Sabre Corporation (NASDAQ: SABR) has launched three new, data-driven, personalisation solutions, for airlines to create personalised, meaningful engagements with travellers.
The three new solutions, Sabre’s Customer Data Hub and Customer Experience Manager, and industry first, Dynamic Retailer, source insights on customers from multiple touch points and then use that data to create personal connections with travellers.
Essentially, what this means is a shift from the trip centric (PNR) travel management to name centric (profile) relationship, a sea change for airlines and how they interact with customers.
Airlines can create tailored experiences with Sabre’s new solutions. (Image credit: Rawpixel/iStock)
Dynamic Retailer promotes ancillary growth by dynamically creating flight and ancillary offers using personalised customer insights to generate incremental revenue. It also enables an airline to identify and offer the most relevant services and product bundles to travelers.
Virgin America is the first carrier to deploy Sabre’s Customer Data Hub, Customer Experience Manager, and Dynamic Retailer in combination.
“We wanted technology that would help us better understand our guests’ needs, focus on their individual priorities, and create an experience they can’t get with any other airline,” said David Cush, president and chief executive officer of Virgin America.
“These new solutions give us invaluable insights into our guests to create tailored experiences that drive loyalty, and support our mission to make flying good again.”
In a Sabre survey of airline executives, nearly all – 97 % – indicated they would be making investments in technology to improve the customer experience. IBM did a study modeling the top-20 airlines’ investments in multi-channel sales and services.
The study predicted that a large carrier investing US$34 million in a customer experience project would recoup that investment in just 16 months. After five years, the total benefit is an estimated US$582 million.
These solutions are designed to bridge the gap between passenger perceptions of an airline’s customer service delivery and the efforts of that airline to create a differentiated customer experience.
That divide was highlighted in a survey commissioned by Sabre in which 81% of airline executives said they believe airline customer experience has improved, while 66 percent of travelers said they believe airline experience has been unchanged or gotten worse.
“Airline customers today expect more and more from carriers, and Sabre has identified ways airlines can improve the customer experience using established technologies that are already working in other service industries,” said Hugh Jones, president of Sabre Airline Solutions.
“Sabre’s data-driven personalisation vision further enhances reservations and airline retailing systems, giving airlines the ability to understand their customers at an individual level and deliver personalised products and services that customers most value.”
