How LOT improved its customer journey and created an additional revenue stream using digital marketing technology

When looking back on more than 90 years in business, Polish airline Polskie Linie Lotnicze (LOT), is one of the 12 longest-operating airlines in the world. In pre-pandemic times, the company provided more than 120 regular connections to nearly 100 airports around the world, offering efficient, convenient and comfortable travel. In 2019 alone, more than 10 million passengers chose to fly LOT, and the airline has received several awards from passengers and magazines alike for its outstanding customer service and comfort, including being a 4x winner of Most Trustworthy Brand in the Airline category in the Kantar Millward Brown survey.

A long tradition of aviation and a highly modern way of travel is not mutually exclusive. With a highly competitive market and stricter regulations, airlines were already facing several challenges. And then, a global health crisis hit. Fortunately, LOT had decided to focus on its digital customer experience long before COVID-19 changed the way we travel. Apart from starting environmental projects such as the DestinationECO, which aims to increase the amount of carbon dioxide captured and stored by Polish forests, or by offering to compensate for CO2 emissions during flights by donating a small amount of money to reduce the carbon footprint of a given flight, LOT primarily focused on implementing digital technologies to create and optimise business procedures, culture, and, most importantly, its customer experience, allowing for a truly seamless (customer) journey.

Orchestrating customer experiences makes all the difference

You could say that seamless customer journeys start with seamless employee experiences. Because of this, LOT aimed at tearing down data silos between teams by creating one single platform for all communication processes. Whether it’s promotions, marketing campaigns or passenger information, all necessary data is available and stored in one place, making it accessible for all teams.

However, the thing with data, is that you could have limitless amounts of it — and, with more than 100 destinations and about 16,000 possible combinations of origin and destination, you’d pile up a lot of it — but without the right tools to perform an analysis, draw correct conclusions and put insights to action, the effort would be fruitless. Furthermore, orchestrating customer journeys for said 10 million passengers per year manually would be quite impossible. That’s why LOT decided to implement Adobe Analytics, Adobe Campaign and Adobe Target to automate data analysis, gain valuable insights, and distribute the right message to the right passenger at exactly the right moment, as well as to identify touchpoints across the customer journey for cross-selling options to increase the airline’s revenue stream.

Seamless (customer) journeys make for happy travellers

It all starts with choosing a destination. Passengers can book their flights via LOT’s website or app, as well as with travel agencies or even right at the airport. Whichever option travellers choose, LOT provides detailed information on flight connections. What’s more, to make planning the getaway even easier, LOT also offers additional services such as rental cars or hotels to offer customers a seamless journey. Extra services such as adding extra baggage to your flight is merely a few clicks away. The same goes for additional insurance, making sure travellers have a worry-free journey ahead of them.

To avoid overwhelming passengers with details, LOT splits its offers for extra services and offers it to customers when they’re most relevant. For example, if you’re booking your trip far in advance, insurance services or extra luggage might seem like unnecessary extras. But as the trip draws closer and snorkelling gear, hiking boots or a few extra books make your suitcase seem concerningly small, that option is helpful and efficient. Data processed by Adobe Analytics shows that such optional add-ons are often not bought in conjunction with the ticket, but rather closer to departure, or even right at the airport.

Being right on time is key in marketing and travelling alike

That’s why, starting a few days before departure up until the minute of departure, Adobe Campaign kicks in, sending automatically generated emails that provide passengers with relevant flight information, alerting them when online check-ins open, as well as offering additional services for purchase. The trick is, though, to send each incentive and piece of information at the right moment. Thanks to decades of experience, LOT was already an expert in this field. Still, because of thorough testing, data structuring and automation using Adobe Campaign Standard as well as implementing a new channel, the airline doubled its number of passengers taking advantage of these services.

Via Adobe Analytics, the teams involved get a detailed overview of how these reminder emails, as well as all other email campaigns, are performing. How many recipients open each kind of email campaign? Which parts performed best? How was the conversion rate? Based on this information, LOT develops a new template, which is put to test via A/B tests in Adobe Target.

Real-time information allows for stress-free travelling

Real-time information is key — even with restrictions in place, people still need to travel, for example, to conduct business or to visit family members. With regular updates on the situation and the rules and regulations in place at their destination, whether online check-in is available or not, or if passengers have to arrive at the airport earlier, LOT streamlines processes at the airport, making sure passengers arrive at their destination safely and on time.

“When we decided to implement marketing automation tools, we did a lot of research. Offering multilingual services along several platforms, as well as looking at a rather fragmented customer journey due to many touchpoints, we had to find a solution that allowed for seamless workflows and that we could easily integrate into the tools we already use”, says Arkadiusz Gawryluk, E-commerce director at LOT. “The Adobe solutions currently in use offer detailed data insights and not only allow us to act on said insights with automated workflows but also implement new marketing and information campaigns much faster than before, which is especially advantageous in uncertain times. It took us some time for everyone to get used to the respective tools, but now, we are more than satisfied with the handling and results alike.”

So, what are the outcomes? Implementing Adobe Campaign Standard allowed LOT to adapt quickly to an ever-changing environment, especially during unpredictable times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, most communication processes have been automated, allowing marketers to focus on providing passengers with highly relevant and personalised content at the right time. This results in, for example, passengers who were targeted with pre-flight communications being 1.5 times more likely to purchase additional baggage and 2.4 times more likely to pay to reserve a seat, compared to passengers who were not targeted beforehand. Furthermore, marketing automation standardises communication across many business units, so that passengers always receive consistent and up-to-date messages. Within a few months after going live, Adobe Campaign was being used by most business units involved in passenger communications. Providing even more customer data protection, the data model implemented with the partner, Avaus, increases the security of passengers’ data.

Where to next?

The sky certainly isn’t the limit as the company plans to optimise their services further by applying a more granular passenger segmentation to fit their offer of additional products to passengers and their flight destinations better — people enjoying a short trip in Europe certainly have different demands than travellers heading on long-haul flights to the America or Asia. That also includes an omnichannel approach as well as contacting customers by e-mail and text message, making sure passengers receive all relevant information even when offline. “The travel business, including, naturally, the aviation business, is changing rapidly. With our latest implementations and future changes, we’re making sure to offer customers a smooth journey by seamlessly connecting their actual flight to all touchpoints along the way. It’s experiences that count, and that includes flights”, Gawryluk says.