Today’s travellers are more connected than ever, so travel brands now have the opportunity to drive loyalty through new touchpoints in real time, creating an ‘omnichannel’ loyalty experience. EyeforTravel’s Ritesh Gupta explores what this phenomenon is all about.

From the moment a customer begins to interact with a brand, the underlying goal should be to drive loyalty. In the past those interactions came from a few touchpoints. In travel those typically included reservations, transactions during the trip itself and post-travel contact to drive future bookings.

However, as travellers use technology to an ever-greater degree, the focus should be on driving loyalty through new touchpoints in real time. This way one can create an ‘omnichannel loyalty experience’, according to Kobie Marketing, a specialist in loyalty marketing. This means companies can reap benefits when their loyalty initiative is rooted in the customer lifecycle and on channels of customers’ choice.

For this to happen, all new touchpoints need to be minutely scrutinised. For instance, capitalising on mobile is one sure way of pleasing customers considering it is increasingly becoming their choice of accessing information.

Feeling connected

Consistency is king when it comes to delivering great customer experiences. But it takes a lot to achieve this. Each channel has its own attributes with regard to communications, service delivery, exception handling, etc. What needs to be consistent across all the channels is the emotional outcome a travel brand offers. How passengers feel is what connects them to a brand.

“Keep the feelings consistent across channels and any brand can earn customers for life,” says Storyminers’ Mike Wittenstein, a specialist in this area.

He believes that many brands are simply trying to purchase loyalty through the design of the programmes they offer. “You can’t buy loyalty. The brands I choose to serve me must earn it. In the end, a better experience, if delivered authentically, is all I need to give a brand my business. Simply asking me to ‘friend them’ or ‘vote for them’ is an attempt to shortcut the hard work of making the experience better. When it comes to differentiating your brand on the details of service delivery, shortcuts simply don’t work,” explains Wittenstein.

What about travellers’ indecisiveness? Have they become fickle?

A few months ago, it was highlighted that with more digital retail channels the way shoppers go about their shopping has evolved too. Significantly, the time taken to finish a fashion purchase has gone up by seven times if one compares how much time was taken a decade ago. So how should companies approach loyalty in today’s multi-channel, multi-platform environment?

Bram Hechtkopf, VP of business development and marketing, Kobie Marketing doesn’t necessarily believe ‘fickle’ is the right word in this context. Savvy with a healthy dose of brand scepticism might be a more accurate description, as consumers today are bombarded with brand messaging that is often irrelevant or ill-timed, he says.

“The drivers of consumer behaviour haven’t changed in millennia,” says Hechtkopf. It is the environment in which consumers respond that has become dramatically more complex. A loyalty initiative can exhibit value provided companies “link consumer engagement across all channels and touchpoints while loyalty metrics would be more useful if they were acted upon in real time,” he says.

Focusing on mobile

Smartphones and tablets are some of the most direct ways that travel brands can connect with their loyalty programme members, as these devices have become travellers’ constant companions. Because of that constant connection, mobile is also one of the most personal, ‘always on’ channels.

It is this personalisation that’s key, according to Hechtkopf. British Airways’ ‘Know Me’ programme, for instance, uses tablet technology to learn more about traveller needs and wants. Loyalty programmes also need to be embedded throughout the traveller experience, providing members with real-time access and instant rewards where applicable.

“One way travel brands are achieving this is through apps like Apple’s Passbook, the loyalty, reward card, gift card (and in airlines’ case, mobile boarding pass) aggregator. The rapid growth in Passbook’s popularity indicates that a fully digital, paperless and card-less world is approaching fast,” says Hechtkopf. Whether it’s the pre-ordering of drinks and meals, seat pre-selection or offerings linked to one’s hotel stay, all of these can and should be directed to a passenger’s mobile device and potentially used to reward loyalty programme members, adds Hechtkopf.

Improving loyalty metrics 

On one level, loyalty performance can be gauged by traditional metrics: member sign ups, tier status, miles or points accrued (for either air travel or hotel stay), total miles accumulated, frequency of airline and hotel brand used, and positive or negative reactions on paper and online surveys.

“These are all well and good,” says Hechtkopf. “But notice how they’re all after the fact. Suppose a consumer is having a poor loyalty experience. Finding this out after they’ve been disappointed helps no one. Instead, travel brands must ensure their loyalty programme and corporate-management structure are in top form before a loyalty programme is launched.

“Doing that requires taking what we at Kobie call the ‘Five ‘Es’ exam and asking its five associated questions,” says Hechtkopf.

These are:

·         Enterprise: Does your travel brand have C-level buy-in?

·         Economics: Is your loyalty programme creating real dollar benefit?

·         Experience: Are your sales and IT staff up to the loyalty programme and converged management task?

·         Engagement: Is your customer data (from your loyalty programme and elsewhere) aligned with your messaging and branding?

·         Execution: To what extent are you following through on the above four ‘Es?’

Discovering where your travel brand falls on the ‘Five Es’ continuum is essential in gauging your organisation’s readiness to embrace today’s new omnichannel loyalty initiatives and the behind-the-scenes IT legwork required to make them happen. The focus should be on assessing and rewarding incremental behaviour, with member preferences following them throughout every stage of their loyalty experience.