Trigger-happy marketing often shows a lack of empathy.
I went to a website yesterday to look for information about transporting luggage from London Heathrow or London Gatwick to a Location outside the Greater London area. The information was for an important person in my world who is planning a trip to the UK. I was looking because I wanted to make sure they were still in business and see what services they were offering. I went to the site because I have used them a couple of times since becoming a solo parent. The first time was because I felt safer taking my baby in the pushchair (stroller) on public transport to London Heathrow than taking a minicab (pre-booked taxi) or Uber. First because a car seat is one more thing to worry about it and second, well, have you ever had a bad taxi driver? Third, the tube and train are more reliable! Surely, these reasons influenced the start of this service which picks up your luggage and takes it to the airport to check in for you. Typically, once you luggage is picked up you won’t see it again until the baggage carousel at your destination. If booked for your return, once you check your luggage you won’t see it until it arrives at at your doorstep when you return home. This would have all worked better for me if it wasn’t for me having a convoluted US immigration status requiring me to provide additional information. But nevertheless it just involved the company meeting me at the airport to check in the bags in my presence. When I returned home, my luggage arrived later in the evening. The second time I used the service was similar but involved a giant pile of oversized luggage.
That company provided such a great service. I have always held this brand in high regard and hope they expand their services. I hope for this even though the second time I used them turned into a bit of fiasco because of the check-in timing requiring that a driver return to pick up my luggage later than planned. It was chaos on an already awful day. But it was nobody’s fault so that didn’t change my brand loyalty! But something did!
An email that made me grimace.
It seems along the way someone at this darling company has gotten a hold of marketing automation software. So my visit to the site to check to see if a service was available, for someone other than myself, triggered an email. The email was explaining that since travel is booming back I’d better book my slot soon before they’re all filled. There were a few thoughts that came to mind.
When I visited the site it didn’t signal that slots were filling up.
I did NOT click on anything about a reservation
It was the first time I’d visited the site in almost 4 years
The email wasn’t personalized or impactful
How long will I continue getting emails?
None of my thoughts were positive. Nothing made me more inclined to use the service.
On the scale of digital maturity there is a high acquisition rate of technologies in all sizes of business. The problem remains to be the highly effective use of marketing technologies. One the downfalls with the biggest impact is having a lack of empathy in the Customer Experience.
What would I recommend the company have done differently?
First, think about the reasons someone is going to the site.
Using a tool like the Sitecore Path Analyzer examine how people navigating the site.
What pages do they look at before booking? Or considering booking?
In this case the service requires that the buyer has a ticket purchased on only a small number of specific airlines. An obvious win could be setting up an API to be used during the booking process to streamline the booking of baggage pickup and delivery. But that might also be too soon. When it comes to bookings on the website itself, understanding if a ticket is purchased is one of the most important pieces of information for setting up the right customer journey. I’d recommend a button asking if you have already booked a ticket? If yes, move to the booking page.
If no, create a different journey. If you have a Customer Data Platform like Sitecore CDP you could start using the decisioning engine to identify that a visitor is planning travel and considering ground transportation. Your CDP could provide a more complete view of the customer and provide additional data such as information about when a customer travels, when they’re most likely to purchase, what could motivate them to complete a booking, and what has been ineffective.
