Assessing Digital Customer Experience: Sri Lankan Airlines Report

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Sri Lankan Airlines' digital customer experience. It begins with an introduction to the company and its digital presence, followed by an examination of customer insight research techniques, including the development of customer personas. The report then delves into key performance indicators (KPIs) related to conversion metrics, essential for measuring the success of the digital customer experience. It covers Sri Lankan Airlines' services, customer base, and competitors. The report also explores various research techniques like analytics teams, surveys, user groups, and polls to gain customer insights. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of webographic, psychographic, and demographic factors in shaping customer behavior and preferences, particularly in the context of digital engagement and conversion.

DRIVING DIGITAL EXPERIENCE

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................2
a. Summary of Sri Lankan Airlines ............................................................................................2
Type of Organisation...................................................................................................................2
Size of Organisation....................................................................................................................3
Products and Services................................................................................................................3
Customer Base...........................................................................................................................3
Competitors.................................................................................................................................3
Digital Activeness.......................................................................................................................3
B. Customer Insight Research Techniques.................................................................................3
c. Development of Two personas................................................................................................1
TASK 2 ...........................................................................................................................................2
a. THREE key performance indicators (KPIs) around the use of conversion metrics to
measure the digital customer experience....................................................................................2
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
As with the rise in digital technology due to advancement in technological aspect of
global scenario, every organisation has opted to provide this experience to their customers which
would provide benefits to both in many aspects. This provides an opportunity for every
consumer who is interested to avail services of Sri Lankan Airlines with the help of mobile
communication that has provided them a direct access with the firm itself.
This concept of using cell phone has given many advantages to every customer, mainly
reduction in efforts as well as time for booking flights or other purposes. In addition, the cost
which was taken by mediators is now reduced effectively and along with this there are many
advantages that are associated with it.
Hence, this report includes more focus on the digital experience of customers that directly
or indirectly provides improvisation in conversion, increase in sales and even donations or
downloads. It also depicts the background information of Sri Lankan Airlines and techniques for
customer insight for informing development of people (Sponder and Khan, 2017). Three types
of Key Performance indicator has been provided to measure success of digital experience by a
customer who is accessing their services. Various on site and off site analytics and insight tools
have been compared in order to describe conversion of customer and their performance
monitoring. Best Practice method has been recommended in order to improve those areas that
can adversely impact their position in the aviation industry.
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TASK 1
a. Summary of Sri Lankan Airlines
Sri Lankan Airlines was started in 1979 and was known as National Carrier of the
country which had also won many awards and had a good reputation for providing quality
services, safety, comfort and punctuality. The hub of airline is situated at Bandaranaike
International Airport that is presently situated in Colombo. It is perceived as global connection
which is very convenient and has a global network for its every route around 103 destinations in
48 countries.
Type of Organisation
It is known to be a private company which has global presence and is owned by Ranjith
Fernando and Suren Ratwatte and has a aim to make their strong position in the industry of air
transportation and tries to meet expectations of shareholders in a profit earning market
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Size of Organisation
During a review, it has been observed that the size of airline is very huge as it almost
covers 103 destinations in around 48 countries. They have covered almost every country in Asia
and Europe which resulted in increase of revenue by 48%.
Products and Services
There are many services which are provided by Sri Lankan Airlines which are majorly
Cabin as they offers complete flat bed seats with facilities such as audio and video which are
mostly on demand; Entertainment that is provided through AVOD techniques; Catering is
offered by Sri Lankan Catering Ltd. which is an airline caterer (Lehtonen, 2014).
Customer Base
They have three categories in customers which are Leisure, Business and Direct travellers
with percentage share as 30%, 45% and 25% in the revenue share respectively.
Competitors
The air transportation has many competitors such as Qatar Airways, Emirates, Etihad,
China Eastern, Fly Dubai, Malindo Airways, Thai Airways, Air India and Singapore Airlines.
Digital Activeness
Sri Lankan Airline has 570k followers on FB whereas 28.5k on Instagram and 8.1k
YouTube along with 56.5k Twitter and 4.3k LinkedIn.
B. Customer Insight Research Techniques
Research techniques which are used by an individual can be primary or secondary. These
types are completely dependent upon the sources of information which has been derived for
conducting a particular investigation on certain matter. They have many differential advantages
according to which an investigator adopts it for a research.
In the depicted scenario, it is very important to build customer insights which mean that
developing a kind of recognition in the mindset of potential customer in an air transportation
market. This results in the development of a secure position that will ultimately provide benefits
to Sri Lankan Airlines. There can be many techniques that are preferred for developing customer
insights which would help the firm to promote themselves effectively or one would be able to
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know all essential factors that could help to develop their persona among customers (Unhelkar,
2016).
