Ai Editorial: 2FA improves security, but is it enough for your FFP?

First Published on 26^th March, 2019

Ai Editorial: Most enterprises rely on static verification measures to shield loyalty accounts or make sure there is no unauthorized FFP access. But are these enough? Not really, writes Ai’s Ritesh Gupta  

Specialists point out that initiatives such as two-factor authentication (2FA) and multi-factor authentication (MFA) can be bypassed by fraudsters (e.g. via SIM hacks or SIM swaps) and result in needless friction for customers. More must be done in terms of ensuring user accounts are secure from fraud. It is clear that many merchants face a tussle when it comes to balancing the need for security and optimizing UX, which is tough to attain if they tend to rely on 2FA/ MFA.

Issues

There are issues, be it for lack of stringent security or increasing friction in the user experience.

It is pointed out that 2FA is not completely secure. Most organizations rely on 2FA for account protection, which can be overcome by fraudsters with deceptive tactics, such as SMS phishing to trick users into giving up their 2FA reset codes; it is also not uncommon for fraudsters to intercept the confirmation SMS messages, proving that 2FA is not sufficient to prevent fraudulent account takeovers. For many other enterprises, the focus on improving user experience takes priority, and therefore no measures for account protection has been taken, leaving their accounts vulnerable to fraud attacks.

Fraudsters don’t find it tough to bypass the feeble implementations, either by intercepting codes or exploiting account-recovery systems. There have been reports about illegitimately amending a mobile device’s accessibility settings, activating a mobile operating system’s overlay accessibility feature, and eventually imitating a user’s clicks to access the legitimate app and committing a fraudulent act like using miles or transferring money from an app. An example of the same is an Android Trojan, being termed as a malware that blends the proficiency of a remotely controlled banking Trojan with a new misuse of Android accessibility services. It is used to target users of the official PayPal app! (The report also explains how PayPal’s 2FA was breached).

Another aspect of 2FA being unable to eradicate the risk completely is owing to the problem of phishing attacks.

Earlier this year, a penetration testing tool challenged the efficacy of 2FA. It emerged that security researcher Piotr Duszyński managed to automate phishing attacks and blow through login operations for accounts protected by 2FA. On his blog, Duszyński referred to the reverse proxy “Modlishka” tool. When users enter their respective passwords, they are recorded in the Modlishka backend panel, while the reverse proxy also prompts users for 2FA tokens when users have configured their accounts to request one.

If fraudsters/ hackers are alert and working to collect these 2FA tokens in real-time, they can use them to log into users’ accounts and set up new “valid” sessions.

Other than feeble authentication, fraud prevention specialist CashShield referred to the limited scope of protection via 2FA. For example, a fraudster who has bought a frequent flyer account from the dark web can bypass the 2FA and proceed to redeem the miles in the account, since there is no security measure implemented at the point of redemption.

Overcoming these issues

Users need to be made aware of unrequested authentication scenarios. Considering the fact in case of 2FA a user is only prompted for authentication when a request is made by them. So users need to reject any initiative related to authentication when they didn’t make any request for the same.Receiving any email that refers to a phone call or push notification for confirmation of one’s identity, one needs to make sure such emails aren’t responded to.

Also when it comes to the user experience, rather than using a blanket rule that forces every user to login with 2FA, real-time surveillance can be used to assess logins in the background, and only logins with borderline risks expected to go through 2FA. This would greatly improve the user experience on the whole, while ensuring that security for accounts is not taken for granted.

Also, machine learning technologies are emerging as an astute option to secure accounts. The efficacy of machine learning, especially real-time machine learning, can be explored for account protection. Rely on both supervised and unsupervised machine learning to comprehend both the historical patterns of use, as well as identify anomalies. According to CashShield, behavioral analytics with pattern recognition will be able to accurately filter fraudsters away from genuine users.

Hear from senior executives about login authentication and account takeover at the upcoming ATPS (21st Century Customer Experience for Payments & Fraud - Airline & Travel Payments Summit) to be held in London (Brighton), UK  (7-9 May, 2019).

For more information, click here

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Ai Editorial: Flirting in aircraft or points for quality sleep – what entices you?

First Published on 8th Feb, 2019

Ai Editorial: The last few days have been exciting. Delta and Coca-Cola apologized for introducing flirtatious napkins on-board, whereas Qantas chose to offer frequent flyer members points for quality sleep. No one likes to be pushed for sharing any sort of details, so airlines need to make every interaction count, writes Ai’s Ritesh Gupta

There aren’t many great examples of airlines sending over messages that resonate well with travellers.

Irrelevant emails that are all about sale alerts or handing out passengers a form to become a loyalty program member without explaining them what are they being given are most annoying. Akin to handing out napkins suggesting passengers give their name and number to their “plane crush”, an on-board initiative for which Delta and Coca-Cola issued an apology, too. One airline in India, in operation for more than 14 years that I haven’t flown due to a couple of bad experiences, continues to send emails with exclusive offers that remain inapt.

Certain areas where airlines, as an industry, can definitely improve are:

1.    Every interaction counts: Every message or interaction, be it for an ad, email, an offline interaction etc. at the airport etc. counts.

