Travel retailer ThomasCook.com has deployed a hosted
customer relationship management service as part of a six-month
project to provide a single view of its customers and improve
customer support.
Andrew Doe, e-commerce director at ThomasCook.com, said the aim
was to drive customers to complete bookings online, rather than by
telephone, for example. Part of this process has involved
establishing a dedicated web support team.
An analytics engine, which is part of the CRM system from
supplier RightNow, captures customer information during service
interactions which can be then be used for tailored marketing
communication based on a customer's historical preferences.
A trial project began in 2004. Doe said ThomasCook.com assessed
the benefits of RightNow, by looking at metrics such as the change
in customer call patterns and the volume of transactions through
the website. The full roll-out took two months, and required little
development work.
Minimising developer effort was a key reason for ThomasCook.com
opting for a hosted CRM service. "We are in a phase of significant
growth in web traffic," said Doe.
"We needed to work with a solution we could deploy quickly and
get significant support from the supplier, given limited resources
internally."
Doe plans to integrate the RightNow software with booking
systems over the next six months and provide context-sensitive
links on the website to simplify the booking process.