Some of the research technique is discussed as below:
Developing Analytics Team
There shall be focus on the recent trend of 'Big Data' and also 'Predictive Analytics'
which is regarded as the most important aspect used by analytics team for performing research
regarding. Data scientist have an effective role in performing the investigation based on the
enormous data which is available and can be very beneficial for every organisation in order to
quench out every little and important information that leads to impactful result and must be
carried on for taking important decisions for gaining an insight of customers in the market.
The main role of this team is to understand the type of behaviour which all buyers are
showing in current scenario and also what would be the probability in the future scenario. They
generally form behavioural and demographic profiling to increase an understanding of every
customer on the basis of certain factors which is facilitated by segmentation that includes the
homogeneous structure of every employee.
Advantages
 Better understanding of potential customers and present consumers
 Provide the source for developing effective strategies
Disadvantages
 Complex Method
 Requires special skills which are not present in every employee
Surveys
Survey method uses the statistical tools on the information which has been derived
through conducting the study on the selected sample, which is mostly done through segmentation
in the air transportation market. The selective customers must be studied on the basis of how
they avail air services through mobile communication, what problems they suffer and also every
benefit that has been provided by using mobile apps.
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These are major aspects which provide foundation for development of effective strategies that
can lead to gain customer’s attention and data in a statistical inference is later on interpreted
(Gangadharan, 2016).
Advantages
 Effective Results
 Authentic data is provided mostly through primary sources
Disadvantages
 Time Consuming Method
 Needs a representative for the conduction of survey
User groups
It is very important to observe consumers in a natural environment to understand more
closely with an aspect of their perception and expectation which are associated with availing
services from various airlines for travelling. Study shall be conducted in order to observe the
reaction of all consumers while using sources for getting services from Sri Lankan airlines.
Analysis should be done on types of services and other aspects which are liked by them, and
also least preferred.
Advantages
 Real Scenario is observed
 Provides the idea of factors that can be lead as strength and weakness
Disadvantages
 External Factors affects the user group
 The User Group which has been chosen might not represent whole population
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Polls
Poll is a method that includes taking up direct opinions of customers in a market which
develops direct understanding of factors that affects the choices of every customer while
selecting the organisation from which they want to travel to a certain destination. It is specially
designed to represent views of the entire population that can be conducted through providing a
series of questions to every individual of the sample.
Advantages
 Direct Reach to customers
 Facilitate the communication process
Disadvantages
 Customers might not provide the right opinions
c. Development of Two personas
customers in today's world gets influenced due to many external factors that can be due
to webographic nature, psychograhic behaviour and also demographics aspects which leads to
formation of the different perception regarding any organisation. The webographic nature
includes the online behaviour which indicates that how much he is active on various social sites
which leads to provide an opportunity to the company for using social media techniques in order
to attract these kind of customers from the online market. The social media technique is very
much in trend as every individual is so fully focused and addicted to use various social media
platforms that leads to provide an instant access to the customers around the world and also it
provides an opportunity for reduction of the employees that leads to create promotion for the
customers in a market (Toussaint and et.al., 2017).
The scenario of digitally advanced world makes the use of various electronic gadgets as
compulsion for making their lives more easier as it leads to reduce the efforts and time for
availing any services which is being provided by airline companies. Therefore, it is very
important for every organisation to develop various web based and mobile base applications that
provides every consumer a direct access to their firm. The implementation of making these
application according to the preference of the customers leads to create a competitive advantage
which is required for competing from the strong opponents who already have a string consumer
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base. Also, many customers depends upon the review and the usage of particular airline site in
order to develop a trust that most customers are availing their services and it is a trustable sight.
Hence, every organisation uses various search engine tools for increasing the traffic on their site
in order to get more customers for their applications as well as web base online sites.
Attitudes and interest of an individual depends upon the word of mouth from those
consumers who have already availed their services and recommend them to others. Also, special
services and facilities can change the attitude and interest of any potential customers and can lead
them to attract towards these services which can be very advantageous in order to develop a
competitive edge in the market. Many people have hobbies in order to travel around the world
they require a normal price for air travelling and some special offers that can be impactful for
creating a good attraction of these segment which is very beneficial for creating profitability in
the business which is an ultimate goal.
Also, the demographic status of every consumer defines the behaviour for choosing
particular services which are availed according to their status such as the use of Business class
seats. As the particular society according to common status prefer air transportation rather than
land transportation (Yin, Zhu and Kaynak, 2015). Therefore, segmentation on the basis of
demographic aspects is very useful to understand as it affects the behaviour of every consumer
which in turn leads to provide immense increase in the sales of their services.
