Travel has gone mobile and so have travelers. In fact, travelers consider their smartphones to be the single most indispensable item they carry with them when they travel, ahead of their toothbrush, deodorant, and driver’s license. And it’s not just when they travel. The mobile phone has become an indispensable tool for travelers at every stage of the customer journey from searching for ideas of where to take their next vacation, to making a booking, to sharing their feedback post trip.
When it comes to mobile communication, there is one channel that travel brands cannot afford to ignore – SMS. Unlike mobile apps, SMS is ubiquitous to all types of mobile devices and doesn’t require a high-speed data connection. It’s also a native technology meaning that it’s already on every mobile phone (and has been for a while) so everyone knows how to use it and does so frequently, 18.7 billion times a day worldwide in fact. IT departments understand how to implement it, and 64% of all consumers are likely to have a positive perception of a company that offers texting as a service channel.
To demonstrate how SMS can help you better engage travelers at every stage of the customer journey, we’ve created the following use case infographic which highlights just a few of the SMS use cases that travel brands can implement and start realizing business benefits from today.
How travel brands can use SMS to engage travelers at every stage of the customer journey
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There are many other SMS use cases that can help benefit travel brands including promotional SMS messages to support slow sales periods, or to help optimize investment in branded apps by sending SMS messages with special offers that reengage inactive users. SMS is also being used by travel brands to help protect customer privacy with 2FA (two-factor authentication) and OTP (one-time passwords.)
Subtitle – Ajay Singh Khera, Strategic Partnerships
The key to understanding what use cases are going to help you realize the biggest business benefits is to understand how and when your customers are interacting with you along their journey today. That insight will enable you to see where an additional layer of communication would be most beneficial.
“SMS has the highest response rate of any mobile communication channel with 95 percent of messages being read within three minutes of sending, that makes it the most immediate and engaging form of mobile communication.”
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Therefore, look for instances where timeliness is important like travel updates or booking confirmations, or instances where you want to ensure your customer receives your message, such as limited-time promotional offers.
The key to understanding what use cases are going to help you realize the biggest business benefits is to understand how and when your customers are interacting with you along their journey today. That insight will enable you to see where an additional layer of communication would be most beneficial.
Many travel brands like Marriott, Uber, Expedia and the major airlines are already realizing the benefits of SMS in enhancing the customer experience, are you? I’d love to hear what use cases you are finding most effective.
