor, the excitement for younger people, the piece of mind for older ones? The surprise and delight that we are all looking for in these dynamic times? The Coca Cola happyness machine results prove it right. Is this just lost because people in our companies are not willing to reflect and not being creative anymore in the fight to achieve the never ending tasks asked for by their bosses with no real target?
3. Recognise a customer - when he is new on your website or your agency, welcome him and find out what he is looking for in order to come back. Watch if an established customer suddenly increases activity and try to understand why and what you need to do to increase this further. Or the other way around. All of this is not even happening with loyalty programs of airlines nowadays. Let alone normal booking activity. A huge opportunity before investing millions of dollars to find out the colour of the pyjama....
4. Do not ignore any more that technology requirements are increasing, and your well educated customers are making use of them every day, increasing expectations. The Amazons and Apples of this world prove what is feasible. I will not even mention the iPad and iPad 2 revolution. Do not accept any more the hundreds of reasons why things cannot be done but create a culture and an environment of CAN DO.
How to be ahead of the game instead of being reactive all the time? Be proactive! Be courageous.
Always be aware that you have to improve all the time to be ahead of the game.
