Aegean Pre-boarding mobile communication

Challenge:

The rise of customer expectations in combination with the migration of customers to digital channels, push Brands to adopt an omnichannel approach as well as to improve the customer experience across all channels. As digital and mobile usage is expected to further increase in the coming years, organizations have to face the fact that its presence in one channel is no longer sufficient; Omnichannel customers are typically a company’s most valuable customers based on several researches. Moreover being in touch in meaningful ways with customers, further strengthens loyalty. During moments of truth, it’s vital to exceed customers’ expectations and deliver a level of service and support that leave strong positive impressions.

Recognizing the evolution of customer preferences and the rising use of digital channels and mobile, Aegean Airlines the leader airline player in Greece together with the acquired Olympic Air, and member of Star Alliance, sought support from MPASS in transforming the mobile channel as a leading element of a holistic marketing strategy.

Prior to their engagement with MPASS, Aegean Airlines had in place the online booking and check-in flow. The company also maintained a mobile app but it was not the majority of Aegean’s customers that used this channel. In addition the company lacked of an integrated omnichannel strategy and as a result customers were unable to have access to relevant information at any moment and in any location.

MPASS Solution

MPASS helped Aegean to reach full potential in its omnichannel strategy and mobile opportunity. It developed the mobile channel communication with the use of personalized SMS containing passenger’s flight information.

More specifically, when Aegean Airlines customers check-in online for their flight, their booking confirmation is sent directly to their mobile handset via an SMS. In addition 48 hours before flight they also receive via SMS their Mobile Boarding Passport reference. Afterwards, passengers are able to use the Mobile Boarding Passport at the gate for boarding the aircraft.

Furthermore, Aegean needed to adopt a data driven method, so they exploited MPASS’ deep experience in business intelligence to design and deliver an advanced analytics reporting tool that integrates into a single view and in real time the passengers’ details and their flights data. The tool provides a numerous up- to- date analytics such as customer and flight details, details about reservation (booking reference number, booking date etc.) and SMS details.

MPASS, with its’ solutions of global reach and of ultimate availability (both critical factors in the airline industry), delivered the following achievements for Aegean Airlines :

MPASS with its high availability solutions deliver the following improvements to Aegean Airlines:

Accelerate the Aegean’s marketing approach towards an Omnichannel strategy following the shift of customers’ behavior to use multiple channels, with the advancement of the mobile channel with the SMS feature, which is the most preferred and convenient channel for communication with the customers.

Improve the customers experience with the SMS personalized messages that provide extremely valuable content for their flights to use it at any time and any way they want. In addition, Aegean invested in the moment of truth for customers during airport checks and airplane boarding procedure, eliminating the hassle of papers, printers and waiting in long queues.

Empowered Aegean to be quick and data driven with rapid decision making, as allowed Aegean’s marketers to have access to the advanced analytics reporting tool with customers’ interaction data, so to quickly extract valuable metrics and identify actions for further improvement.

Results

Within the period of the service existence, millions of customers experienced the service that continues to exceed their expectations based on their feedback. Only at the period of the first 8 months of 2015 at least 2 million SMS have been sent to passengers, in more than 130 countries worldwide.