We are excited to announce the upcoming release of Personalised Travel Alerts, a powerful new capability designed to keep your customers informed about the changes that matter most to them. This new feature, available on both iOS and Android, leverages Passenger Cloud data to deliver real-time notifications about Disruptions and Network Changes in a targeted, relevant, and frictionless way for operators and customers.
Personalised Travel Alerts allow customers to receive app push notifications directly related to their travel preferences, using their favourite services and stops to determine relevancy. This personalised approach ensures that communications help customers stay informed without feeling overwhelmed by unnecessary updates.
Here’s how it works:
- Disruptions: Alerts are sent immediately when a disruption is created in Passenger Cloud.
- Network Changes: Notices are sent at midday two days before the network change takes effect. This timeframe balances giving riders enough time to plan their journeys without providing a notice period so long that it might be forgotten. Midday was chosen as it falls within sociable hours and avoids peak travel times when riders may be less attentive.
Why Personalised Travel Alerts?
1. Relevant communications, better engagement
We live in an age of information overload, and customers are bombarded with notifications constantly. With Personalised Travel Alerts, notifications are targeted to specific users based on their preferences, making communications more relevant and valuable. Unlike a blanket “broadcast” approach, this strategy helps prevent customers from feeling overwhelmed by irrelevant notifications, reducing opt-out rates and increasing engagement.
2. A frictionless experience
We’ve focused on making the adoption of this new feature as seamless as possible for both customers and operators:
- For customers: Travel alerts are integrated with existing personalisation features, ensuring they opt-in at natural points during their app journey without adding friction.
- For operators: There’s no additional workload. Personalised Travel Alerts use existing Passenger Cloud workflows, meaning there’s no extra effort needed to manage network events.
3. Building customer trust
Proactive communication is key to building trust, especially when things don’t go as planned. By delivering timely, relevant updates, you empower customers with the information they need to make informed decisions about their travel. This increased transparency helps build confidence in the reliability of the network and encourages customers to keep coming back to the bus.
4. Reducing operating costs
Personalised Travel Alerts can significantly reduce operational costs by minimising the need for customer support. When customers are informed proactively, they are less likely to contact support teams, which can cost anywhere from £5 to £12 per contact. By reducing customer contacts, especially during peak times, you can lower your overall cost base and improve efficiency.
Seamless integration across platforms
Personalised Travel Alerts are available across our iOS and Android apps. Customers will be prompted to opt in to receive alerts based on the parts of the network they have favourited. The feature is also promoted on operator websites, encouraging users to download the app and benefit from this new capability.
Availability & onboarding
We’ve completed our testing and integrated this capability into the platform, and there’s no onboarding process required for Personalised Travel Alerts. It will be made available from Monday, 21st October. Talk to your CSM now to find out about availability and pricing.
We look forward to helping you enhance the customer experience with this exciting new feature!