By merging with Air France, KLM has established a leading position in the international airline industry. It seeks to be the customers’ first choice, to be an attractive employer for its staff and a company that grows profitably for its shareholders. With smart partnerships and pioneering new destinations, KLM offers global access through its extensive network. By responding to market opportunities and technological developments, KLM offers customers a contemporary product.
The Challenge
In 2011, KLM implemented an email solution for general customer offers and updates, broadening this over time to target online customers who looked at a flight but did not make a booking. Once a potentially interested customer had been identified and flagged to KLM’s system, they would receive an email encouraging them to complete a purchase. This email would typically arrive eight or nine hours after their interaction on the KLM website.
Due to the fast-moving nature of the travel market and sales cycle, KLM recognised the need for a solution that would allow it to identify visitors as potentially interested in purchasing a flight within one hour after they have interacted with the brand – the optimal timeframe for successful retargeting.
The Solution
KLM has been using Webtrends’s analytics and segments services since 2008 alongside Optimize, following its launch in 2010, and has seen high success rates on campaigns and activities since using Webtrends’ technology.
When Webtrends launched Streams TM, the world’s first real-time data intelligence and analytics solution, in 2012, KLM approached Webtrends to investigate how it could implement a real-time re-targeting email solution.
With Streams’s real-time data providing a user’s ID and cookie data on their activity, such as flight destination and date, KLM, through their email partner ExactTarget can immediately process a potential customer’s data and email them a targeted message as soon as they have left the site.
To date, the technology has been rolled out across 13 markets including the Netherlands, UK, Germany, France, Finland, Switzerland, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Italy, Sweden, US and Canada.
The Results
Since using Streams data with its email service, KLM has seen significant uplift in conversion through email. Within the first few weeks of implementation, testing of emails sent in local languages showed that KLM saw its conversion rates quadruple from a region-wide average per cent – some markets, such as The Netherlands, Great Britain and Germany, have seen inflations as high as 400 per cent conversion rates – and this success has been maintained.
Of the emails sent using Stream intelligence, KLM has seen a 34% higher open rate and a 94% higher click through rate from these targeted messages.
Additionally, the real-time data offered by Streams has allowed KLM to identify where it may ‘lose’ customers in the sales funnel, and enabled it to optimise its user experience to encourage sales during a potential customer’s interaction on the site. There is more scope to develop these understandings and how to target specific customers while on the site – an area KLM is keen to develop in the near future.
Frans Poldervaart at KLM says: “When we saw the capabilities of Streams we were instantly sold. In the travel industry, timing and knowing your customer’s intentions is key to be able to hold an advantage over competitors. We have been delighted with the results of our email campaigns using Streams and can see the potential to scale this solution to other regions and use the technology in other areas of our business to further improve customer experience to drive sales conversions.”
Maarten Sambre, Regional Director Benelux for Webtrends, adds: “KLM is a large global organisation operating in a highly competitive market. From our years working with KLM, we understand its need to differentiate and the challenges associated with the travel industry. The current implementation of Streams with email has been highly effective and we are excited that KLM are keen to scale the service up into more of its international markets.”