Airlines e-commerce teams can't afford to let their online direct conversion rates slip in a highly competitive market.

Considering that driving ancillary revenues outside an airline’s sales channels is a major challenge, e-commerce teams have to focus on fine-tuning their website experience. This means ensuring simplicity of use and relevant tailored offerings in order to step up the average order value.

E-commerce teams have to relentlessly focus on key performance indicators such as online revenue and the cost of distribution. One way to differentiate the online experience is to go beyond commodity descriptions like travelling from one airport to another. There are other aspects like in-flight experience, informing customers about self-service kiosks, mobile apps and so on. If all of these cumulatively end up inspiring and informing customers, then the experience would be much better.

There are few aspects that continuously demand attention:

1.    Technology: Know the advantages of each device in the multi-device environment. Certain devices have an inherent advantage in terms of size of screen, functionality and so on which, where possible, should be highlighted.

2.    Social media: A key aspect is ‘social proofing’ (http://www.eyefortravel.com/social-media-and-marketing/3-reasons-why-social-proofing-business) where customers are informed about which of their friends or fans have availed a particular service. Such integration in the booking funnel is being evaluated keenly. According to specialists, both suppliers and intermediaries will continue to integrate social proofing (across various platforms including mobile apps) into their funnels. One can expect incorporation of personal social data into websites and mobile apps. 

3.    Analytics: The use of analytics to answer the question – ‘Is a customer recognisable?’ is going to get stronger and stronger. 

These areas are being continuously looked upon by e-commerce teams.

EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta spoke to Colin Lewis, bmi regional’s director of marketing, about how e-commerce teams are moving way from crude upsell techniques to deliver a better experience through nifty use of data analytics and lot more.  

EFT: How do you think e-commerce departments are preparing for online sales and digital marketing, with an end-to-end channel responsibility?

CL: Our business is 18 months old, so we’re a part of the digital native generation: being online comes naturally to us. The challenges may come for businesses whose systems have been adapted piecemeal over the years to adapt to but not adopt fully the online model.

EFT: Airlines are constantly trying to improve on the online experience by giving passengers more detail. How are they faring?

CL: Airlines have really upped their game on their websites. Carriers are beginning to understand that improving the customer experience of their site also improves the bottom line. Airlines have moved from crude upsell techniques to understanding the customer’s real objective when coming to an airline website; finding what they want in the quickest time, with as seamless as experience as possible.

EFT: What would you term as the biggest challenge for e-commerce executives?

CL: The biggest focus in any business that has an online channel is to monetise the existing traffic that is already visiting the site. Reaching out to customers, engaging with them and getting to visit a website is a very expensive. The absolute total focus on ensuring conversions are maximised is the most important task.

EFT: The main KPI’s that drive today’s e-commerce departments are online revenue, customer satisfaction, cost of distribution etc. Do they work?  

CL: The best e-commerce strategy is one that delivers efficiency to all parts of the business – and provides the best service levels to customers. In my view, the most important KPIs are:

4.    Source of traffic,

5.    Attribution of traffic,

6.    Click through rate for each source of traffic,

7.    % of unique visits,

8.    Overall conversion rate and conversion rate by traffic source,

9.    Overall average transaction value and average transaction value,

10.   Customer satisfaction (incl net promoter score)

EFT: What do you make of socialising the way we buy tickets and make reservations online? How big an opportunity is this today?

CL: Social provides three levels of opportunity to ensure a great customer experience right through booking cycle and after the sale:

1.    Reaching and engaging customers in a context and environment they prefer

2.    Using this as a source of quality traffic

3.    Maximising customer service using social tools

EFT: Can you share some trends that you think e-commerce executives should be aware of?

CL: Social proof – and building it into the customer experience – is key, as is personalisation: seize the opportunity to treat each customer as an individual with bespoke needs and tailor the offering to them.

EFT: Considering the focus on retailing, are websites evolving accordingly?

CL: The introduction of new tools is ensuring that sites are evolving very quickly: some powerful tools I have observed include using the customers previous buying habit to show products and pricing bundles tailored to the repeat visit, as well as much more simple but effective ideas such as recognising the customers location and delivering the nearest airport in the drop down box.  

EFT: How are e-commerce executives approaching areas like user experience analytics?

CL: Analytics is about better understanding users, and making decisions based on data (not hunches) to improve the website. The challenge for e-commerce executives is that there is way too much data. Focusing on identifying the metrics that matter, using metrics that are actionable (and ignoring the ones that don't) is how to lead changes based on analytics.