Sabre Corporation is launching three new, powerful data-driven, personalization solutions. The solutions, Sabre’s Customer Data Hub and Customer Experience Manager, and industry first, Dynamic Retailer, source insights on customers from multiple touch points and then use that data to create personalized, meaningful engagements with travelers. 

Dynamic Retailer promotes ancillary growth by dynamically creating flight and ancillary offers using personalized customer insights to generate incremental revenue. It also enables an airline to identify and offer the most relevant services and product bundles to travelers.

Virgin America is the first carrier to deploy Sabre’s Customer Data Hub, Customer Experience Manager, and Dynamic Retailer in combination.

“We wanted technology that would help us better understand our guests’ needs, focus on their individual priorities, and create an experience they can’t get with any other airline,” said David Cush, president and chief executive officer of Virgin America. “These new solutions give us invaluable insights into our guests to create tailored experiences that drive loyalty, and support our mission to make flying good again.”

In a Sabre survey of airline executives, nearly all – 97 percent – indicated they would be making investments in technology to improve the customer experience. IBM did a study modeling the top-20 airlines’ investments in multi-channel sales and services.  The study predicted that a large carrier investing $34 million in a customer experience project would recoup that investment in just 16 months. After five years, the total benefit is an estimated $582 million.

These solutions are designed to bridge the gap between passenger perceptions of an airline’s customer service delivery and the efforts of that airline to create a differentiated customer experience. That divide was highlighted in a survey commissioned by Sabre in which 81 percent of airline executives said they believe airline customer experience has improved, while 66 percent of travelers said they believe airline experience has been unchanged or gotten worse.

“Airline customers today expect more and more from carriers, and Sabre has identified ways airlines can improve the customer experience using established technologies that are already working in other service industries,” said Hugh Jones, president of Sabre Airline Solutions. “Sabre’s data-driven personalization vision further enhances reservations and airline retailing systems, giving airlines the ability to understand their customers at an individual level and deliver personalized products and services that customers most value.”

Sabre’s personalization solutions allow airlines to identify their highest-value customers, and target those travelers with offers based on their past travel habits.

“Our new customer experience solutions are designed to optimize incremental revenue, reduce acquisition and service costs through long-term customer loyalty, automate a consistent customer experience, and differentiate an airline’s brand from the many options from which travelers can choose,” said Jones. “Using Sabre technology, an airline can create that truly personalized, dynamic customer experience, without the customer even asking.”