Virgin Holidays wanted to improve its communications with customers and to do so they looked within to their marketing department. In this presentation, we'll hear how the company used a culture of mutual trust to support their digital transformation. The presentation will reveal how the brand consolidated data from CRM, online, retail and other sources to create a culture of internal collaboration and transform the customer experience. KEYNOTE Saul Lopes, Customer Lifecycle Lead, Virgin Holidays

1. Saul Lopes
Head of CRM & Loyalty
Virgin Holidays

2. What do we sell?

4. What is it like to work at Virgin?

5. Virgin Holidays - Background
—
1 Major business transformation back in 2015
2 Trading business with weekly trading needs
3 Fast-paced: speed is everything
4 Very lean management structure
5 All employees are encouraged to take
ownership of their work and step up
6 Very little red tape and speedy approval
process
7
8 Leadership is there to break down barriers
and facilitate resource
In House CRMteamwith all execution
done in house

6. Where we came from

7. The Past
—
Customer
communications
were only trading-
focused, constant trading
of weekly deals
Complex email setup
three different tools in
order to send an email
Lots of preconceived
ideas
about information in the
database & inefficiencies
in the SCV
No culture
of creative or subject line
testing
Marketing/CRM team
with no analysts and data
background
Communications
with very limited
personalisation
Multiple departments
contacting customers

8. Our Customer Communications Overhaul
—
1 2 3
Prove yourself
with quick wins
Get the basics
sorted
Start the major
transformations

9. 1 – Prove yourself with Quick Wins

10. Stop blaming your ESP!

11. Where we started
—

12. The data-led transformation
—
• +50% Increase in CTRs
• 100% Increase in Appointments
4 weeks to implement

13. Being personal at scale
—
BARBADOS
29°C
• 67% increase in CTR
• 35% Increase in calls
Hey, Saul where would you rather be?

14. Using AI to increase your marketing reach
—
Introduced an AI tool that writes better subject lines and email
copy than humans
What problem was I’m try to solve?
• Testing at scale without creating more workload for my team
• Endless meetings about subject lines - Everyone has an opinion about subject lines, but
all of them have human bias

15. Our first subject line test – breaking the human bias
—
✭ Here. Now. Isn't it time for a holiday?!
Earn 10% off* this weekend with our dream bigger sale!
#SaleEndsMonday where shall we go today?
Last few at this price: 10% off* sale ending Monday!
#BookBeforeMonday take us away from all this!

16. Our Results
—
Don’t miss out on this weekend’s bonus savings. Dreamy holidays with no nightmare prices!
Bonus savings here! Still dreaming of amazing holidays? Enjoy a surprising 10% off.
Holidays? I’m dreaming... Err are those prices right?! Bonus Savings this weekend with 10% off!
Sale announcement: Dream holidays at real-life prices!
Holidays in places where dreams become real…
2 percentage points increase of open rates

17. 2 – Get the basics sorted

18. The need for change – Change of ESP
• Our old set up was extremely inefficient
• Many hours were wasted with data files going
from place to place between the 3 systems
• It wasn’t future-proofed for the needs of the
business
• Customer data was spread all over the place,
with incredible complexity
• Lots of different departments communication with
customers
• Lots of data silos across the business
—
The need
for change
Segmentation
(Unica)
Creative
Execution
(M&C Saatchi)
Sending
the email
(eBay)

19. —
Our journey towards a unified customer experience
The need
for change
Segmentation
(Unica)
Creative
Execution
(M&C Saatchi)
Sending
the email
(eBay)
The need
for change
Segmentation
(Unica)
Creative
Execution
(M&C Saatchi)
Sending
the email
(eBay)
Phase I
Phase II
A single tool that handles all campaign
execution across various channels
Ability to redesign the customer database
so that a marketer can use it
Creates a campaign from beginning to
end in a single workflow

20. The Migration was a Success
44 data tables with 2,000 variables reorganised into 7 data tables with 200 variables – simplicity was key
—
1
Project delivered on time and in budget – just six weeks to send our first email in Adobe2
Normal marketing users could now take ownership and build their own campaigns. Email creation
time reduced from a whole day, to hours3
CRM team is now the central voice for customer experience; all departments contact us in order to
improve the service for our customers4
Key success factor – we got it live before Virgin Atlantic!5

21. —
Now we have the basics,
we have no excuses with poor technology –
only limited by our ideas.

22. Bring it on!

23. Our most successful email of the campaign of year?
—
1. Contextually relevant
2. Larger images, minimal text
3. No sales message!!!

24. The results – We delivered out best peak ever!
—
37%
Increase of
Margin
38%
Increase in calls33%
Increase in
web traffic
66%
Increased
Awarness

25. 3 - Start the major transformations

26. Our new focus on the customer
—
The CRM team now has two main team objectives:
1
Drive revenue
from customer
communications
2
Increase NPS by
improving the
experience

27. Created four core strategies based on the customer journey
—

28. Our new focus on the customer
—
Increase Anticipation
Engagement comms:
sales (upsell) or brand
engagement
Decrease Anxiety
Service comms: essential
information you need for your
holiday sent to all customers.

29. Redesigned the whole Customer Journey post purchase
—
2
5. U p-sell
Em ail
RECEIPT
BOOKING CONFIRMATIONS
CONGRATULATIONS
BOOKING CSQ
PAYMENT REMINDERS
TRAVEL DOCS
PRE-BOOK SEATS
UPSELL
PRICE
FLUCTUATION
BOOKING
CHANGE
BOOKING
AMEND /
PROCESSING
BOOKING
CANCELLATION
PART
PAYMENT
FULL
PAYMENT
PRINT
DOCS
TICKET
DELAY
CONCIERGE
ONLINE
CHECK-IN
ARRIVAL
35 disjointed communications

30. Redesigning our whole journey including service communications
—

31. How did change look like?

32. Vital Prep – Important Customer Information
—
Page 5 of the invoice!

33. Booking Confirmation Example
—

34. Finance Letters Example
—

35. How did we sell it internally?

36. Know what you are worth
—
PPC CRM Di r ect List ed Ref err er Banne r Af f il iat es Soci al Med ia
Total Revenue Generated by Channel
CRM is the second biggest revenue generator in Virgin Holidays

38. Results

39. Focus on Efficiency - Out Digital Output
With only 2 FTE’s 97.5 Campaigns per FTE
—
Triggered
Comms, 54
Campaigns
Comms, 141
0
50
10 0
15 0
20 0
25 0
Num ofUnique Cam pa ig ns
2017
Trigg ere dComms CampaignsCom ms
300
With only 3 FTE’s 97.5 Campaigns per FTE

40. Business Results
—
Engagement
rates 10
times higher
than our
marketing
emails
Our Pre
Departure
scores have
increased by
5%
Upsell per
booking
increasing
by 11%
Customer
self-serve
increasing
by 7% by
shifting more
traffic to
MMB
£3.3M in
incremental
revenue
across all
destinations
Project ROI
of £16.2:1
Employee
Engagement
scores of
90%

41. Final Thoughts

42. Our People
—

43. Thank You