Why Is Tightening the Path to Conversion Important in the Airline Industry?

Capturing the heart and mind of a customer in the airline industry is difficult enough. But holding on to them long enough to make a conversion? Sometimes it can feel like a task of nearly Herculean proportions.

Airline Customer Path to Conversion

How can airlines tighten the path to conversion and give customers a great digital experience?

Why? Because an airline only has a very limited amount of time to convert a customer on their website before they move on.

Simply put, airlines can no longer afford to waste a single second of a potential customer’s time. Doing so risks causing them to hesitate to buy, which can result in losing them to a competitor – either another airline or OTA.

However, despite how it might feel sometimes, today’s airline customers actually have a lot in common with airlines themselves. Both are looking to complete the customer journey as quickly as possible so everyone can move on with their day.

Tightening the path to conversion is one of the most important things an airline can do to accomplish this. Not only does it show they are listening to the customer, but it also shortens the customer’s journey by immediately addressing their expressed intent when they arrive on the airline’s site.

Below are 3 benefits airlines can expect once they begin taking tighter conversion paths seriously.

What Are the Benefits of Tightening the Path to Conversion in the Airline Industry?Less Abandonment

Decreased Abandonment

The airline industry is hyper-competitive, giving customers the option of turning to a competitor if an airline doesn’t provide them with exactly what they want at any point in their journey.

To combat this, airlines must minimize or remove as many pain-points in the digital customer journey as possible.

Using User Search Data to tighten the path to conversion accomplishes this by making the customer’s reason for arriving on the site solely about converting on a transaction they have already decided they want to make.

Lower Bounce Rate

Customers’ attention spans are short. If an airline isn’t able to communicate relevant offers clearly and quickly in real-time their bounce rate will be very high, resulting in wasted marketing dollars and lost sales opportunities.

User Search Data allows airlines to have a real-time conversation before they even arrive, increasing the likelihood a customer will find exactly what they are looking for when they do.

Tightening the path to conversion in this way in turn increases the likelihood a customer will remain on the site long enough to convert.

Improved Customer Experience

Price wars in the airline industry are making it increasingly difficult to compete on price alone.

Airlines looking to differentiate themselves from the competition are increasingly turning to customer experience as a way to do so.

Customer Experience Data

via Sprinklr.com: A good customer experience is vital to conversion, for both airlines and their customers

Tightening the path to conversion respects the value of the customer’s time by giving them the value they want as quickly as possible. This provides an excellent experience, creating a virtuous cycle that encourages conversions by making them fast and painless.

How Can Airlines Tighten the Path to Conversion?

Tightening the path to conversion begins with collecting and serving the most relevant information to a customer to enable her to make a purchase as quickly as possible.

User Search Data does this in real-time by allowing airlines to understand the origin/destination, date, and price a customer is looking for.

In the coming posts, we’ll be talking about how airlines can best use all of this data to create ever tighter paths to conversions for their customers.

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