Personalizing the travel experience

Aviation industry is today mainly influenced by a variety of external factors that impact their business which can be either on the ground level or up in the air. Examples can be like extreme weather conditions, natural disasters, mechanical problems, labour issues; industrial action, air traffic congestion, security alerts and other disruptions can not only damage an airline’s brand value but also generate unexpected costs.

Analytic tools can be very useful in travel and transportation area as they can help to refine data and thus can determine which information is valuable for optimizing business needs.

Big data capabilities enable integration of various sources of data without the costs associated with the traditional data warehouse environment. Also it helps in capturing the more real time information that can be used for various interactions with customer on a more personnel level. They can help create companies a 360 –degree view of the customer thus improving the customer end to

There can be no doubting the impact that technology-led innovation is set to have on the consumers in the months and years ahead.

The use of biometric can bring a lot of change in the aviation industry as it will not reduce the manual effort but also decrease the risk of duplicate identity crisis.

Also the personalised marketing will help companies to cater the customer specific needs in a more personalised way , by collecting the user information and using it in a more productive way to analyse the specific customer interest .

Synopsis:

The use of biometric will help in improving the customer experience . There are many challenges that airline industry faces like ad-hoc flight cancellation due to weather disruptions, technical glitches etc. and it puts tremendous pressure on the ground staff to accommodate passengers on next flights and generate their new number and many operational data in turn increasing the repetitive work. These irregular operations can hugely impact the costs related to accommodation of passengers, handling of baggage, snacks/meals. It would also put load on the IT infrastructure for immediate re-bookings and cancellations. Additional future impact includes loss of brand value and potential revenue loss due to that.

Also the personalised marketing helps in building a more customer centric environment and catering to the customer specific needs.

It playfully promotes emotional engagement, while cleverly aligning both the user’s needs with business goals and expectation in the technological advances.

Need Analysis

Every airlines company want their customers to have an innovative experience through the terminals and provide with the effort less check at all passenger check point so that the consumers can enjoy their travel experience.

But the problem is: 3. 8 billion passengers used airline transport worldwide last year.(Source : www. independent. co. uk) This number is expected to double in the next 20 years, but it is not possible to grow the airport capacity at that pace.

The solution: Moving customers through the airport faster – at a time when national security and elimination of threats requires ever more stringent scrutiny of every passenger passing through the system.

And that’s where biometrics plays an important role.

Airports can use biometrics to make queue a thing of past , with the developments biometrics can ultimately replace all forms of travel documentation including passports, boarding pass, tickets, identity proofs etc. with the unique physical identification like scanning the thumb at every airport checkpoint.

We are already using biometrics in our daily life including the personal and business lives like in our mobile phone with fingerprints or face scan, office logging by thumb scan and may more.

We can use the idea of e-passport which we can scan and then use the biometrics to authenticate the identity at every checkpoint.

Customer now expect a very personalised touch in almost everything , so mass marketing that companies have been focusing on may not work in near future , so here comes into play the role of personalised marketing . It can help in understanding the customer specific needs, or may be grouping the customer than specifically grouping customers on basis of demographics , income statement etc.,, instead grouping them on basis of favourite tourist destination, favourite sports which will help in targeting customers on the basis of their person choice.

Automating the verification process:

Streamlining the process of identity verification at airports by using biometrics, removing all the manual work required.

The implementation of this automated biometric technology across all airport terminals will enable end to end seamless travel for all the passengers.

This technology will help at all passenger checkpoints from entry in airport to check in, bag drop and boarding, it will help in providing customer a personalised and intuitive experience.

At the time of entry in airport customer can scan their tickets and passport and then use thumb print to authenticate their identity, and at the time of immigration passengers can scan their passports, boarding pass and then proceed toward finger scan to facilitate the identity checks. This automation can also be in future turned into facial recognition or iris recognition.

No confusion as no use of multiple identity proofs

Personalisation in marketing:

Phenomenal increase in use of mobile technology presents huge opportunity in terms of communications with passengers, personalisation and disruption management throughout the end-to-end travel process.

People will be willing to share more and more personal data if trust is built by an airliner that the data will be used not for commercial purposes but only to improve travel experience. If data like location, reason of travel (business or private), contact details, receiver details, emergency contacts, past travel history etc is available in real time it would be of great help in disruption management.

Personalized feed to customers ensures increased customer loyalty. For example, a message can be sent to a frequent flyer offering free lounge access or a restaurant discount during disruptions Personalised marketing instead of mass marketing for travel plans, thus heading towards customer centric environment.

We can deliver timely and relevant notifications to customers about their flight status, train status guiding them in finding the boarding gates or plat form number , also notifying them in case of any gate changes , highlighting any delays beforehand. This will give customers not just the wow factor but also the extra personal touch which will help in customer retention in long run.

Multiple rebooking options can be shared with them on their mobile with flight options filtered either through their previous buying patterns, flight durations, by airline departure times or by prices.

Information can be shared with the appropriate persons who should be notified about the delay in flights , change in gates , customer specific interest information like hotels , shopping centres , local tourist places and various offers depending on the interest the consumer has shown beforehand.

Benefits:

Automating the verification process:

1. No manual efforts needed as all the process will be automated;
2. More accurate and authentic verifying process, no chance of manual error;
3. Reduction in cases of fraud, as the process uses biometrics;
4. Customer satisfaction level increases due to seamless end to end automation;
5. Fewer queues and fewer airport and security staff needed;
6. No confusion as no use of multiple identity proofs;
7. Service agents have the customer’s info and flight details in advance so they can address them in a more personalised way.

Personalisation in marketing:

1. Improve the service delivery;
2. Improvement in marketing strategies;
3. Dynamic pricing – customer centric pricing in real time;
4. Real time info communicated to customer;
5. Increased brand loyalty and trust.

Aviation is a risky business to be in as well. Airline executives know, from long and bitter experience, that circumstances they do not and cannot control — and sometimes could not possibly predict — can devastate a company’s balance sheet within a terrifyingly short time. Technologies come and go — promising fundamental change — most of them are quickly swept under the carpet, sometimes along with an airline or two that guessed wrong, invested too much, jumped too soon.

Demand for an improved travel experience is well-documented, as is the increase in satisfaction when some of those demands are met. Travellers present a conundrum as they are all individuals, with different personas, motivations, need states and expectations — all of which are influenced by the passage of time, culture, maturity, environment and a host of other factors.

Customers want solution providers: when moving from point A to point B is the problem, an airline provides the solution. When a trip involves any number of additional problems, the more of them that can be solved the better — preferably even before the traveller is aware that a problem exists.

Smooth the flight and the customer is grateful. Make the flight an experience that feels personal, one during which the customer feels cared for, and the customer is loyal. Accomplish this across all segments of a trip and the customer is astonished — both grateful and loyal. And that’s great for business.