Tao seems like an amazing woman. She's nearly 98, teaches yoga, is a wine expert and learned ballroom dancing to competition standard in her mid-80s.
What's her secret? She says she hasn't finished learning.
Fair enough, but what's that got to do with travel distribution? It seems that companies who keep on learning fare better than companies that do not.
Amadeus says the airline industry is currently trying to learn how to do customer experience well. And, there's already some evidence that those who are successful in getting the customer experience right are more successful still.
Ryanair is a good example, it posted a 37% increase in pre-tax profits last year which chief executive Michael O'Leary attributed it to its "Always Getting Better" strategy.
Then there's research from Forrester and Watermark showing the value to a business of providing a good customer experience.
In short, says Karin Dodson, Amadeus's head of customer experience and loyalty, it's about making interactions easy, effective and the "kicker - did the customer feel good about it?"
A year ago the company unveiled its Customer Experience Management technology to help companies to record and make better use of these interactions through segmentation and targeting.
According to Dodson, Amadeus estimates revenue increases of around 25% following a case study carried out using airline merchandising techniques with a regional airline.
It has two customers for the CEM technology. One, as yet unnamed, which will launch at the end of this month and the second Avianca, which is currently testing the technology (along with Amadeus Anytime Merchandising) with a launch planned for Q3 this year.
Amadeus says the technology can already help airlines identify their customer base and personalise the retailing experience. Going forward, it will also be able to upsell and cross-sell based on previous searches and preferences as well as automate the segmentation process.
Dodson uses colleague Philippe der Arslanian, who is also vice president of merchandising and digital, Amadeus IT Solutions, to demonstrate the purchasing journey and how the technology might work.
Der Arslanian is a climber and has Yosemite in his sights. He takes a lot of flights to see customers, often tags on some leisure time and likes to bring his dog with him. Because of his frequent travel, the system knows he's a valuable customer but also knows he has been disrupted a few times so he needs to be looked after.
The technology welcomes him back and uses his previous searches to filter what he is seeing such as inferred seat selection and a special meal, and also upsells him additional baggage and pre-fills the information to make the check-out process easier.
What's missing here is whether carriers are ready for this level of customer profiling and airline merchandising - operationally and culturally.
Dodson says:
"Some airlines have it more in their DNA than others. Of course they have to make money but the imperative is way too strong around customer behaviour, everything we talk about now is about customer experience. It's about trying to gear the service around you, some are better than others and will mature at different rates."
She admits that it requires a totally different mindset and that it will take time for airlines to adapt.
Avianca, for example, has done a lot of work in the background to get everyone to think differently. At last week's Merchandising, Digital and Travel Intelligence conference, Lissette Castaneda, the airline's ancillary revenue manager, said that having merchandising at its DNA was key to increasing revenue and improving the customer experience.
About 18 months ago, prior to partnering with Amadeus on merchandising and CEM, the airline had already embarked on its own strategy in terms of basic products in place that were making money. But, it reached a plateau. Castaneda says:
"It felt like a struggle, it wasn’t easy. It felt like we were doing ancillary revenue a favour and it wasn’t flowing right. Inside the organisation, feedback was that we were making people look bad for making the passengers mad by having to charge a bag fee. Something was missing."
The airline realised that it was the merchandising bit that was missing - giving the customer opportunities and choices at the right time.
In theory, the Amadeus technology will put the right structure in place but the airline has had to adjust how it thinks about selling. It had to talk to more departments than just frontline commercial teams and make sure the message came across in all internal communications, with even an initiative in Snapchat to attract Millennial employees.
Castaneda talks about merchandising being the DNA of the organisation similar to how media such as Snapchat and YouTube have proliferated children's lives today.
"You have to feel it, really like and for it to be natural."
Avianca is at the beginning of its learning curve, other airlines will be embarking on a similar path and Tao, at nearly 98, still seems to have the energy for a lot more.
Related:
To affinity and beyond as Amadeus search technology evolves
Amadeus slots a major piece into its merchandising puzzle
NB: Image via Big Stock Photo
NB2: Author's attendance at the event was supported by Amadeus.