Airlines are increasingly turning to website experimentation and conversion rate optimization techniques to understand customers better according to a study.
The study, carried out by Diggintravel and sponsored by Travelaer, reveals that most airlines are planing to increase the number of experiments they carry out in the next 12 months.
While a similar report last year showed 50% were at the beginning of their CRO journey, the percentage has dropped to 18% this year.
The 2019 Airline Conversion Optimization Survey divides airlines into laggards, challengers, visionaries and leaders when it comes to CRO activities.
Of the 38 carriers that participated in the study, the majority, 23, emerged somewhere in the middle as either challengers of visionaries.
Of the seven airlines that emerged laggards, none had a CRO team in place and they all cited a lack of resources and knowledge as the biggest challenge.
Airlines in this category also only had basic web analytics at their finger tips with their internet booking engines not deemed flexible enough for A/B testing resulting in the technique being ad-hoc or not used at all.
Respondents in the laggard category also say they have difficulty explaining CRO to stakeholders.
Being the best (or better)
At the other end of the spectrum, eight airlines are viewed as leaders in CRO. These carriers are mostly medium and large in size so have more resources for CRO teams.
According to the study, CRO is part of the culture of these organizations with testing and experimentation seen as crucial.
The eight leaders say they conduct five to 10 tests a month with four airlines doing more than 10 per month.
These carriers also say they employ advanced analytics techniques with 50% claiming they do data science.
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Further general findings of the study reveal that half of airlines only run experiments on an ad-hoc basic or not at all.
Meanwhile, 31% of medium airlines and 66% of larger airlines say they run experiments on a big scale which points to the need for resources and knowledge in this area.
In comparison to other industries, the report shows that airlines are tracking a general trend in terms of CRO gaining momentum and like other sectors, the quantity of experiments is still low.
However, compared to other industries, airlines lag when it comes to dedicated optimization teams with only 29% having a team in place.
The Diggintravel study assesses airlines using its Airline CRO Maturity Model which looks at people, skills, analytics, activities, test quantity, organizational support and internet booking engine.
The full report can be downloaded here.