Ai Editorial: It’s just not about selling the way “Amazon” does, travel needs its niche
First published on 21st July, 2016
Ai Editorial: Delivering “Amazon-like” travel experience is an apt benchmark. But as much as we can learn from the top-notch retail commerce platforms, we shouldn’t forget shopping for travel and say a retail item could be different, too, writes Ai’s Ritesh Gupta
What’s the benchmark for optimizing a traveller's shopping experience?
Quite often clues are taken from the retail sector, which I believe also tends to exert unnecessary pressure on executives from airlines.
Yes, there could be plenty to learn. So it could be running a personalised platform rather than a website that features customer profiles, depicting brand story in a forceful manner and delivering a distinctive experience, customized offers based on personal preferences etc.
But shopping for travel and say a retail item could be different, too. When I search for a book on Amazon, and “how to travel from Zurich to a village in Interlaken?” on a travel e-commerce platform, the requirement could be drastically different. While for a book, I might read 2-3 lines of reviews, price, availability etc. (yes, Amazon might be well anticipate what I intend to read), in case of a trip, I would look for different transportation options and then respective classes in each, things to do, weather, etc. As the number of variables increase, the display of content becomes a challenge, too. Definitely not an easy task for any airline, even though airlines might be knowing where I might travel next!
So any technology-related (or even distribution, loyalty, retailing-related etc.) decision isn’t easy as too much is happening around us. Airlines are contemplating several areas:
· How artificial intelligence (or AI) can pave way for meaningful interactions? Say - personal travel assistant and tips for trips
· Moving away from disconnected things to Internet of Things (IoT)
· Earnings points and miles when a loyal traveller isn’t travelling
· Effective cross-sell and up-sell at the right time and in the right channel
· Drifting away from websites to platforms as one embraces digital transformation
· Layering behavioral data on top of transactional information for real-time complete view of a traveller.
· Crafting luring offers based on contextual marketing, location etc.
· Optimizing user experience via emerging payment options
· Making the most of latest merchandising and retailing technology and overcoming limitations of legacy infrastructure
Plan, invest, learn and learn more
Airlines need to be meticulous about the way they go about planning for the future. Earlier this year JetBlue chose to set up JetBlue Technology Ventures, a wholly owned subsidiary. The plan is to invest in, incubate and partner with early stage start-ups. The advisory team includes CIO, and Executive Vice President – Commercial and Planning, along with other executives from the senior management. As much as a proper vision and an enterprise approach to aligning teams and identifying gaps are required, the organization needs to streamline testing of new concepts on an ongoing basis. Big organizations like Expedia, priceline etc. have proved it – iterations, testing etc. needs to go on and on. This week as I learnt about the introduction of a new artificial intelligence chatbot by Gurgaon, India-based travel search specialist ixigo, it emerged that it took 12 months for the team to come up with their AI chatbot. The offering would continue to evolve, learning from real interactions with users since the team uses artificial intelligence and deep-learning. So the point I was referring to about retail vs. travel – moving from A to B loaded with information that serves the purpose of the trip – travel companies are responding. ixigo is confident, starting with “80% accuracy”, something that has been built upon from over 30 million data points across destinations, points of interest, routes, things to do etc.
Challenge status quo
May be its time airlines looked beyond existing options for IT and distribution. “Airlines are still to a large extent looking for industry specific vendors and solutions, and – in many cases – still looking for a silver bullet to give them a 10- years leap forward. In my opinion, this is truly strange; when realizing that retailing has out-paced aviation, why don’t airlines look to major retailers for learning and to vendors/ systems in the retailing space, even without any airline special requirements?” questioned a source about the current approach. The source further added, “I don’t understand why we are looking for one standard – XML – why not allow any standard? Won’t we have the same problem as we have with EDIFACT today (although EDIFACT serves its purpose well in many environments), what will happen in years to come when we claim that XML is holding us back and we have a better messaging format? In that case use converters so if you want to speak XML and I want to speak JSON, why don’t we just translate?” As it turns out, Google currently supports structured itinerary definitions in email confirmations using two standards: an industry format Called Micro Formats, and their own custom format called JSON-LD.
Talking of selling, indeed if we were to see something new and different like e.g. airlines selling ancillaries on other airlines then I think NDC as a standard would become interesting and tangible. Matching content to offer is a major issue even today. Also, beyond a point don’t blame the so-called legacy structure, why should everything be sold in the same way. Sell as “well” as you can in the channels where you can sell and measure those sales. British Airways is introducing a host of servicing options and an additional payment option via NDC. Agents booking BA flights through NDC enabled systems are being equipped to pre-book additional luggage, advise the airline of catering requests for pre-order etc.
Collaborative approach
Airlines are not technology providers. They are service providers.
So in order to carve a niche, a strong collaboration is needed between strategy, marketing, operations, analytics and IT teams before any major initiative is taken. Your technology should integrate seamlessly across channels and touchpoints, while effectively scaling to meet your evolving needs. This is often easier said than done due to legacy systems and data silos. The digital transformation should not be linked to a certain department anymore.
As for keeping pace with the pace of personalisation and omni-channel retailing, airlines will have to implement a system that can link all the data that is being gathered together to enable intelligent offer management capabilities based on the identification of customers and their preferences. And things are moving. For instance, a carrier in Europe is working on a customer-centric platform. They have chosen a supplier that provides a modern CRM platform framework that enables the integration of all relevant operational systems. Besides the PSS it’s possible to integrate an external identity and access management system as well as social media, real time arrival and departure information and many more. Based on all these sources of data it’s possible to develop applications that can use and combine such data to serve the customers in the best way.
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