Case
An early stage startup in highly competitive market of providing cheap flight tickets globally. It has a dedicated team focused to bring value to travelers with a single line mission of ‘allow users to search, compare and book cheap air tickets globally”.
It is a fairly new, little over a year old and is currently operational with an interactive and informative website along with social media pages. They offer:
Great prices for key locations across the world
Popular locations covered with a greater choice to the customer
User friendly with prices in different currency
Challenges
As an early stage startup this organization is very proactive in marketing and organized popular events locally to create initial attention to portal. It is evident they are not shy in making an investment, be it social media pages or creating multiple channel access for its customer’s ease and comfort.
The problem at hand is that their current consumer base is restricted to limited geography (Europe) and is looking for ways to make it truly global with their consumer base in other geographies too (Asia).
The need of the hour is putting a long-term strategy for growth in business that is sustainable and customer centric.
Approach
Before deciding the road ahead it is critical we carve out the current path. It is imperative to understand organization’s basic intent, their vision and mission. An interview with questions directed specifically to their current business plan, is a simple tool that is used to lay down strong foundation to the exercise.
Collaboration of key decision makers of the concerned organization is very critical to make this exercise productive.
Also a deep dive of consumer base, website review and social media assessment is another exercise that plays a very important input to the entire customer experience strategy.
Recommendations & Outcomes
Information gathered through interview and relevant artifacts (consumer behavior, current consumer base trends and analytics; website analysis etc.) helped develop a comprehensive strategy to manage customer experience and present a road map with specific outcomes.
In a short period of time the organization built a 360-degree view of consumer insight, created an online community for travellers to post their experiences and share stories. Customer journey mapping helps them build more avenues for consumers to engage
Focus on customer experience through the early stages when a “Startup” is settling its unique value propositions can aid it to create a niche among the customers. Integrating consumer perspective in business strategy at the early stage can create an organization with a consumer base that is engaged and loyal.