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Recent news

Mobile applications for the travel industry

December 2007

With a little bit of imagination it is possible to think up quite a few uses the travel industry could have for the mobile phone. In all of them the key is to make your customers feel important and to feel loved by you. The one device customers almost always have with them is the mobile phone and now technology is allowing smart companies to close the gap between what is available on the web and what is possible on the phone. Many customers now give their mobile phone numbers as a matter of course on internet forms so many companies now have a valuable database of mobile numbers...

To summarise the benefits for an organisation we can broadly label them into the areas of: Reducing costs and increasing efficiency, especially call centre costs. Getting quicker responses from your customers, increasing customer satisfaction, keeping them better informed, customer retention - making them feel important and adding incremental sales revenue.

For the travel industry these can be broadly split into three main areas:

1. Operations
For example, it's possible to:

• Send flight details and booking references by SMS
• Send hotel "vouchers" by SMS
• Send car hire booking reference by SMS
• Send transfer details by SMS
• Update customers on the status of their booking - your tickets have been despatched, the hotel has received your meal request, your city tour has been booked.
• Receive customer requests by SMS - and automate the responses.

All of these initiatives can increase efficiency while decreasing costs and calls to and from the call centre.

2. Sales
Imagine your customers being able to make brochure requests, search for a flight / hotel / package or even make a booking all on their mobile phone.

3. Marketing
It's now possible on most hand sets to send content e.g. Images, brochure text, reviews, resort videos and even 360 degree video or IPIX images. You can create and run your own text to win competitions, its easy to create courtesy "thanks for your call" messages and many more ideas all aimed at making your customer interact with your brand with the media that most suits them.

For all these initiatives Hildebrand can help you