TDS08: My notes about "Discover How to Manage Your eCRM Initiatives In the World Of Internet-Based Loyalty"

[My own comments in brackets]

Steve O’Keefe, Rightnow Technologies
–Three elements drive loyalty [I agree]:
•Superior product/service; [Superior as quality/expectations, as differentiation/personalization…]
•Low cost product/service; [It’s so cheap you won’t mind a few glitches/limitations]
•High quality interactions. [Interesting point there! Specially if you’re talking about complex/long/informed buying decisions such as booking expensive/dream holidays or buying an expensive/dream car…]

TDS08: My notes about "Discover How to Manage Your eCRM Initiatives In the World Of Internet-Based Loyalty" III

[My own comments in brackets]

•Michael Rhodes, Leger Holidays
–More than features USABILITY drives conversion and captures attention.
–[USABILITY is a key driver to make branding interaction a positive experience for every online user]

TDS08: My notes about "Discover How to Manage Your eCRM Initiatives In the World Of Internet-Based Loyalty" II

[My own comments brackets]

Francesca Ecsery, Cheapflights

–Cheapflights learned by doing that it’s very important (and rewarding) to:
•Be relevant when communicating to customers; [Relevancy drives clicks!]
•Research/ask customers about their preferences in order to be relevant (including frequency of communication); [Don’t send e-mails without being asked to do it…]
•Develop triggered communications (triggered upon customer selected events such as price drops…) [Very interesting and dynamic approach!]

–For Cheapflights relevancy proved to be a successful strategy because it:
•Improved response rate, click rate, open rate and unsubscribe rate (e-mail communication); [RELEVANCY!]

•Saved time (and money). The saved time can be used to research and deliver even more relevant communications which support the results above. [RELEVANCY!]

–[RELEVANCY also applies direclty to webpages (personalized content). Google should know a thing or two about relevance due to their ad placement technology]

TDS08: My notes about "Discover How to Manage Your eCRM Initiatives In the World Of Internet-Based Loyalty" I

[My own comments in brackets]
Xavier Vallée, AVIS UK

–Through research AVIS found out that usually online customers
• Read peer reviews (1/3) and 1/3 of those change their opinion upon reading (which translates roughly into 1/9 of online customers changing their opinion after reading reviews); [Pay attention to reviews!]
•Trust 2 times more in reviews than in official pieces of communication (marketing pieces, website…); [Interesting and disturbing for traditional marketing!]

–AVIS embraced this User Generated Content (UGC)/Social Media “opportunity” by seting up their own corporate blog called We Try Harder.
•Xavier stated they “listen to the customer” and reply when needed and that AVIS uses the feedback from this blog between others (other blogs they monitor and other sources of information) when they make decisions such as renewing their fleet and buy model A or B. [This is an example of how customer feedback can be used as an affordable source for innovation][EMBRACE!].

–[UGC/Social Media shouldn’t be ignored but embraced as an opportunity to develop online conversations with customers].

–[Click here for AVIS case study by market sentinel]

TDS08: My handmade cloud

User Generated Content (UGC)
Social Media
Conversation
Reviews
Video
Segmentation
Relevancy
Channel Management
Rate Parity
Contextual Help/FAQ

This handmade cloud represents the words/concepts that I best remember from the Travel Distribution Summit 08 (TDS08).

I'm back from holidays and TDS08!

I'm back from holidays and also from Travel Distribution Summit Europe 2008 (TDS08) that took place in London (UK) during last week and where I most attended the CRM & Loyalty Strategies Conference.

The TDS 08 comprised three parallel travel and hospitality conferences ( CRM & Loyalty Strategies Conference, Online Travel Strategies and Revenue & Pricing Strategies) and a couple of other events such as the Hotel Technology Forum and the Innovation Initiative. Although I picked CRM & Loyalty Strategies as my primary focus conference I also attended a couple of sessions from the other two conferences and events.

As this was the first time I attended a major travel and hospitality conference such as this one I found it very interesting, useful and... fun! For instance the speed networking event although a bit chaotic was fun!

I expect to share a few thoughts about key TDS08 topics quite soon.

Regarding my holidays I must say that I had a wonderful time at Albufeira (Algarve, Portugal) and stayed at the five star CS Sao Rafael Suite Hotel from CS Hotels. CS Hotels is a brand of the Grupo CS. Tripadvisor reviews for the CS Sao Rafael Suite Hotel can be found here.