The thoughts of a CTO, managing customer centric solutions for travel and e-commerce.
I recently attended abba’s voyage concert which I have to admit was amazing, I had a great time.
ABBA developed a new digital show hosted in London in a new purpose built movable arena, designed and built for the experience.
Continue reading “Abba voyage : smart and very entertaining for a computer generated concert!”I’ve been working on a project with Pat.ai/EC.ai for several months, and what those guys can do with linguistic understanding (and context) is pretty amazing.
Looking at a traditional customer experience in travel.
A traditional UI for example google’s multi-itinerary flight search form, has prescribed inputs
The customer enters data, select dates, and builds their itinerary. – comparing this to a dialogue with a travel agent the questions would be mostly the same. (“I’m interested in going to Singapore, I need to go via doha to attend a meeting but just for a day. Here’s my dates”)
Continue reading “Conversational vs traditional customer experiences.”There’s been a lot of negativity against BA since they changed their service to buy onboard (for non business) on short haul flights. Is it time for BA to offer a membership scheme (Short Haul Plus) granting customers upto £25 off their short haul fares in return for an annual membership?
Continue reading “Should BA offer an easyjet style subscription model for economy passengers?”
When comparing OTA and Airlines, they sell a similar product. Both sell flights, both sell packages (in most cases). So why is it that OTA dominate in online search?
Continue reading “Digital Maturity is the main gap between OTA and Airlines today.”
In the travel marketplace there have been a number of start-ups disrupting the norm. AirBnB came from nowhere. There had been peer to peer accommodation services for many years, but AirBNB came and made renting a room easy for a global audience and within a few years has become one of the market leaders.
Uber have done the same, challenging the norm for taxi services. Recently, talking to an uber driver, he expected his local taxi firm to close, and for their to only be the likes of Uber and Lyft in the near future.
These companies have formed as a startup and disrupted the norm, so whats to stop the next startup from doing the same in the airline industry?
I respect travel agents. They work really hard and have a wealth of knowledge, it upsets me that in some circumstances the customer then goes and tries to book it directly. Their attempts are often thwarted by going a deal too far and then realising that they’ve booked indirect flights or have to deal with issues which an agent would have supported. Continue reading “Travel Agents of the future”
As technology evolves, the demands from the emerging generation drives the technology which the next emerging generation will take for granted. Continue reading “The next generation”