IN-DEPTH CASE STUDIES
SIMON CHATFIELD, HEAD OF EBUSINESS AND CRM AT HEATHROW
very year 73 million passengers pass through Heathrow airport and each one of those journeys – whether digital or actual – is unique. The largest airport in
the UK and the third busiest in the world, Heathrow isn’t just a travel hub. It’s a business in its own right, and it too has been on a journey as it seeks to improve its
understanding of passengers to provide more relevant, real-time messaging that makes the travel
experience as seamless as possible. Top of the shopping list for the
business has been a single customer view: an aggregated account of all a customer’s digital interactions. But like plenty of large organisations providing complex services to huge numbers of users, breaking down the silos in which data is traditionally held is a challenge. Simon Chatfi eld, Head of eBusiness and CRM at Heathrow, is the man charged with joining up the dots and ensuring that every
passenger receives the information they need, whether that’s where to browse luxury
handbags or
how to fi nd baby changing facilities.
“To scroll back a couple of years,” says Chatfi eld, “as marketers involved in the passenger experience rather than the operational side of the business, we didn‘t have that single view. Although Heathrow is a very data rich environment, privacy laws have meant that not all of it is available to us to use. It’s been a real journey to build up a single customer view so we can deliver a more bespoke experience.”
The journey has involved looking at hunt
involved a treasure around our new
Terminal 2. The idea was fi rstly to see the uptake. How many people would and could use beacon technology? We took them on a wayfi nding route around the terminal in the form of a treasure hunt, en route showing them the various commercial offers we have.”
As Chatfi eld acknowledges,
however, one of the challenges of beacon technology is getting it in people’s hands in the fi rst place (and prompting users to turn their
55 issue 26 november 2015
everything from transactional data to car-parking and booking information. Using Adobe Campaign and their partner Acxiom, data about how people interact within the airport is overlaid with third party information about how they behave beyond it. Chatfi eld and his team are also able to analyse the Heathrow Rewards loyalty programme, look at use of the airport’s website, app and social channels, as well as Heathrow’s free wi-fi , which provides more contextual visitor information.
Working with Adobe has also
enabled the airport to explore new marketing techniques such as beacon technology. “Something we did earlier this year
notifi cations on) and then identifying a clear use case. The needs of the business traveller, after all, may be markedly different from those of holiday-making families. “Having a beacon which brings your boarding pass to the front of your phone would be a bonus. But business travellers probably won’t benefi t from the indoor wayfi nding that I think will be the boon for
connecting travellers or people who are just
unfamiliar with the airport.” There’s also the challenge of keeping beacons live and up to date across the Heathrow estate, though Chatfi eld highlights the benefi ts the technology could have for
monitoring passenger fl ows and security wait times. He also acknowledges that a certain sensitivity may be required when thinking about how to
deploy beacon technology. “We don’t want to bombard people with in-app messaging because that could turn them off. Also, in our environment, we have to be cognisant that our primary objective is to get people safely and securely
through the airport and we must not clutter that with more of the commercial side; clearly we are a
commercial business but
that’s not going to be the route to
market for beacons. The opportunities are exciting and there are so many of them. It’s just taking a while to nail down where to make the investment.”
heathrow.com
FEATURE JON FORTGANG
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