Customer experience is a crucial revenue opportunity in travel, says One Connected Community’s latest research
One Connected Community’s (OCC) Breakthrough Customer Experience across the Travel Journey research, shaped by executives at Airbnb, Starwood Hotels, Emirates and Heathrow Airport, highlights four strategic priorities to boost the bottom-line with a customer centric approach in 2016
OCC’s latest travel research places digital platforms, thinking and practices to drive customer engagement as mission-critical at every level and department to drive revenue in 2016.
As the proliferation of mobile devices and innovative models continue to disrupt and shape the way customers travel, one thing is clear – customer experience (CX) matters more than ever.
As customer expectations evolve, hotels, airlines and intermediaries recognise that CX is the only way to truly differentiate, and they are not willing to sit back and watch as their customers (and revenues) slowly move to innovative, customer-centric solutions.
In this setting, key travel stakeholders are searching for new ways to create seamless, meaningful and personalised customer experiences across the entire journey.
The goal is to target customers in the moment at every touch point, taking advantage of digital platforms and innovative models, with personalised content and offers to improve loyalty, direct channel bookings and ancillary revenues.
Those that take advantage of such capabilities stand to gain against competitors that don’t.
It’s an exciting time for travel, but there are significant challenges associated with the innovation models behind engaging customers across the entire journey.
To win in the customer-centric world, travel brands must adopt next-generation digital thinking and practices to move away from the traditional product approach to a customer journey approach. It’s no longer about selling a room or a flight, but selling a personal service.
This requires a considerable investment of time, money and resources as well as a willingness to experiment and make continual improvements.
OCC’s Breakthrough Customer Experience across the Travel Journey is designed to help hotels, airlines and intermediaries strengthen their strategy in this complex and rapidly developing shift. Shaped by leading execs at Airbnb, Starwood Hotels, Brussels Airlines, Heathrow Airport and Emirates, the research identifies four strategic priorities to help define a seamless, personalised strategy, and provide a benchmark to execute transformation.
Complacent businesses will very soon be swept away by innovative companies. Creating a stellar customer experience isn’t just about surviving – but thriving.
Download the full seven-page research here: http://www.oneconnectedcommunity.com/content
Title: Breakthrough Customer Experience across the Travel Journey in 2016
Research Highlights include:
– Understand customer emotion at every touch point to boost your bottom line
– Locate, integrate and manage data to target customers in the moment with authentic experiences
– Place customer service as mission-critical at every level and department at your company
– The importance of mobile for personalised offers, ancillary revenues and on-board content

George Kiley, Director, OCC says: “The culmination of months of research, this summary provides invaluable insight to help travel professionals better engage customers, which is very much at the heart of growth strategies in 2016.”
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this research are ideas developed during research conversations and brainstorming sessions, and are not necessarily the corporate views of the organisations involved.

About OCC
One Connected Community (OCC) focuses on the role of technology in customer experience, transformation and outcome driven innovation.
OCC shares inspirational stories to highlight how technology and engaging customer experiences (CX) make a real difference to the bottom line. We do this by inviting the most influential figures to challenge, transform and define the future of CX across industry-leading talks and multimedia research.
Since 2013, every ticket purchased support London’s young adults who have learning disabilities lead successful and fulfilling lives

For more information contact:

Dovile Giedraityte on dovile@oneconnectedcommunity.co.uk
Tel: +44 (0)208 8193122
Website: http://www.oneconnectedcommunity.com