Travel organizations are getting savvier in leveraging customer data to solve two critical challenges: Building customer loyalty and increasing revenues.

As big retail and technology brands push the boundaries in big data and personalization, we’re among a growing number of travel organizations proving skillful at mining customer data and turning it into actionable intelligence.

In today’s ultra-competitive landscape, hotels are now using the data from direct bookings to personalize and enhance the customer experience to grow brand loyalty.

For airlines, it’s creating more revenue opportunities. They’re analyzing customer data for behavioral trends so they can offer more relevant services, conveniences and ancillaries, such as day-of-travel seat upgrades, to travelers through their smartphone or during check-in.¹

Also, OTAs like Expedia, Priceline, and Hotels.com have developed their own member rewards programs to cultivate loyalty among their customers who simply want the best deal or flight time.

In the travel insurance industry, we’ve developed a highly sophisticated and successful two-prong approach to leveraging customer data that benefits our partners and their customers.

When travelers are booking a flight, we have to quickly determine the best matched insurance product to protect their trip. We’ve programmed our advanced quote generator to analyze details like trip length and cost, destination, ticket type, number of passengers, booking window, and other factors. Then we place a custom offer on-screen formatted for the customer’s device type with a message personalized to the traveler’s unique trip type, all in a fraction of a second. And we respond to about one billion quote requests a year.

We can also segment customers based on rules that predict whether they’re traveling for business or leisure. And offers can be personalized based on destination city. These factors help ensure that your customers get the most relevant travel protection benefits tailored to their trip.

We apply the same process to online bookings for hotels, car rentals, and event tickets as well. For example, we work with a major event ticketing partner to segment by event type, such as concerts, sports, family or arts, and other factors.

Our second approach to big data is how we use it to better understand customer demographics, travel behaviors and their needs. It enables us to define and refine our partners’ customer segments, developing new product benefits and messaging to fulfill their primary concerns.

Our marketing analytics department conducts ongoing, in-depth consumer research and surveys that analyze customer needs, purchasing behaviors and preferences. They frequently uncover new ideas and drive improvements in product development, offer optimization and marketing effectiveness.

We use these research insights to create and test over 1,000 different offers annually. As a result, our partners’ customers get the best value insurance plan that’s tailored to their needs in a compelling offer.

Combined, this advanced segmentation approach has exponentially boosted purchase rates and yielded up to millions more in added revenue for some of our partners.

We also integrate continuous, direct customer feedback to further guide improved benefits and launch new innovative products like our Cancel Anytime plan.

Finally, these learnings are shared between partners and segments to develop and implement our best practices. As a partner, you benefit from product and offer testing wins from other partners that add value to your customers and your bottom line.
 

Terms, conditions and exclusions apply.
Insurance benefits underwritten by BCS Insurance Company or Jefferson Insurance Company, depending on insured's state of residence. Plan(s) may not be available in all jurisdictions. Allianz Global Assistance and Allianz Travel Insurance are brands of AGA Service Company. AGA Service Company is the licensed producer and administrator of these plans and an affiliate of Jefferson Insurance Company. The insured shall not receive any special benefit or advantage due to the affiliation between AGA Service Company and Jefferson Insurance Company. Non-­Insurance benefits/products are provided and serviced by AGA Service Company. Consumer may be responsible for charges incurred from outside vendors for assistance or concierge services. Contact AGA Service Company at (800­) 284-­8300 or 9950 Mayland Drive, Richmond, VA 23233 or customerservice@allianzassistance.com.

Citations:

1. “Airline industry brief examines the ‘three-P’ approach to sector growth in 2017: Passengers, payments and profitability,” Travel Daily News.