In an era, where companies are looking at understanding a traveller’s intent/ emotion from both digital and offline interactions, being off the mark with an ad or digital experience isn’t done. Also, it is laborious to go deeper into serving across different phases of a journey, but airlines have to be ready to serve the traveller. Rather than just placing a napkin that paves way for matchmaking, how about using means – be it for via single view of the customer or empathizing by any method to understand the traveller. What if a traveller, who is extremely tired after connecting a flight, is informed about the serving of the food? This sort of messaging/ interaction counts a lot.

“Experience needs to be less frustrating,” says airline and hotel loyalty expert, David Feldman.

“When there is an intersection of attitudinal (revolves around delivering superlative experiences and has strong ties into customer support) and behavioral loyalty (might not be a true indicator of one’s satisfaction level, is whether or not customers act loyal by opting to book the same brand), it results in an emotional level of connection. And that’s a sign of true loyalty. A brand has to excel and serve appropriately across a gamut of touchpoints,” highlighted Feldman.

2.    Don’t only look at “digital”: This week, Gartner, in one of its blog posts, mentioned that just keeping the focus on “digital journey can lead your CX program astray”. A couple of key observations:  

·          It’s not just about digital, even though customers are extensively using digital channels, devices, and habits have developed around them. “We are all analog creatures living in an increasingly digital world,” stated the post.

·          To do personalization right for CX, it is essential to be “outside-in,” which means understanding and meeting customer expectations and measuring the impact to the customer.

3.    Being a part of a lifestyle: There is constant discussion around how travel being an infrequent buy for a majority of leisure travellers needs to figure ways to be a part of one’s lifestyle – be it for inspiring them for their next holiday, letting one accrue miles/points for their grocery shopping etc.

What if a travel brand even goes beyond the booking funnel, and becomes an ally for integral aspects of daily routine. Qantas took a striking step in this direction this week. The airline’s frequent flyer members are being an option to earn Qantas points while they sleep using the Qantas Wellbeing app.

Rather than pushing messages on app/ sending emails that are devoid of any meaningful offering (for instance, what’s the point in sending offers that aren’t based around the search on the app or the site? If a traveller is searching for airline’s destination content, then how about stitching 1st party data from various sources and coming up with an offer?) or worrying about how many times a mobile app is opened, it is time travel brands genuinely look at building affiliation so that they become a part of one’s lifestyle. By encouraging healthy sleep and lifestyle habits, Qantas is going beyond its commercial association. The free Qantas Wellbeing app is about – setting bedtime routine, prompts flyers to track how they feel upon waking, assess how better sleep practices affect their mood etc. The app has been developed by Qantas Health Insurance (downloaded over 400,000 times).

Once a brand keeps on adding value, with such assiduous approach, it can only improve upon their understanding of travellers.    

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Ai Editorial: Why ONE Order holds key to a sublime day of travel experience?

First Published on 3rd January, 2019

Ai Editorial: The planned offer and order management systems, and the concept of ONE Order holds a lot of promise, writes Ai's Ritesh Gupta

Airlines, collectively as an industry, over the years haven’t really excelled in the arena of servicing during the actual consumption of the product.  

Be it for the day-of-travel-experience or even at the time of disruption, there is a scope for improvement.

Though not many full-service carriers have shown swiftness in this context, a handful of them have embraced agile transformation to enrich the passenger experience. And with IATA’s initiative ONE Order program, based around the concept of a single order record, one can only expect the journey of travellers to get better.

ONE Order - an integral part of data-driven enterprise

Not just airlines, but organizations from other sectors, too, are unable to serve their customers owing to inconsistent, fragmented, duplicated, and siloed data landscape in the typical enterprise. But there are certain challenges that are associated with each industry. Airlines are no different, when we think of legacy methodologies.

Even if airlines look at integrating data and strengthen their infrastructure via customer data platforms, they have to reassess industry-specific solutions. As several pieces of a puzzle have to be sorted to ensure passengers are identified at the time when it is needed, it is vital for airlines to look at airline-specific systems and processes to completely provide an answer to siloed data scenario. For example, if data is being ingested from only a fraction of sources, especially the 1st party ones, it wouldn't serve the passenger in all scenarios. That's where the planned offer and order management systems, and the concept of ONE Order holds a lot of promise.

Considering the significance of NDC and ONE Order, the industry is gradually coming to grips with massive changes. An industry-wide as well as a collaborative effort is being made to ascertain what needs to be done to provide a more robust offer and order structure. The industry today stands at a crucial juncture as far as embracing airline retailing is concerned. Every step in the process is expected to bring in a change. For instance, NDC will continue to create e-tickets. But once a switch is made to ONE Order there will be no tickets.

One Order combines the PNR data information with the E-ticket and the EMD information into one single record.

As envisioned by IATA, One Order will result in the gradual disappearance of multiple reservation records as well as e-ticket/ EMD concepts to be replaced by a single reference travel document. A new standardized and expandable reference will become the single access point for customer orders by third parties (interline partners, distribution channels, ground handling agents and airport staff, among others).

In the One Order environment, all information is contained in a single order.

"ONE Order would have information about the passenger's journey. And order would be created based on the passenger information that the airline has. When you go into modifying the order, the process would require a new offer. And that offer is always created considering passenger details and personalization," shared Ryan Harris, Director at JR Technologies’ Research and Development Centre in Dublin.