TASK 2
a. THREE key performance indicators (KPIs) around the use of conversion metrics to measure
the digital customer experience
Conversion metrics is the measure which determines several factors that lead to convert
every potential customer into effective consumer which leads to increase usage of web based
platform or mobile application for availing services of an organisation. As Sri Lankan Airlines is
focusing on adoption of social media techniques for promoting themselves across the world
making it more global and leading to increase the customer base which would provide a benefit
in many aspects (Parmenter, 2015). There are many activities of the customers which determines
conversion factor which can be digital downloads, increase in the submission of for, downloads
of the apps, registration for the newsletters that would acknowledge them about all the activities
that are happening in the organisation and what new deals can they make which could provide
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benefit to both this shows that customers are taking interest in their firm which increases the
chance of preferring their services among others, when the customers started enquiring about the
services this means that they are taking interest. When the sales of their services gets maximised
and the pricing does not affects the sales it means that the value of the services has been
increased in the mind set of the customer which is a very crucial aspect of every leading firm in
the industry. Feedback of customer plays an important role for building up the reputation among
the customers in a market and also it provides the idea related to what are the factors that are
requires some modification and improvements.
There are many key performance indicators that determines the performance standard of
every firm and are necessary to be measured so that it can provide the status of the performance
and the lacking point where it needs some improvement so that it can provide complete
satisfaction to the customers.
Traffic Generation
It is very important to have sources which are diverse to generate the incoming traffic
which is very important for every mobile and web based application. Traffic sources provides an
organisation huge number of potential customers who are interested for availing the services of
airlines. This is an important aspect because it provides an opportunity to increase the
recognition level in a market to compete with competitors who already have a huge base of the
customers and are providing a stiff competition to Sri Lankan Airlines (Ordenes and et.al., 2014).
A great increase in the visitors in the sites of the airlines determine that the usage criteria of the
services which are offered by them is very effective for providing satisfaction to them. There are
basically three types of primary sources which are:
1. Direct Visitors : They are the one who usually visits the sites in a direct manner by
addressing the particular site in their browser and visits the site for some purpose which
can be regarding the getting of services.
2. Search Visitors : They are considered as he person who are fir searching a query and then
visiting the site.
3. Referral Visitors: They are the individuals who gets interested to visit the site as it was
mentioned somewhere in another blog or website.
Social Followers
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As the current trend for promotion is the adoption of social media techniques in order to
reach larger amount of customers which are very necessary in order to develop a good position
and attract a large number of customers on these social sites such as Facebook, Instagram,
Twitter, Pinterest or even snap chat. It is regarded as the nest source for the promotion because it
provides an innovative and creative way fro advertising which is preferred by every individual
and does not consume much time of any customer therefore it is the best technique to gather
more followers on the official social sites of customer. It is considered as the key performance
indicator because increase in the number of followers provides an idea of that the people are
recognising the airline company and also showing interest for availing their services by getting
updates with every action on social media that provides several kind of information related to the
firm and makes every customer aware of its every kind of services along with the various offers
that can be provided to them and would lead to make their journey more comfortable and
economic according to the various segments of travellers who can be leisure, business or
ordinands one.
The major goal of determine these strategies on social media is to make them already
aware of the things which they might does not get with organisation. It also leads to provide an
idea of customer loyalty and how much they are aware of particular brand and also a company
can map according to the frequency of follower that where it is more preferred and customer are
much aware and on the other side where awareness is very less (Keiningham and et. al., 2015).
Therefore it leads to provide an opportunity for developing effective strategies for promotional
activities according to the recognition level at various geographical areas. As different locations
might need various traffic generation sources that might also lead to increase the following of
followers for their own sites.
Feedbacks of Customers
Feed backs of customer is very important aspect for every services as it provides a great
scope for improvisation which ultimately leads to benefit the organisation itself. A completely
satisfied customer would always provide positive feedbacks where as negative feedbacks are
provided by those who found some lacking points in the services which can make their services
no effective. Feedbacks of the customers are taken through various ways which can be through
surveys which provides direct access to all the customers and can provide them a privilege for
getting more importance in order to provide them much excellency in their services. Also severe
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questionnaire are made to filled by them which is stored in the Customer satisfaction Card Score
(The Basic Conversion Metrics Every Marketing Director Should Understand, 2018). Which
generally denotes ho much the consumer is satisfied with the service experience and what were
the factors which he could describes as the best and the worst which ultimately provides an idea
about how much the services can create a positive impact and how much they are successful in
producing effective and efficient services for the targeted customers in a market.
Also certain ratings and ranking methods are provided in order to get the ranking to every
aspect of the services according to which it is been calculated regarding the what the customer
expected and what he gets and this helps to diminish the gap which is between these two aspects
and can provide them an opportunity for eliminating all such gaps that is making all the services
ineffective and non impactful for all the customers. Feedbacks of customers provides a
connection to get linked up with the expectations of every customer with the brand itself and also
what are their requirements which are not fulfilled and are needed to be focused on.
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