Thomas Cook-owned online travel agency Netflights.com is generating annual revenues of around £80 million, according to its online customer experience agency Tealeaf.
Netflights boosted by Tealeaf analysis
Thomas Cook-owned online travel agency Netflights.com is generating annual revenues of around £80 million, according to its online customer experience agency Tealeaf.
The figure was unveiled in a white paper from Tealeaf, highlighting areas where it had identified and amended issues with how potential purchasers interacted with netflights.com. The agency talked up its proprietary tools including a “page-by-page, browser-level recording of the actual customer experience” as a reason behind its success.
Tealeaf came up with a way to alert Netflights.com call centre staff when a big online purchase was abandoned. The alert is sent out “within seconds” of the drop-off, allowing staff to contact the buyer directly, find out why the sale was abandoned, and hopefully fulfil the purchase.
“The outbound team now delivers more revenue per hour than any other reservation group in the company and generates over £16 million annually, a 340% increase year on year. This represents 20% of all revenue received through netflights.com,” Tealeaf said.
Generic analysis of the booking process also revealed that a large number of purchases were abandoned at the stage where credit card details are required.
Tealeaf was able to analyse this further. It found out that explanations about charges were appearing below the fold and confusing customers.
As a result, Tealeaf oversaw a redesign of the relevant page which addressed this confusion. The result was a 25% increase in conversions.
Finally, Tealeaf noticed a “simple usability issue” relating to a terms and conditions tick-box which, if left unchecked, refreshed the booking page without explanation, creating an endless loop which was “causing frustrated customers to abandon, resulting in lost revenue.”
Within weeks of the tick-box being added, conversion rates on the relevant pages were dropping by 13%. Tealeaf identified the cause and revamped the page so that the tick box was more visible and conversions recovered.
Netflights.com joined Thomas Cook Group as part of its purchase of Gold Medal Travel. Netflights sells seats on 135 airlines, has access to 30,000 rooms and 50 car hire firms. It also sells long-haul holidays and short breaks.