As for how this also simplifies servicing the passenger, imagine meeting a request for changing a seat after a boarding pass has been issued. Today DCS (departure control system) is a separate system. Advanced seat reservation happens in reservation, not in DCS. Information goes from reservation to DCS. Today's environment is complex, as it is not a real-time transaction. But with ONE Order and integrated, connected set up, a system like DCS would be having order information in real-time and updating it. "Everything resides in real-time in that order. In the NDC world, it is one source of data - it doesn't need to be siloed or to be transferred from system to another. So there is one copy of data in today's scenario and if it isn't shared with another, then it remains siloed. Tomorrow with ONE Order, there won't be any single copy or lag time," shared Harris.

The significance of historical data that an airline has about an individual and using it to dynamically bundle and unbundle services and products to create a offer has been discussed widely. As data is received by systems in real-time, and with processing capabilities, analytics and application of algorithms, airlines can set out for coming up with a relevant offer or meeting a passenger's needs on the day of travel, too.

Referring to the screen/ interface that is used by the staff at the airport or in-flight attendants, Harris said, "The key here is automation. The agent shouldn't be making a decision. Decisions should be made for them (predictive analytics or pattern recognition). The IT and operational set up (via Offer and Order Management), airlines would have the capability to use big data/ analytics in real-time. Also, the interface can be customized as per the request of the airline."

How would it work?

Airlines aren't starting from the scratch. Just as in case of offers, there would be NDC and non-NDC content, there has to be a way for converting PNR into orders. So one can expect a platform, running in parallel to an airline’s PSS. It would feature complete PSS booking connectivity and document processing capability, converting PNR into orders. This way a master record would be stored. Changes or answering queries in real-time, including on the day of travel, would become a possibility with this central source of truth.

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Ai Editorial: Emotional connection in loyalty – making it work

First Published on 19^th December, 2018

Ai Editorial: When there is an intersection of attitudinal and behavioral loyalty, it results in an emotional level of connection. And that’s a sign of true loyalty. Ai’s Ritesh Gupta assesses where airlines stand in this arena.

The combination of technology, data, analytics and even new processes such as IATA’s One Order is expected to play a major role in fostering loyalty going forward.

But this journey is still in the preliminary stages for most of the airlines and there is a long way to go before all of it stitches together a formidable personalized delivery of service. Long way because even though airlines are evaluating and going for technology platforms that prioritize security as well as manage multiple, complex data sources, capturing data from every interaction is far from being a reality. A case in point is interactions on the day of travel – at the airport, at the gate, on-board etc. These can be vital sources of how a loyal passenger rates an experience and what can be done to improve the same and the consumption of the product.

Coming to grips with the gap

Studies have highlighted the issues associated with loyalty. Earlier this year, Google stressed that marketers must think about earning both - attitudinal loyalty (how loyal a traveler feels) and behavioral loyalty (how loyal a traveler acts). Attitudinal loyalty revolves around delivering superlative experiences and has strong ties into customer support. But it doesn't always translate into action. Behavioral loyalty, which might not be a true indicator of one’s satisfaction level, is whether or not customers act loyal by opting to book the same brand. To stand out and earn both attitudinal and behavioral loyalty, a brand has to excel and serve appropriately across a gamut of touchpoints. And one could be interacting via a personal device, at the check-in counter, a kiosk at the airport, at the gate, with a flight attendant etc. This looks like a herculean task if one hasn’t even started yet.

Airline and hotel loyalty expert, David Feldman, says, “When there is an intersection of attitudinal and behavioral loyalty, it results in an emotional level of connection. And that’s a sign of true loyalty.” He says it is imperative for brands to focus on the data aspect as well as the value proposition of the loyalty offering. Citing an example of a retail program, he said a customer can join a program, avail a discount coupon frequently and exhibit a habitual shopping pattern. It could denote behavioral loyalty, but may not necessarily result in an emotional connection. “Rather it would be prudent to act on the available data and ensure every push notification or email demonstrates certain value in the offers being sent (or even a piece of communication that is related to consumption of the product),” he said.

Value isn’t just about incremental revenue 

It is laborious to go deeper into serving across different phases of a journey, but airlines have to be ready to serve the traveller.

“Use data not only for offers but rather imagine what is the overall experience like for their loyal travellers. Experience needs to be less frustrating,” highlighted Feldman. Imagine a scenario where a loyal traveller prefers to sit on the aisle, and hasn’t booked such a seat. It is for the airline to understand such preference and offer whenever it can at an opportune time. What’s the point in the seat being available and the traveller noticing the same on his or her own? “Incremental revenue is a natural progression provided an airline is able to understand the journey better and even more importantly makes the journey comfortable and less frustrating,” said Feldman.

Work in progress 

For those who are in pursuit of recognizing each traveller by working out their respective unique profile, there are hurdles but nevertheless there are rewards to be reaped. For instance, as proposed with One Order, it would replace PNR, EMD and E-ticket, and combine the booking and ticketing records into a single customer focused order. Now if one blends this with past data available about each passenger, real-time data, continuously acting on it, and offering a relevant rules-driven automated signal to the staff at the airport, this would only help in servicing the loyal traveller better. 

Of course, there are areas that aren’t going to make all of this a breeze. One area which demands major attention is offline data – say interactions on the day of travel at the airport. The industry is trying to include emotional data into what is already available – transactional and behavioral data. Even as technology is improving to capture the same, airlines, like other organizations, aren’t yet clear with data privacy-related issues.

