2013 Silver Travel and Holidays

Client TUI UK & Ireland

How did the campaign make a difference? Loyal customers book higher-margin holidays earlier, and are more likely to buy ancillary products and act as brand advocates. This 'little thank yous' programme systematically recognised and rewarded Thomson Cruises' best customers, driving an 819% increase in bookings and 239% increase in ancillary sales.

What details of the strategy make this a winning entry? Improving loyalty drives the biggest ROI for Thomson Cruises. A small increase in repeat purchases adds significant margin. This strategy focused on four core areas: pre-season offers; pre-embarkation excitement; 'little thank yous' on board; and post-holiday retention. As regular cruise customers are a valuable, growing sector, the programme surprises and delights the most frequent travellers with pre-season exclusive email offers, including personalised incentives, before the launch of a new season. Responders were called by retail concierge staff who personally attended to their pre-season bookings. Next came building excitement, using countdown emails and the pre-departure personalised portal; having customer details helped identify (and later reward) eligible loyal non-lead passengers before they embarked, and widened the database on validated non-lead passengers. For on-board rewards, the logistical challenge was enabling on-board holiday advisers to recognise and reward loyal customers, with five cruise liners and more than 500,000 travellers per annum. The innovative mobile-enabled internal 'passenger surprise and delight' portal, which works out at sea, helped advisers identify and fulfil pre-assigned 'little thank yous', including hand-delivered surprise and delight moments. Finally, for post-holiday retention, loyal customers were kept informed about what's new from Thomson Cruises with a six-weekly contact strategy.

How did creativity bring the strategy to life? Various surprise and delight moments were arranged for different loyalty tiers, including cabin upgrades, dinner at the Captain's table, an escorted bridge tour, vouchers for spa treatments, or even meeting Thomson the dog. Invitation and fulfilment of the rewards was recorded. The portal was essential to the customer rewards programme as it allowed on-board holiday advisers to: review passenger lists on location; view customer history and loyalty scores, deliver assigned rewards on board and record live customer feedback. They were empowered to add the personal touch for Thomson Cruises' best customers. All rewards thank the best customers for choosing Thomson. Most rewarded customers in turn left their own thank you messages.

Results The programme drove an 819% increase in bookings and a 239% year-on-year increase in online and retail ancillary products sales. It was well received, with 85% of customers who received a gift saying they 'liked the extra treats very much', while 72% said the extra gifts made them 'feel like a valued and special customer'.