LONDON, June 22, 2016
With summer looming, customers all over the world are thinking of their long-awaited travel plans, whether jet-setting to Bali, railing up to Scotland or cruising the Atlantic; the industry is full of expectant customers who want nothing but the best in every part of their journey!
So, how do organisations in this hyper-competitive market prepare? How can they guarantee a perfect experience for each and every one of their customers?
Over the last 6 months, senior executives from across the travel and hospitality industry have had their say regarding the challenges that they are facing on the road to customer excellence, and their thoughts have been collated into this long awaited report Travel & Hospitality Report: Connecting the Customer Experience Dots.
The report features seven exclusive interviews with senior level executives from KLM, Virgin Atlantic Airways, British Airways, Carlson Rezidor and more as they describe how they’ve addressed the industries biggest customer experience challenges.
Ryanne van der Eijk is the Chief Customer Experience Officer at Dutch airline KLM highlights customer intimacy as a differentiating factor: “we have chosen the customer intimacy strategy, differentiating ourselves from others by delivering a great customer experience on every touch point of our journey.”
Abigail Comber, British Airways’ Head of Customer discusses what lies ahead for customer experience and the challenges facing the industry: “Customers are very savvy shoppers with a real mix and match mentality on everything from grocery to fashion retail. The challenge is to always be at the top of the consideration list to ensure you become the first thought at a time of purchase. A lot of those decisions are based on what happened on the last experience or peer feedback, so making every person on every trip feel special is at the top of our agenda.”
Denisa Spinkova, Senior Director, Brand Management EMEA at The Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group discusses brand consistency in delivering memorable guest experiences: “Developing a guest-centric culture is critical. The synchronisation of brands, people, our guests and responsible business operation sets a strong foundation to building customer loyalty.”
So what are the biggest challenges facing customer experience leaders within travel and hospitality and do they match those highlighted by industry leaders including:
– Driving direct bookings and engaging directly with customers
– Transforming loyalty programmes to deliver what customers truly wants
– Addressing customers’ end-to-end journey and making every interaction count towards a better relationship
