They’ve come out on the other side with a smoother customer experience. At our Elevate 2020 event, we chatted with Dave McCormick, Managing Director of Product and Design, about how Alaska uses data to create a great customer experience. He led with a quote from artist John Maeda:

“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious and adding the meaningful.”

Let’s take a look at how Alaska added “the meaningful” over the past 16 months.

Figure Out What Customers Really Want

Customers’ true desires often get lost in corporate bureaucracy and endless meetings—and companies end up releasing products that don’t properly address what customers want. During the pandemic, frictionless and contactless were the two big focus points. 

But those can mean two different things to companies and customers. As Alaska was making updates, they asked themselves: What do frictionless and contactless actually mean to the customer?

From that framework, Alaska was able to create an experience that benefitted both their customers and employees. Here’s how they did it.

Creating a Frictionless Experience

People make mental checklists before they fly. Check-in, bags, food, the list goes on—so Alaska created a frictionless checklist feature in-app to help customers visually remember where they were with that process.

Alaska uses Airship’s multi-channel platform to vary notifications based on where the customer was at in their journey. This could be an in-app message, an SMS message, or a web notification. Alaska ran campaigns that let people order pre-order food ahead of time, and campaigns that let people know about COVID restrictions in the places they were traveling.

Creating a Contactless Experience

Alaska found that in many cases, contactless and frictionless had significant overlap. The biggest thing Alaska did to improve the contactless experience was to create a touch-free bag tag printing feature.

Customers could simply hold their phone near the machine and their tags would be printed. Here’s how it helped:

• Traditional bag tag experience: 180 seconds.
• Touch-free bag tag experience: 15 seconds.
• Hours saved: This saved guests more than 300 hours per day, cumulatively.

Engagement and Future Plans

So, how did Alaska’s campaigns go? The company saw:

• 39% direct engagement rate from push notifications.
• 95% engagement rate from push notifications within 12 hours.

This is a good start, but Alaska’s not stopping here. They’re currently using Airship’s Performance Analytics feature to evaluate channel-message fit: Which messages perform best in which channels. Alaska is also using Airship Journeys to deliver the right products at the right time.

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance that Airship can help your brand. Hit the button down below and let’s chat about how.

We can help you turn data into experiences

Contact us today!

The post How Alaska Airlines Created a Simpler Customer Experience Using Data appeared first on Airship.

Now Alaska Airlines is leveraging its mobile leadership to create safer, touch-free travel experiences. Learn how in this article originally published on the Alaska Airlines blog.

More Convenience — Less Contact! Alaska Airlines is Making Travel Almost Entirely Touch-Free

With hygiene and safety concerns top of mind, we’ve made it easy for your travels to be almost entirely touch-free.

With the Alaska mobile app, you can check in for your flight, generate a mobile boarding pass and so much more. Plus, our improved technology will soon allow us to scan boarding passes up to six feet apart, print bag tags without touching the check-in kiosk and purchase food and beverages on board using your stored payment preference.

>> Learn more about how Airship powers mobile wallet boarding passes

See what’s in the works to make your journey more convenient and touch-free:

Pre-Order Meals & Store Payment For Touch-Free Purchase in the Air

Great trips call for great planning! Now available in First Class on select flights over 2 hours—and coming soon to Premium Class and Main Cabin—guests can pre-order meals on flights (that have them) beforehand using the Alaska app or at alaskaair.com. You can also store your payment preference using your Alaska Airlines account so when it comes time to pay for your meal in the air, you can do so touch-free.

Unfortunately, our food & beverage service is still limited to reduce the interactions between our flight crews and guests. So your foodie favorites may not be there but hopefully will be back soon!  

Print Bag Tags Without Touching the Check-In Kiosk

Soon, you will be able to print your bag tags by simply scanning your boarding pass (mobile or printed at home) at one of our kiosks. Here’s how it works: Once you pay for your baggage fee(s) using the Alaska mobile app or online, you can simply walk up to our kiosk at the airport, scan your boarding pass and your tags will be printed from the kiosk where you can safely grab the tag from the machine to place it onto your bag(s). You can also print your bag tags from home if that’s easier or ask one of our agents for assistance.

Unfortunately, our food & beverage service is still limited to reduce the interactions between our flight crews and guests. So your foodie favorites may not be there but hopefully will be back soon!  

Scan Boarding Passes From a Distance 

Currently, our agents are able to scan guests’ boarding passes using a mobile tablet or scanner while boarding. To help create more distance between guests, we’re providing our agents with the ability to scan a boarding pass from six feet away—if the conditions are just right.

To scan from that far away, the boarding area will need to have good lighting and the barcodes need to be printed clearly. While we can’t achieve this laser-focus every time, our agents are working hard to “mind their wingspan” and taking every measure to keep our guests safe.

Get a Text or Email Instead of Paper

Coming soon to an airport near you will be a messaging tool that our customer service agents will use — to avoid printing & handling boarding passes or receipts — that is capable of sending you a text message that includes all of your travel information with a link to your boarding pass, gate and seat assignment.

Agents can also email any receipts, such as bag fees, if needed.

>> SMS is a quick and powerful way to communicate with customers who don’t have your app. Learn more about Airship’s SMS solutions.

Touch-free Check-in, Mobile Boarding Pass, Prepaid Bags

The Alaska mobile app is still the single best tool to limit contact while traveling. You can make sure your trip is as smooth as possible every step of the way by using it to check in for your flight, generate a mobile boarding pass, change seats and prepay for your bags. 

The app also keeps you up to date on your flight status, gate changes and boarding notifications. Download the app today if you don’t already have it!

This post was originally published on the Alaska Airlines blog and is reposted here with permission.

The post Alaska Airlines Has Created an “Almost Touch-Free” Travel Experience With Mobile appeared first on Airship.