But airlines can’t sit idle and have to strive to understand travellers better. Otherwise they won’t be able to get closer to earning both attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty.

Hear from experts at the upcoming Ancillary Merchandising Conference to be held in London 9-11 April, 2019

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Ai Editorial: Loyalty currency not ready to go down the “digital currency” road yet

First Published on 10^th October, 2018

Ai Editorial: The trend of airlines letting their members burn their loyalty currency on 3^rd party sites is yet to pick up in a big way in Asia, writes Ai’s Ritesh Gupta

The likes of GetGo in Philippines and India’s JetPrivilege are associated with the biggest shopping players in their respective markets. But the way, for instance, Hilton, is allowing its members to redeem their Hilton Honors Points for purchases at Amazon.com, such a trend is yet to become common in the Asia Pacific region.  

·          E-commerce players in India, including Amazon and Flipkart, are ready to unleash their mega shopping deals in mid-October. Consumers, too, are ready to capitalize on offers, mainly owing to the biggest festive season in India. JetPrivilege, with a base of 8.5 million members, is offering its members earning opportunities directly on their purchase at Amazon and Flipkart. The programme, which is managed by Jet Privilege Private Limited (JPPL), a joint venture between Jet Airways and Etihad Airways, has been looking at ways and means to delight it’s members across various customer touchpoints. JetPrivilege understands that when members are offered choice and flexibility in the way they earn and redeem their reward currency, their engagement with the programme increases, which in turn leads to them sharing more data about their choices with the programme.

·          GetGo, the lifestyle rewards program by Cebu Pacific, works with Lazada Group which operates Southeast Asia’s number one online shopping and selling platform. Users earn GetGo points when they shop with Lazada.

·          In case of Air China's Phoenix Miles, members can buy non-travel products from 300 partners. But this shopping is only restricted to the airline-owned site/ app. Members can't shop with their loyalty currency on other e-commerce platforms or offline outlets.

It’s about flexibility and convenience 

So all a Hilton member needs to do is link their Hilton Honors account to their Amazon.com account, and as announced last year, one could redeem their points every time they made a purchase at Amazon.com. One could use as many or as few points they wish to. In fact, as has become the case with loyalty shopping, one could also partially use points for part of their order and have the remaining balance charged to any other eligible payment method. All of this could done and accessed at the time of check-out.

Letting members redeem loyalty currency at Amazon or any other e-commerce app that is opened quite frequently is about the ease of shopping, flexibility and convenience.

“Our currency is limited in terms of how (members) can spend it (mainly around flights and ancillaries),” says Nik Laming, General Manager – Loyalty,  Cebu Air Pacific Air. As per the information available, GetGo is close to having a base of 4 million users, in a span of three and a half years. 

“We are evaluating how far we intend to go down the road of becoming a digital currency (especially in the context of redemption options). We are undecided but we are likely to land somewhere in the middle. Or at least to start off so that we expand the redemption options, which might include to shop (with loyalty currency) at Lazada or other partners. We may not go the whole way of saying they (points) are equivalent of dollars and allowing it to be  spent anywhere,” indicated Laming, who was recently in Bangkok for Ai’ s #MegaAPAC conference.

Frequent vs. infrequent travellers 

There has been discussion around whether FFPs should become a two-sided marketplace. “The decision to participate on 3rd party sites depends on several factors, and one of them is related to the profile of travellers. If an airline believes that running a classic frequent flyer program that tends to rely mainly on frequent flyers and can be actively engaged via flying benefits, rewards etc., then they might not open up to be a completely digital currency,” mentioned a source. “On the other hand, a lifestyle rewards program is different from a frequent flyer programme. It could be after a traveller who only travels once or twice a week, for them to open up a range of earn and burn options is understandable. It is important for such progammes to understand who their members are, what motivates their purchases, how they eventually spend money etc.”    

“Our big focus is on the earn side. So we wanted to build the ecosystem of “earn” first. Because the average infrequent traveller we are trying to appeal still aspires to travel, so the reward they want is travel. Also, to make it appealing to a broader audience, we also need to look at other redemption options. Could be of a smaller ticket size – redeeming a burger at the airport to a hotel accommodation – still could revolve around the travel experience,” mentioned Laming.

Hear from senior industry executives about loyalty at the upcoming Mega Event Worldwide (Ancillary, Loyalty & Co-Brand Conferences) to be held in Long Beach, California (31st October – 2nd November, 2018).

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Ai Editorial: Blockchain and loyalty – setting the right expectations

First Published on 5^th October, 2018

Ai Editorial: The utility of blockchain, a shared, secure ledger of transactions distributed among a network of computers, in the travel sector is on the rise. Still there is a mixed response as far as this technology going mainstream in the near future is concerned, writes Ai’s Ritesh Gupta

Blockchain’s use cases, both the in B2C and B2B sectors, have been on the rise this year.

Key developments from various disciplines include:

·          One of the attractive areas in the B2C arena is capitalizing on transparency that blockchain provides for digital transactions to simplify a traveller’s journey. For instance, a customer buys tickets – flight, train, local transportation etc. – and owing to the efficiency of the blockchain ledger one purchase is recorded. This way mobility companies end up offering end-to-end travel, and the ledger accurately splits the payment part, too. DB Systel, the IT provider for Deutsche Bahn (DB), is looking at this option, working with IBM for the same.

