How has technology helped in creating meaningful customer experiences? Give example.
In the last few years technology has revolutionised the way businesses across the world handle their customers. From being a mere enabler it has now become the platform to deliver great consumer experience and establish conversations. At ixigo, which in itself is a technology product (travel search engine & mobile apps) we are now able to track user behaviour and their preferences by simply tracking their action, clicks, pageviews and customer feedbacks on our website and apps. This gives us the ability to push contextual and relevant deals, send notifications for cheap flights and hotels on the basis of destinations they are interested in or where they are at the moment (location based marketing on mobile apps) to updating them of delays and changes in their flight/train schedule.
Once we understand what a particular user searches for, what kinds pf hotels do they like to stay in, what in a city interests them; over a period of time we are able to hyper-customise search results and offers, enhancing the overall user experience.
How powerful do you think is social media as a tool to influence customer’s buying behaviour?
There are primarily 2 factors that have made Social Media a “cant overlook” channel in the overall marketing strategy of any brand today. Foremost has been the phenomenal growth in mobile access. This coupled with growing internet savvy young Indian population have today made social media mainstream. Its dramatically changing the way brands are reaching and engaging with their customers. Today, Whatever you’re buying, whether for personal or business use, chances are one of your social-media connections has something to say about it.
Two things that we consider at ixigo very important to positively influence users/non-users on social media are:
1. Understand what type of information the customer looks for on social media.
2. Decide how the business can contribute to making it available in an authentic manner.
Equipped with over 1 MM organically grown fanbase of ixigo across various social handles over last 7 years (FB, Twitter, Instagram, G+ , Pinterest etc) we have harnessed the medium by focusing on creating a more open dialogue with consumers, becoming more responsive to specific questions and providing content that is objective and easily digested.
Social media creates word of mouth PR for brands – when you see your friends/ social circle raving about a particular product/ service; be it a film, restaurant or service of a particular airline it influences buying decisions in their network too.
Social media however is a double edged sword – Nowadays disgruntled customers are quick to tag brands and vent out their anger/complaints, thus all brands also need to have a very strong response mechanism on social media.
How would your organization bring about a balance in acquiring new customers and enticing existing customers to stay interested?
For a brand like ixigo which is still a fairly young brand we lay equal stress on existing and new customers. The approach is that more and more happy existing consumers really end up being your brand advocates and help in bringing in relevant new customers.
Hence, the focus is always to retain and keep existing users delighted with new and innovative offerings and external marketing efforts help in bringing in more new users thereby broadening the brand reach and circle of influence.
At ixigo one of our conscious endeavor is to keep listening with intent to what the users are telling us through feedback and user navigation metrices. The most pertinent of these are then picked up and built back into the brand either as separate products (mobile apps) or as features in existing apps.
