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Improving CX in the Post-Pandemic Travel Industry
The pandemic essentially destroyed the global travel industry. Now that travel is slowly and steadily opening back up, a new report finds that customer experience (CX) is an important factor impacting the industry's comeback at large.
The report, from McKinsey & Company in tandem with Skift Research, reveals that while many travelers are satisfied with their experiences, negative sentiment is also on the rise. That may be due to logistics, as researchers found that operational capacities are strained and the travel industry is plagued by staffing challenges, like so many other industries. Additional problems include an uptick in airline complaints, a shortage of rental cars and pared down hotel amenities and services.
Researchers found that some of the more common challenges faced within the travel industry include inconsistencies in CX across products, services and digital channels. Many companies are also having difficulty predicting their customers' sentiment without needing to ask them outright. And time lags abound around going to market with updates, releases and enhancements, further impacting overall customer sentiment.
"Travel companies are still absorbing COVID-19’s financial impact, and investing in CX now may seem too great a burden for many of them," states the report. "But companies that prioritize CX during a downturn stand to outperform their competition for years to come — as McKinsey research on the 2007–09 downturn has shown. Indeed, wise investment in CX may be key to the industry’s survival, and flourishing, in a post-pandemic world."
The report outlines three strategies to help travel industry businesses transform the customer experience. The first is to aspire to perform better than competitors and to bring back the "magic" of travel. This can be accomplished by expanding CX into the digital realm and taking advantage of technology and an emotional connection to exceed customer expectations.
The second approach is to gain a deeper understanding of customers and what their future needs may be. Data can be a major asset in building a better measurement toolkit to assess changing customer needs and expectations. Social media, operational systems and booking and mobile systems can offer major insights through internal and external data. A thorough toolkit will be predictive and able to anticipate satisfaction and lifetime value in real time.
The third approach to improving CX is to implement real-time insights quickly. As businesses are able to better harness data and insights, speed in putting them to use will be a competitive differentiator.
Edited by Luke Bellos