·          Online travel company Webjet this year worked on a blockchain-based data reconciliation B2B offering to sort out transaction rows associated with the hotel distribution industry. The objective was to take care of hotel booking disputes in real-time. According to Webjet, a smart contract establishes neutral transaction accounts and can inform any organization contributing in the chain as transaction disputes emerge.

·          A company like ATPCO, too, is looking at blockchain to contribute in the arena of airline distribution. The company asserts that one use case that can be evaluated is related to NDC and One Order implementations by featuring a distributed and decentralized trust-based authority for offers and orders. According to the proof of concept suggested, ATPCO can “act as the authority for the integrity of the offer to ensure that all actions surrounding the offer are managed correctly, accurately, and in compliance with tax, industry governance, and any applicable interline agreements”.  

Being pragmatic 

Talking from loyalty perspective, an airline executive mentioned there is no dearth of application of blockchain in the loyalty space but one needs to be pragmatic when it comes to this technology fuelling innovation.  “It (blockchain) comes into play especially where there has been some kind of previous transfer or messaging being used for transactions. We already had the ability to do transfers and transactions in loyalty through APIs and prior to that through file transfers. So is blockchain going to make a difference by being a support function i. e. to support a business strategy? So clearly business strategy won’t change as a result of using blockchain.”

Nik Laming, General Manager – Loyalty,  Cebu Air Pacific Air, agreed and shared his perspective around what to expect from blockchain.

“There is no doubt that blockchain is a technological innovation,” he said. “(It needs to be considered that) blockchain does have applications, no doubt. But it is being used more as a gimmick at the moment. Rather it should be an IT-driven initiative looking at better ways to transfer data from one system to another.” Laming added, “There is scope for lot of applications of blockchain, both in airlines and in the loyalty arena. (Suitable) where you have got any transfer of data between one system and another especially in the financial world and as loyalty transaction processing system are very similar to banking system anywhere you have got a transfer. For example, to integrate with a partner you could use blockchain effectively to make that transaction so that there was no risk of failure and only one ledger that gets updated.”  

Blockchain is being counted upon to open attractive rewards for loyalty program members. It would help in offering the missing flexibility to spend their loyalty currency. It is being highlighted that just as blockchain-powered solutions help financial transactions happen instantly, they can speed up rewards redemptions too.

Among potential shortcomings, it is being highlighted that this technology is yet to have the technological proficiency required to manage commonplace loyalty requirements beyond basic currency transaction processing.

Loylogic recently referred to single program use case and multiple program use case for blockchain. Dr. Akif Khan, Head of PointsPay, mentioned that it would be tough to “envision any large loyalty program investing wholeheartedly in moving its infrastructure onto a blockchain-based solution when the value proposition compared to existing proven technology remains difficult to prove and quantify” at this juncture. He also highlighted that in case of multiple program use case, issues such as disengagement from the brand need to be considered. In his concluding remark, he stated that at this relatively early stage in the technology’s evolution, blockchain still feels like a solution looking for a problem in the loyalty space.

Hear from senior industry executives about blockchain at the upcoming Mega Event Worldwide (Ancillary, Loyalty & Co-Brand Conferences) to be held in Long Beach, California (31st October – 2nd November, 2018).

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Ai Editorial: More choice in FFPs = more data about users

First Published on 28^th September, 2018

Ai Editorial: The quality of data has a big role to play in knowing loyal customers better and one way to step up the same is making the reward store more attractive by offering choice. If cracked right, this can be a beneficial virtuous circle for operators of FFPs, writes Ai’s Ritesh Gupta

Offering choice to a loyalty program member isn’t new, but it is now imperative as more one redeems or even accesses an app to check out options, more is the likelihood of knowing a traveller better.

Airlines are banking on a data platform as a decentralised framework built for agility. And this is being exemplified by openness to breaking data silos, and even looking at ways to capturing real-time behavioral data and acting on unstructured data. The quality of data has a big role to play in knowing loyal customers better and one way to step up the same is making the reward store more attractive. Choice is a way to deal with inactiveness or discontentment among members.

Significance of choice in FFPs

A loyalty program’s survival and success is all about making the right choice, asserts Loylogic’s CEO Dominic Hofer.

In a blog post, he wrote, “We take for granted having so many choices in life, but when we have no choice in a matter then we remark upon its absence in a negative way.”

Hofer recommends that companies not only need to focus on a diversified range of trending merchandise, but also offer different means of redemption.

India’s JetPrivilege (JPPL), a joint venture between Jet Airways and Etihad Airways, acknowledges that when members are offered the choice and flexibility in the way they earn and redeem their reward currency, their engagement with the programme increases, which in turn leads to them sharing more data about their choices with the programme.

Also, by letting members collect loyalty currency when they spend on daily products like fuel and relatively frequent buys like movie tickets or dining out, JetPrivilege is also stepping up its efforts to track the activity of the user. “…search, digital platform’s usage, cart abandonment on our site – everything is being tracked. This online data is being blended with underlying offline data and it results in the evolution of our journey (of being customer-centric via data-driven initiatives,” mentioned Manish Dureja, MD, Jet Privilege in a recent interview. He shared that JPPL is adding around 4000 members on a daily basis. 

The JPPL team has been working on plans to scrutinize whatever data is available and creating unique profiles all of its members. As per the recent update, there were 22 databases/ systems and more are being integrated.  

