July 25, 2016

Qantas

The Qantas Group is one of world’s most iconic brands and a diverse global aviation business, comprising Qantas Domestic, Qantas International, the Jetstar low-cost carrier group and Qantas Loyalty. The Qantas Group carries 47 million passengers each year and employs more than 30,000 people.

In total, the Qantas Group operates more than 7,300 flights each week and, together with its codeshare and oneworld partners, offers flights to more than 1000 destinations around the world.

Enhancing the booking experience

As a global airline, Qantas continues to explore ways to enhance the booking and online experience for its customers. One of its key objectives was to match the web experience with the experience had by passengers on the day of travel. Aware that visitors returned to the website at least twice before flying, undertaking activities such as check-in and monitoring flight status, Qantas wanted to improve the user experience and help guide visitors to the relevant sections of the website easily and efficiently.

Qantas was keen to improve the level of personalisation, using data captured about customers such as the flight destination and whether they have flown with the airline before, to enable it to tailor content for individual users. Enhancing the customer experience across all digital properties and multiple devices, such as tablet and desktop was crucial to this.

Qantas selected Webtrends – the global leader in data-driven solutions that companies better understand customers in order to increase engagement and inspire action– for its Optimize solution: a testing, targeting and personalisation platform that provides reliable results, scalability to grow with success and advanced reporting to provide actionable insights.

Webtrends Optimize delivers a complete selection of test and target types, including A/B, multivariate tests, advanced segmentation, behavioural targeting and optimised personalisation.

Qantas has started using Optimize to run a number of tests across all of its digital properties, both domestic and international. The initial test, however, was focused on the home page.

Webtrends started by testing simple elements such as the text, the colour scheme, the layout and the design of the call-to-action buttons to identify areas where changes could improve conversion rates.

Qantas and Webtrends then moved on to more sophisticated tests on the special offer pages, the frequent flyer online sign-up forms and the pages relating to the Qantas Club using A/B testing. In addition, a number of crucial tests were run on the booking funnel, segmented by desktop and tablet users to ensure that the optimal experience was achieved. This test included changes to the sort style, inclusion of ‘hurry’ text, colour and style alterations, and the size and wording of CTA’s.

Following testing of the frequent flyers sign-up web page, Qantas saw an 8.32 per cent uplift in completed applications, and sign-up to the Qantas Club increased by 23.92 per cent.  Testing on the booking funnel for desktops increased by 2.14 per cent for completed bookings after the first test. Testing on the booking funnel for tablets also saw an increase after the implementation of Optimize, with 3.15 per cent uplift in completed bookings after the initial test

Since using Optimize, Qantas has been able to dramatically improve the online customer experience and performance of strategic web pages in the sales funnel, significantly increasing conversion rates and revenue. It also has a greater understanding of the impact that these key changes to the website have had, enabling it to confidently and continuously enhance its digital experience moving forward.

“We wanted to ensure the quality of our website matched the level of service our customers are accustomed to when flying with us,” said Qantas head of direct sales, John Lonergan,. “While we wanted to maximise our conversions, our overall goal was to create a positive experience for our users from the moment they clicked onto our website.

“Webtrends Optimize has provided us with the ability to supplement data from the web experience with quantifiable data about the user, allowing us to improve and personalise the customer experience. The expertise and support of the team, as well as Webtrends being a full-service provider has proved invaluable.”

“Qantas is a globally recognised brand and operates in an industry where competition is fierce,” said Kieran O’Brien, client services manager at Webtrends. “As a result, customer expectations are extremely high and it is imperative that companies focus their attention on customer satisfaction levels and their online experiences. By tailoring the website to suit the needs of the individual visitor, Qantas has been able to create a far more user-friendly website experience, and has resolved common customer issues, such as the voucher redemption challenge.

“Optimize has allowed Qantas to get a full view of their customers likes and dislikes when it comes to website aesthetics and make relevant changes to the web experience as a result. The conversion rates reflect the success of these changes. We look forward to strengthening on our relationship with Qantas and helping them achieve even greater successes in the future.”