• by Jeriad Zoghby , Columnist, December 14, 2017

In today’s digital, hyper-connected world, consumers are savvy and quick to judge. Couple that with increasing competition from industry leaders and new market entrants, and brands today are left with little room for error. 

To remain relevant amid today’s myriad complexities, it is critical for brands to build customer loyalty and create unique experiences to set themselves apart from the rest of the pack. 

In recent years, we’ve seen this come true for a number of industries, with the impetus on experience driven by the likes of Amazon and Netflix — leading innovators in their respective fields. Now, travel is the next rising industry to redefine customer experience; it has already begun with some companies redefining the guest experience through intelligent personalization. 

As travel brands look to define the next generation of customer experience in the digital era, personalization is having a greater impact than ever on enabling brands to elevate experiences to the next level.

Our recent Personalized Marketing Index composed of two dimensions — a consumer perception survey of 2,300 people across the U.S. and UK and an “outside in” audit of brands’ digital personalization capabilities — identified key insights into the current state of the travel industry. Overall, the Index revealed the current impetus on the travel industry to enhance customer experience with investment in personalization and a focus on shifting consumer perceptions. 

The research revealed four standout themes: 

1. Minding the Gap: Despite the travel industry’s progress toward customer intimacy, digital hospitality is lagging. More than 60% of respondents want brands to personalize their communications and use previous travel data to help them make better travel decisions. Yet, only a little more than 40% of consumers think companies know and understand them as customers and provide relevant communications. This presents a major opportunity for travel brands, particularly with 75% of consumers indicating they are more likely to buy from companies if they are recognized, remembered, and receive relevant recommendations.

2. The Importance of Me: Leading brands are no longer marketing to segments, but rather, customizing the entire experience to the individual. With 80 million millennials in the U.S. alone, the sheer volume of the millennial generation makes them hard to dismiss. Combine that with their consumer-driven lifestyles and larger disposable incomes than previous generations at the same age, and it’s no wonder they’ve become the topic of conversation for brands and marketers across the globe. This generation is specifically interested in brands that remember them and their preferences. With more personalized, individualized insights, even greater opportunity exists for brands to engage with this audience.

3. Pockets of Innovation: Innovation is happening in distinct areas, but the race for best-in-class personalization is wide open. While 89% of all brands enable users to set email preferences, only 40% of brands are sending emails that reflect stated or inferred interests. Additionally, only 37% of brands are sending abandoned basket emails encouraging customers to complete their purchase, proving success in this space is up for grabs.

4. The Opportunity: Despite travel companies’ investments in personalized marketing, the solutions often sit in siloed organizations built around optimizing a function or capability. Achieving success with personalized marketing will require an end-to-end orchestration of available tools. This involves breaking down organizational silos that are preventing quick action and insight development.

With all this in mind, brands can utilize these insights to pivot towards providing new end-to-end personalized travel experiences by: utilizing a solution, like our Customer Genome, to build living profiles, of each individual; developing trust-based relationships with their customers; maintaining promises by ensuring the right end-to-end technology is in place, and ensuring technological capabilities are orchestrated to create a seamless experience uniquely for each individual. 

With the plethora of technology now available, from personal concierge services, to wearable devices that track consumers’ every movement, the opportunities are endless. Yet, to be successful today, brands need to focus these technologies on creating the best individualized experiences to meet the expectations of today’s intelligent and increasingly demanding customers.