Offering choice when it comes to using loyalty currency 

Specialists also point out that choice isn’t about just redemption. It is also equally important to let one pay in a variety of ways, say a mobile wallet option in a particular market, or use the loyalty currency for the same. Plus, redemption isn’t restricted to an airline’s digital asset only. Airlines have been extending the use of their loyalty currency in channels outside their own environment. use their miles or points for an online purchase on a 3rd party site. 

How to increase the stickiness of your FFP or loyalty programme? Hear from experts at the upcoming Mega Event Worldwide (Ancillary, Loyalty & Co-Brand Conferences) to be held in Long Beach, California (31^st October – 2^nd November, 2018).

For more info, click here

Ai Editorial: Understanding the data journey of Jet Privilege

First Published on 27th July, 2018

Ai Editorial: JetPrivilege has been focusing on the single view of its members ever since its existence as an independent entity. Ai's Ritesh Gupta assesses how the company is strengthening its data prowess.

Airlines, as an industry, has had to live with a tag of being a `laggard’ for years owing to the process-centric nature of this business. But there have been carriers that chose to embark on the digital trajectory earlier than others and the same reflects in where they stand today.

One such carrier is India’s Jet Airways. The company took a massive step around four years ago. The airline chose to set up a separate entity, Jet Privilege Private Limited (JPPL) to manage its frequent flyer programme (FFP), JetPrivilege. JPPL, a joint venture between Jet Airways and Etihad Airways, is a specialised loyalty and rewards management company, set up to develop, manage, operate and market the FFP. The programme has grown aggressively, to touch a base of 8.5 million members over the years. In August 2016, the base crossed the 5-million mark, and it ended up at 7 million last year. The pace with which the programme has shaped up indicates that the JPPL team has been successful in its journey to build the programme as a platform-based, digital business.  

To fully capitalise on the potential of FFPs, companies need to connect all the dots and work out a strong profile of the customers. JPPL has been working on the same.

“We are always on the lookout to bring new features and improvements to our programme. The path we take eventually leads us to – ‘what does the data say?’. We have focused our efforts on establishing an environment and culture that is data-centric, it has been the key for us. Data has proved to be a fuel to foster innovation, define the value of the programme, for testing (whether something is working or not) and eventually to hack profitable growth in all our businesses. This journey is an ongoing one,” shared Manish Dureja, MD, Jet Privilege. He shared that JPPL is adding around 4000 members on a daily basis.   

Data journey of Jet Privilege

Reflecting on the data journey, Dureja said “We have been focusing on the single view of the member (ever since JetPrivilege’s existence as an independent entity). The programme had access to multiple touchpoints and systems…so we started stitching data around the profile of each and every member. There were 22 databases/ systems and we focused on leveraging all of them – counting on more than 2200 different attributes for a member.  This essentially reflects information about the member – their transaction amount, their chosen channel for purchase (e. g. the agent/website they bought the ticket from), their check-in habits, usage of excess baggage allowance, and their transactions with our more than 150 programme partners (across various sectors including retail, telecom, lifestyle, dining, entertainment etc.)  to accumulate JPMiles etc. So we have used this transaction system data for building unique customer profiles of our members.”

This profile is being further strengthened with the data on the online behaviour of the members on the programme’s various digital platforms.

“The activity of the user – search, digital platform’s usage, cart abandonment on our site – everything is being tracked. This online data is being blended with underlying offline data and it results in the evolution of our journey (of being customer-centric via data-driven initiatives),” mentioned Dureja. Certain databases are independent, in addition to ones which are related to Jet Airways. “And some are proprietary, too,”. The main objective is to make interactions more rewarding and to offer unique experiences to the members. And this will only get strengthened as JPPL is yet to capitalize on the mobile app usage data. There is an app which is available, but it is for users who intend to search and book Jet Airways’ flights. “How members earn and burn the loyalty currency is a vital aspect and this data would continue to help in understanding the same. So we are constantly looking at more avenues to strengthen our analytical capabilities across our assets (such as mobile app) and even with partners (in the future). Till date we have largely acted on 1^st party data, i.e. the data that our customers leave behind on our systems/ touchpoints.” He added, “It is imperative for us to ensure there is loyalty towards our partners. Data is the key to it. We have created an ecosystem where every stakeholder/partner is associated with loyalty currency, JPMiles.”

Being a part of a member’s lifestyle

In addition to circling around the aspirational value, for instance, the dream of flying to a destination or meeting the needs of other trip essentials (such as Hotels and Insurance), JPPL has also initiated being an everyday lifestyle loyalty and reward platform, focused on personalized interaction and convenience for members. “Our focus is establishing JPMiles as the currency of the future that is versatile and goes beyond flying.”

Recently, JetPrivilege members were offered an option to earn as well as redeem their JPMiles for fuel at select IndianOil outlets (this partnership with the fuel major will be rolled out in a phased manner, with a potential of covering all of IndianOil’s 20,000 outlets across the country), marking the first such deal between a frequent flyer programme and a Fortune 500 company in India’s fuel and energy sector. FFPs are also looking at integrating their respective loyalty programmes into a member’s everyday life by rewarding the members for their spends on luxury, fashion or any other high aspiration products, as well as for their spends on fuel or grocery shopping or reserving a table for curated meals at select restaurants.

