Measurement & Analytics

How Virgin Australia increased customer satisfaction on mobile with VoC

Usabilla flies to Virgin Australia's rescue with a voice of the customer solutions

Virgin Australia has had so much success enhancing customer experience by implementing voice of customer technology on its mobile app, the airline is now implementing the capability across other digital channels.

Virgin embarked on a data transformation program in 2017, alongside a wider digital transformation program across the organisation. It aimed to enhance customer experiences across the Velocity customer loyalty member base by improving redemption offers that are personalised and relevant; and lift the team’s ability to understand and attribute what communications and digital activities are supporting this quest. 

As part of this overhaul, the data analytics team adopted DataRobot’s machine learning platform to bolster predictive modelling capability.  

In 2018, Virgin realised it needed to improve customer satisfaction for its mobile app and better understand customer pain points, but it had no viable method to do this. Fast forward a few months, Virgin is now using Usabilla, and impressed with the results so far. 

Virgin digital product specialist, Brendan Valmont, said the airline started evaluating voice of customer marketing technology in order to ensure it selected the right provider, and to get all-important buy-in from the leadership team. 

“We need to figure out how to improve customer satisfaction for mobile app store reviews, how to better understand customer’s complaints for anonymous app store reviews, and how to obtain quality feedback from customers on new features and changes,” Valmont told CMO. “We looked at a few different solutions, and decided Usabilla was best suited to meet our current and future needs. 

“The company was able to provide us with screen capture of what the customer sees at the time of logging the issue. Being able to see what the customer sees has made it much easier to reproduce and understand customers’ pain points in a timely manner. 

“We also liked the simplicity of distributing surveys for different purposes without needing to wait for the next release deployment, and the functionality to capture useful metadata, which is useful for us because the data provides our development teams with the necessary information to troubleshoot quicker and faster."

Other key decision factors included a number of success stories and case studies from other airlines experiencing the product first hand. 

Usabilla empowers more than 450 enterprises in 35 countries including global brands such as Lufthansa, Philips and Vodafone, to collect, analyse and act on real-time user feedback to improve their products and customer experience.

Most recently, SurveyMonkey entered into an agreement to acquire Usabilla for approximately US$80 million, comprised of a mix of cash and equity, and subject to certain purchase price adjustments and customary closing conditions. The acquisition is expected to close in Q2 2019. 

The Virgin procurement team worked with Usabilla to identify practical case studies it could showcase in a product demonstration session with the senior leadership team. 

“We were able to provide the senior leadership team with the solutions which would be used to improve customer experience and help identify issues in complex digital applications. Additionally, we reached out to existing customers of Usabilla to get some insights on their experience with the product, including the implementation process and ongoing value,” Valmont explained. 

Once the decision was made, deployment commenced in September last year to iOS and Android as a proof of concept. While only implemented a few months ago, Valmont says it is already paying dividends, with key measures of customer satisfaction rating, mobile app Store reviews and ratings, and net promoter score already improving. 

“The implementation of the Usabilla technology has allowed us to receive and address customer feedback in an efficient and timely manner. By addressing this feedback, we have seen improvements to our customer satisfaction, which is demonstrated through our App Store ratings," he said.

"We have a quick turnaround of any bugs or issues reported, as a result of the metadata and function that allows us to understand what customers are seeing. We’re able to gain insights quicker because of the more simple way we are able to deploy surveys including no longer requiring a release."

As a result, Virgin has seen an increase in customer satisfaction ratings because of the direct relationship with the customer and product manager. 

“It’s been really successful and we’re currently rolling out to other digital touch points, website and email,”  Valmont added.

In other news, Virgin Australia recently revealed a new product campaign that re-claims its roots. The campaign, by DDB Sydney, launches with three product spots that focus on some of the airline’s most popular offerings, including Economy X, in-flight WiFi and its all-inclusive airfares.  

To support the new TVCs, Virgin Australia is also launching a significant digital, social and radio campaign that introduces a bold and simple new visual identity. 

The campaign aims to put a healthy dose of Virgin cheekiness back into the brand voice, as well as showcase product features that flyers may not know are offered by the airline.

Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO conversation on LinkedIn: CMO ANZ, join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia, or check us out on Google+:google.com/+CmoAu 

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