We’ve previously touched on why owning your mobile experience is so beneficial for business. Especially in airlines. It’s faster, more convenient and much safer for people.
And that’s only where booking tickets is concerned.
Taking a mobile-first approach is absolutely crucial to strengthening relationships with your customers, facilitating innovation and embracing true digital transformation.
So it’s essential that we get it right.
Start Thinking from First Principles
As the world becomes increasingly mobile-centric, it’s important to start re-imagining everything from first principles.
When you use first principles thinking, you need to pull back the problem right to the very beginning. Essentially, getting down to the very base components that, when combined, make up a solution.
A great example of this thinking is around the introduction of the electric car.
As they grow in popularity, you see them begin to spill into the roads, completely reshaping the way that cars are driven and their overall impact on the environment.
And a lot of this problem solving has been pulled all the way back to a few simple questions. Like, ‘what is the original reason for having cars?’.
To transport yourself from point A to point B as fast, and as cost-effectively, as possible.
With that question and answer alone, you’re able to challenge the status quo by thinking up new ways to get people from point A to point B in an even quicker and cost-effective time.
Perhaps it’s a jet-pack.
By understanding the base components, or the first principles, of a solution, you make way for new perspectives and improve on your ability to innovate.
How can it apply in an airline?
The idea is to be taking a lot of these user journeys right back to the initial first principle thinking.
And a paper ticket is a great way to start.
Why do we have a paper ticket? Why do we use it at different gateways?
We could say it’s to ensure a simple, fluid and controlled way to onboard passengers.
And while there are many ways to approach your solution, re-imagine an experience with no paper and one driven by mobile.
Re-imagine an experience of knowing exactly where the user is on their journey with your airline. When they’re about to board, wait or even browse around.
And re-imagine an experience where you can change a passenger’s behavior and feelings towards your brand based on a notification or an engagement through chats. Simply by knowing the passenger, their needs and the journey as a whole.
Mobile Experiences Enable You To Continually Learn
If you’ve chosen to stay on this imaginary journey, it only gets better.
In the past, paper never gave you any feedback loop. Now you’ve got all of this valuable information feeding back to you.
And as we take in that feedback loop, drawing insights from geo-positioning, likes and dislikes, habits and rituals, we’re able to find where additional opportunities lie.
But with so many passengers, flights and information, it could seem impossible to manage and action all of that data.
So to do this at scale, you’re able to use machine learning models, that allow you to constantly improve, innovate and completely transform the customer experience your airline offers.
It’s important to note that this mobile feedback loop isn’t about asking the customer how they feel or how you can improve. It’s also not about running polls and forcing surveys.
It’s really about looking at the analytics that sit behind the passenger journey and paying close attention to their experience both mobile devices and their engagements with your teams.
You can use this information to determine the time that they get to the queues, how long they sit on the plane for and whether or not it has an impact on your airline and their overall experience.
It’s All About Hyper-Personalisation
The world of mobile is centered around hyper-personalization.
That is offering experiences that reflect the most ideal journey that a customer could take. Every person wants to be acknowledged on a personal level. Mobile devices are personal. Ticket purchases, seat choices and destinations are all personal.
If you can create an experience around each individual’s personal identity, then you offer a true and profound differentiator.
One that empowers both the passenger and the airline.
To own your passenger journey, you need to control the code to the experience of your end-user.
By borrowing someone’s white-labeled solution to manage your passenger experience you ensure that you miss out on 99% of the opportunity.
To sum it up:
It’s time to take back your passenger journey through the mobile device. You are now a digital business.