In the travel hospitality sector, JPPL recently introduced its hotels.jetprivilege.com platform featuring 1.5 million properties from the likes of Booking.com, Agoda.com, Expedia.com, Hotels.com, Homestay.com etc. “We have positioned ourselves as a meta-search for hotel properties via this platform (the booking is completed on partners’ sites) to earn JPMiles,” said Dureja.

As for association with platforms with massive traffic such as Amazon India, Flipkart, Paytm in India etc.,  Dureja mentioned that not all fall in line with what JetPrivilege stands for. “We don’t partner with Paytm as it’s largely a cashback platform. Our reward ecosystem is an anti-thesis of the cashback system,” he said. “We have a currency that offers a lot more than what cashback has to offer and that’s where our value proposition is.” He further added, “We do work with Flipkart and Amazon and our members who shop with them earn JPMiles” (The members have to go through an affiliate website managed by JetPrivilege to earn JPMiles).

JetPrivilege, like other customer-friendly FFPs, is looking at ways and means to delight it’s members across various customer touchpoints. For instance, they are experimenting with various initiatives like offering a simplified option at the check-out on their shopping site, pay with JPMiles or ‘JPMiles + Cash’ etc. to sustain the stickiness of the loyalty programme. JetPrivilege is also moving away from expiring JPMiles for their members, as long as the members have performed one eligible activity in their membership account over the last 18 months. Dureja added that all these initiatives are important to get members closer to a transaction and even help them in experiencing a world of privileges and benefits, which they would appreciate.

“In today’s world there is no brand that can sustain without offering control and convenience to customers,” he said. “For us JPMiles is the only leverage we have, so we have to offer it (JPMiles) judiciously to ensure there is a deeper engagement with our brand.”  

JetPrivilege understands that when members are offered the choice and flexibility in the way they earn and redeem their reward currency, their engagement with the programme increases, which in turn leads to them sharing more data about their choices with the programme.

“It all boils down to data – whom to target, when to target, what to target them with etc. To harness data and deriving insights, staying relevant and contextual with our embers, we are building the capabilities of our data analytics and engineering teams. We are devising ways to pre-empt and predict what would resonate with our members by using artificial intelligence and machine learning models,” shared Dureja. At any given point of time around 800 segments are being personalized on JetPrivilege’s website. That’s only because of the data journey that the brand embarked upon earlier on and the team is confident of going further on this journey to serve and meet the needs of an even larger set of members in a personalised way.

How are airlines going about rewarding travellers for their loyalty? Hear from senior executives at the upcoming #MegaAPAC (2018 Mega Event Asia-Pacific to be held in Bangkok, 28-30 August). https://lnkd.in/fTPx4xw

Ai Editorial: Making loyalty currency count by offering choice and flexibility

First Published on 20^th July, 2018

Ai Editorial: An attractive reward portfolio today should not only aspire to deliver a variety of merchandise, but also needs to offer different ways of redemption. This could mean a combination of miles and cash for redemption, using loyalty currency for payments etc., writes Ai’s Ritesh Gupta

Enjoying rewards, privileges or perks by using miles or points makes a loyalty programme attractive.

But for many, even if after spending money to attain a certain status or accumulating miles, there is always that gap that disappoints many when it comes to realizing what they had desired. While there are members who do gain rewards they desire, the vast majority of customers they either have to wait or even fail to redeem something of interest.

Airlines have been on-lookout for ways to bridge this gap.

The focus is on offering choice and flexibility when it comes to redemption. As asserted by Loylogic, an expanded and attractive reward portfolio today should not only aspire to deliver a variety of merchandise, but also needs to offer different ways of redemption. Airlines can do so by offering members of their loyalty programme access to miles/ points for their chosen online stores or allowing them to transfer their points onto a bank card and convert them into cash to shop anywhere they want.

Initiatives that exemplify this:

1. Counting on a combination of miles and cash: One area that airlines have focused upon is unredeemed miles. They need to deal with inactiveness or discontentment among members by being creative. There is scope for choice and flexibility and this should reflect in letting members spend, even a small amount of miles, on what they desired for.

In this context one trend that has emerged has been about offering a simplified option at the check-out, say one click or a tab, to pay with miles and also miles + cash to sustain the stickiness of a loyalty programme.

For example, the Lufthansa group has enabled members to pay in miles, cash, or a blend of the two. The group chose to strengthen its digital interfaces and made it simple by introducing new functionalities such as a slider. This way when a member accesses LH.com with their Miles & More details, they can choose the flight and tweak the number of miles they’d like to spend. Users can do the same by sliding the scale or also by sharing the number of miles. Members need a minimum of 7,000 award miles available in their personal mileage account. According to Lufthansa and Amadeus, the flight fare is broken from standard currency into part miles/ part cash, with different ranks. What this means for loyalty members is that they can their loyalty currency accumulated with ease. And the transaction results in new mileage. According to Lufthansa, this functionality has been introduced “for all revenue tickets and commercial classes, with the airfare calculation based on the total ticket price, including taxes and fees”.  The challenges associated with tickets that were bought using this functionality included handling of a rebooking or a refund scenario involving a combination of both cash and miles.

There are airlines that are eradicating issues related to “shortage of miles”. Enrich the frequent flyer program of Malaysia Airlines, is enabling members of a loyalty program to acquire more of their program’s miles. So members can purchase additional miles online via an airline-owned channel.

