Background: Achieving a Better Understanding of the Customer.
American Airlines is the world's largest airline carrier. American, in concert with American Eagle and the AmericanConnection regional carriers, makes up the American Airlines network. Together, they serve more than 250 cities in 41 countries and territories in the Americas, Europe and the Pacific Rim. .
Since its founding, American Airlines has made significant investments to provide its customer with customized, personal service. One of the company's most notable efforts to provide a positive customer experience was with the creation of the industry's first frequent-flier program - AAdvantage. With AAdvantage, American Airlines was able to create a regular dialogue with its customers and with this interaction collect vast amounts of relevant customer data. Unfortunately, the company was unable to use the information for targeted, personalized outreach. .
Challenge: Delivering Marketing Effectiveness Across the Organization.
With previous marketing efforts, AAdvantage member outreach would come through monthly mileage statement mailings. In those mailings, American Airlines would offer special deals and promotions, but they were not precisely targeted to address individual customer habits or needs. American Airlines needed a way to finely customize communications, service, and offers in a way that improved customer outreach and increased customer loyalty, but was also efficient and cost-effective. .
Recognizing the importance of customer relationships and understanding the wealth of untapped customer knowledge it currently has, American Airlines decided to actively leverage its customer information and enhance the effectiveness of its marketing touch points including the Internet, e-mail, and other direct communication channels. American Airlines selected marketing solutions from E.piphany to achieve this goal and deliver personalized, relevant, and timely communications to millions of customers to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction and greater conversion rates on offers made.