How to navigate the complex chessboard of data connectivity

Don’t make the wrong moves when it comes to data connectivity, warns Jason Skelton who takes a look at how Heathrow Airport manages the customer experience through advanced data insight.

When you hear the word ‘connections’, many of us will think of airports and connecting flights. Making or missing a connection can make or break your day or even week; connections are something airports must get right. Of course, these days, getting a passenger from one flight to another, ideally with their luggage, is just one part of the customer experience that can span from months before a flight to weeks after. Today, airports do not just move passengers, they deliver a travel experience for both business and leisure customers and, to do that well, they need to connect data.

For marketers trying to deliver that better experience, it is in many respects like a game of chess. Every move made, based on insight gleaned from the picture laid out, can lead to an array of outcomes. The pieces at your disposal, or inventory, can vary significantly. Each has its own merits and limitations, but ‘played’ well, they make the difference between winning a customer over or losing the ‘game’ and wrong moves only invite the competition to take control.

Heathrow Airport is a complex organisation that is not only one of the world’s busiest airports, it’s also by many measures one of Europe’s largest retail sites, operating numerous services from shops and restaurants to parking facilities. Central to ensuring that the 73.4m passengers visiting the airport each year receive the best experience possible is the integration of a data driven decision at each point the consumer interacts with Heathrow. Understanding these decisions and taking action so that each customer feels valued and appreciated by the brand is crucial to delivering on the airport’s vision and strapline of ‘Making every journey better’ Acxiom has been working with Heathrow for the past ten years along a journey that is transforming their ability to reach out to its passenger universe with more relevant, personalised communications, delivered through multiple channels. Creating a better customer journey for Heathrow, started in earnest with the building of a single customer view and development of an eCRM program.

Today, that approach remains fundamentally important, but more needs to be done to deliver the greater relevance and consistency customer-centric brands now need to deliver ‘everywhere’.

Data connectivity central to better customer relationship

In terms of Heathrow, their opportunity and challenge lies in their ability to know who their customer is today and tomorrow, what excites them, what would make their journey better and what would make them come back for more. Ultimately, it is all about better recognising and understanding individuals so that a better relationship can be built through better marketing. Connecting data or, for want of a better phrase, data connectivity, is central to this.

Heathrow’s ability to gain this richer customer understanding has been achieved in several ways, not least by utilising elements of the Adobe Marketing Cloud, implemented and supported by Acxiom and through Acxiom on-boarding Heathrow’s first and third party data. By establishing connections with CRM data, Heathrow now has ability to recognise individuals across their digital assets. By integrating data across the business in this way, including data from various retailers and advertiser partners, Heathrow been able to pass on enhanced capabilities and marketing opportunities to retailers. This insight and reach is becoming the foundation upon which Heathrow will deliver relevant, timely communications from a CRM program that meets its corporate goals of growth and providing the best service of any airport globally.

What this means for Heathrow is the ability to turn more anonymous consumers into known customers, to turn prospects into customers and to increase the standards of targeting to all. What this means for customers of Heathrow is a more joined-up experience, delivering more relevant offers for products and services including travel, parking, shopping and eating. This is increasingly delivered dynamically, in real time and geo-dependently so that as the customer prepares for their journey, as they arrive at the airport, move through the terminals and even come home from their journey, they receive more relevant and timely marketing messages. It also means that the loyalty scheme is enhanced, giving customers not only a better journey or experience but also a better deal.

Chess is a game of logic, which requires strategy just like any good marketing campaign. The player who co-ordinates all the pieces in the game not only needs to understand each piece and how they move, they also need to ensure they are all aligned on the chessboard and working together to play their part. The board therefore is the world in which we operate. Navigating it requires vision and clarity. For any brand looking to build better connections with its customers, the ability to connect and on-board data, putting each piece of the puzzle together, equips them with this clarity to navigate their way across the complex chessboard that is the data-driven world. For Heathrow, the journey to achieving this is fully underway, making every journey better.