2. Paying with loyalty currency on non-airline owned channels: Airlines have been extending the use of their loyalty currency in channels outside their own environment. So members can use their miles or points for an online purchase on a 3^rd party site. Also, one can collect more miles while paying with money. For instance, SWISS Miles & More members is letting frequent travellers to use their miles or a combination of miles and cash to shop for Swiss household names such as Vögele Shoes and Magando.

This aspect of letting members shop on their preferred channels and still letting them use their miles is important. According to Loylogic, mature airline and coalition loyalty programs tend to see over 50% of miles earned through partners.

3. Being an integral part of a member’s lifestyle: Other than luxury, fashion or any high aspiration products, airlines are also looking at integrating their respective loyalty programs into a member’s everyday life. This could be for earning miles for fuel for your car or grocery shopping.

How are airlines going about rewarding travellers for their loyalty? Hear from senior executives at the upcoming #MegaAPAC (2018 Mega Event Asia-Pacific to be held in Bangkok, 28-30 August). https://lnkd.in/fTPx4xw

Ai Editorial: A methodical approach to digitalization – how to achieve tangible results?

First Published on 17^th July, 2018

Ai Editorial: Team effort and an iterative and phased approach have stood out in the way the likes of JetBlue, Lufthansa and Ryanair have gone about digitalization, writes Ai’s Ritesh Gupta

Airlines that have embarked on the path of digitalization are open to recruiting people from different backgrounds – VC, start-ups, data science etc. and encouraging their staff to think autonomously to innovate and validate at speed.

There are certain carriers such as Lufthansa and JetBlue that have chosen to incubate new, stand-alone digital ventures of particular strategic relevance. Among others, Ryanair and Air New Zealand have chosen to transform the digital experience of passengers by recruiting specialists in the arena of user experience (UX design), data science, product designers etc. These carriers started their journey of digitalization 2-4 years ago. There are already signs of how dedicated resources and investment are improving upon the passenger experience. And the approach of these carriers needs to be considered:

·          Team effort: JetBlue, as a parent company, chose to assess the early stage start-ups via its arm, JetBlue Technology Ventures (JTV). The team at JTV not only evaluates the course of an early stage start-up but also links them with the parent company in take caring of pain points in the passenger experience. As explained by JetBlue in an interview with Ai, majority of the JTV’s portfolio “are companies that would work with JetBlue in 2-5 years”, even though some might begin commercial pilots in less than 2 years, and a small percentage of the portfolio includes moonshot investments. Among the list of companies that JetBlue has already chosen to work with includes Gladly for its customer service platform. The plan is to have continuous, real-time conversations through whichever channel they prefer at any given point of time. JetBlue chose to bank on a modern messaging interface that gives the airline the ability to communicate across channels. And Gladly asserts that the platform equips the airline with a passenger profile, not a case number. The customer service software captures the full history of every conversation. The output is a single conversation stream that brings human touch to serve a passenger in an earnest manner.

As for the approach of units like JTV or digital labs, the core team, including senior and experienced staff from the airline gets involved as early as possible. The work isn’t done in silos, expertise of various stakeholders involved – the airline, the VC arm or digital labs and the start-up jointly comes into play and eventually a specific solution for passengers is created.

·          Iterative and phased approach: Ryanair has come a long way from an airline that was associated with ways focused solely on reducing cost. In fact, the shift to focus on digital assets is gaining traction as the airline’s "MyRyanair” membership has grown to 43 million. It was at 20 million or so in March last year. Also, the revenue generation by refining of digital assets is paying off, too. According to Ryanair’s annual results, the mobile and digital platforms have delivered a 13% increase in ancillary revenues (+4% per guest) to over €2 billion. Ancillaries accounted for 28% of revenue. Even as Ryanair has been focusing their digital retail platform, it needs to be mentioned that there could be shortcomings if the structuring isn’t handled properly.

If a full-service carrier intends to embrace a digital retail platform, then how should they go about drifting away from a heavy focus only on their process-centric IT system and bring in a business-critical digital platform? It is imperative to go after continuous delivery while running legacy systems, get closer to a series of quick wins in order to instil confidence in the organization and the digital platform has to be decoupled from legacy release cycles. There is a need to recognize the distinctive nature of digital platform economy versus traditional IT systems. “This may mean that the internal team is split into two parts so that it does not lead to confusion. It is very likely that airline will need to look for external partners to initiate digital platform strategy, just like Ryanair did,” explained Marko Javornik, VP/ GM Mobility and Travel, Comtrade Digital Services.

Javornik also underlined that the strategy is very important.

“Airline should be realistic in terms of what it can achieve. This means it should not try to compete with giants directly, but it also means it should not run away from ambitious plans. Another point of consideration is the significance of iterative and phased approach. Amazon started with books and then went to CDs and other things. The same applies to airline. Having a very small vertical slice working well can be immensely powerful. Building a kingdom in one go will probably fail in the digital world,” shared Javornik.

In an interview with Ai, ThoughtWorks also indicated that from a technical standpoint, the early digital initiatives are sustained via digital technologies that act as a 'shock absorber' between two systems running at different speeds. This ensures that neither system compromises the other’s speed and performance.

Hear from senior industry executives about the significance of running a digital platform at the upcoming #MegaAPAC - Mega Event Asia-Pacific (Ancillary, Loyalty and Co-Brand Conferences) to be held in Bangkok, Thailand (28-30 August, 2018).

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