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CrossCountry Trains – Case Study

Re-engagement of non-active customers

Client

CrossCountry is a train operating company owned by Arriva UK Trains that covers more of Britain than any other rail operator. With Birmingham at its heartland stretching from Aberdeen to Penzance, and from Stansted to Cardiff, including Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, Manchester, Nottingham, Bristol, Southampton and Edinburgh, CrossCountry is the most extensive rail network in Britain. Customers can purchase tickets directly from CrossCountry which comes with additional benefits, but tickets are also available via third-party platforms such as Trainline.

Project background & objectives

Cross Country had been focusing email communications on their engaged customers but had started to notice a downward trend in the number of those customers engaging with their email communications.

Cross Country conducted a deep dive review of their total database to identify potential pots of opportunities. They pinpointed 360,000 customers on their database who had:

Never booked
Not booked in the last 12 months
Had booked via a third-party booking platform but not directly with Cross Country.

Process

Cross Country changed their communication approach and focused on these 360,000 identified lapsed contacts. The customers were divided into two groups:

Those that had never booked or booked via a third party
Those that have previously booked with Cross Country but not in the last 12 months.

For each group, a multi-message email communication journey was developed with the second and subsequent content being determined based on the customer's response to the initial message.

For Group 1 the theme of the content was to Inspire, Inform and Incentivise in order to encourage a booking or direct booking.

For Group 2 the theme was to first listen and then to inspire, reaffirm and then incentivise if needed in order to achieve another booking

Group 1 email journey themes

Email 1: Inspire a booking but highlighting the range of destinations available on Cross Country
Email 2: Educate the benefits of traveling by CrossCountry and create trust in brand.
Email 3: Encourage a booking by offering a promotion
Email 4: Further highlight benefits of the CrossCountry brand.
Email 5: Follow Up Incentive by offering a richer discount
Email 6: Solicit customer feedback as to why they haven’t booked.

Group 2 email journey themes

Email 1: Feedback about customer’s last experience
Email 2: Positive feedback: Destination inspiration
Email 2: Negative feedback: Promotion
Email 3: Positive Feedback: Promotion if booking not secured by email 2
Email 3: Negative Feedback: Reasons to travel on and benefits of booking directly.

Group 2 objectives

Journey Two was targeted at those customers who had not booked directly in the last 12 months. This journey started by asking for feedback on the customer’s last journey. Based on whether that feedback was positive or negative determined the follow-up communications.

If the customer responded positively they received destination-inspired content to encourage another visit. If they did not respond to the destination email then a follow-up promotion incentive email was issued.

If the feedback response was negative then the second message was a promotional incentive to encourage them to try Cross Country again. The follow-up third email featured brand awareness content to reaffirm the benefits of travelling with Cross Country.

Results

By focusing on sending a series of themed and relevant content email communication to the identified 360K lapsed customers Cross Country achieved the following results:

21,000 of those customers made a new booking which generated over £1 million in new booking revenue.
50% who had only made one booking in the last 12 months, made a second booking.
13% of the revenue came from lapsed customers who had not made a booking in the last 12 months.
The emails achieved high engagement rates of 35% to 40% open rates and an 8% click-through rate across all three groups, proving that customers still wanted to hear from Cross Country.
The destination and benefits of travelling with Cross Country content emails performed higher than the promotional emails.

Key Learnings

Don’t give up on your lapsed customers. By targeting them with relevant communications you can re-engage them and influence another sale/booking.
Don’t always reach for the discount first. When breaking down the individual content response rates, the destination inspiration and benefits of travelling with Cross Country information content emails performed higher than the promotional emails, confirming that customers sometimes just need to be reminded with a suggestion, reason or confirmation to respond rather than a discount incentive.
Message Appropriately. Alter the message based on a customer’s feedback response to achieve higher engagement rates.