Question : CUSTOMER SERVICE

➢ Can the proposed revenue model actually work? Are services to customers really useful?
➢ Would you agree to pay more for services, or do you just want to find the cheapest ticket?

I think when you're travelling for personnal reasons (and often trying to get the cheapest price), you don't want to pay for extra services.

For professional reasons yet, it can add a true value. People who often travel for their work can need a lot of things for many reasons : unplanned flights, very busy agenda, etc...

In exhibit 11, the biggest revenue comes from travel insurance. Considering that Etrip's customers are looking for the cheapest flights (therefore having theoretically limited cash resources) and are travelling on short routes within Europe, they should be willing to take as least paying options as possible. Therefore I don't really think this revenue estimation is realist.

And personally I would only consider to pay more service if they are related to onboard comfort! The rest is useless.

I think it depends on the customers' target.
If you wanna reach business mans , you should definitely have complementary services in order to prevent customers' insatisfaction and complains. For example, if a business man has an important meeting after the fly, he should now if the fly will be on time, delayed or cancelled. Therefore I think e-trip should include Mobile marketing in order to send SMS when the schedule of the differents flies change. The world of mouth can also be improved with that kind of services.

I agree with kathia; in order to evaluate the revenue model we should make a distinction between different types of customers.
It's not because you book the cheapiest flight that you don't want any service. Say you're going to visit Como (Italy, you can get there with Ryanair), as it is not a city it's likely that you'll need to rent a car... If Etrip proposes that service it is easier for you to book everything at the same place, isn't it?

There is no clue in the case that Etrip targets businessmen...And I don't say that they shouldn't provide any service at all, on the contrary! I think this kind of services are now a standard in this industry, I just have doubts about the optimism of the revenue model.

the main strength for e-trip is to target different type of customers from the student to the business man, those people don' t have the same expectations in their way of travelling . besides the competitive advantage of e trip is its customer service they are able to respond quickly ( 2-6h)to the client compared to other search engine.

Yann_Gerardi wrote:There is no clue in the case that Etrip targets businessmen...And I don't say that they shouldn't provide any service at all, on the contrary! I think this kind of services are now a standard in this industry, I just have doubts about the optimism of the revenue model.

yes, considering the fact that e-trip source of revenue rely mainly on this paid services

True, the quick answer is a good thing for e-trip. But don't forget the all-in-one service they are offering. Expedia is doing that and it rocks. Apparently, E-trip is taking that a step further and it is great !

True, the quick answer is a good thing for e-trip. But don't forget the all-in-one service they are offering. Expedia is doing that and it rocks. Apparently, E-trip is taking that a step further and it is great !

I am afraid that with the concept of ETRIP to attitudes collide.

1) When I want to travel as cheap as possible, then I try to save money wherever I can. Narrow seats, no food or drinks on the plan, less service. I do that because I am a student or someone who really wants to save money. So I am not willing to pay for something I might do on my own.

2) When I want to have a good service, because the flight is important to me, if book directly on the airlines website and rather spend 50€-100€ more than taking the risk of a delayed or cancelled flight or a poor service. People who would willing to pay for the ETRIP extra service won't use ETRIP at all.

What do you think about that? What is your experience?

And to those of you, who had been working already: How did it look like when colleagues of you had to go abroad?

I don't think booking with E-trip has to do with risks. I mean you can book directly with airlines and still encounter problems. The thing that you have to analyze is the answer given to a specific problem. For example, if the plane is cancelled, will the company guide you to another flight etc. Besides, E-trip is just a booking structure, isn't it? If you book let's say an Air France flight through E-trip, you are an Air France customer !

Are services to customers really useful?

I think the search services provided to all levels of customers are reasonable and seem useful. Etrip’s service class categories range form budget travel to premium first class. I cannot entirely speak for the needs of the elites who are flying premium class (perhaps there is no ‘snob factor’ in purchasing online), but for the budget or business traveler, the search services seem to add value by simplifying the search process to the customer. Etrip acts as a single Travel reservations Gateway (TRG) that gives access to the entire database of flights, over a dynamic time period. The price of 1euro for an SMS service, for example, seems very reasonable if Etrip can indeed find prices 10% lower than competitors.

Janick_Edinger wrote:I am afraid that with the concept of ETRIP to attitudes collide.

1) When I want to travel as cheap as possible, then I try to save money wherever I can. Narrow seats, no food or drinks on the plan, less service. I do that because I am a student or someone who really wants to save money. So I am not willing to pay for something I might do on my own.

2) When I want to have a good service, because the flight is important to me, if book directly on the airlines website and rather spend 50€-100€ more than taking the risk of a delayed or cancelled flight or a poor service. People who would willing to pay for the ETRIP extra service won't use ETRIP at all.

What do you think about that? What is your experience?

And to those of you, who had been working already: How did it look like when colleagues of you had to go abroad?

I totally agree with you Janick. I think that Etrip is a good concept but for people who look for cheap prices and low services, like, as you said, students.
Yet I don't imagine businessmen booking their flights on such a website. They might rely more on airlines websites for "security" reasons.
However, families (with children for example), the elderly, or any people looking for a particular service could use these optional service tools...what do you think?

I don't want to be nasty but businessmen are not directly booking their flights. Oftentimes, it is their secretaries who are planning the whole thing. Besides, when the company is paying all expenses, why go for the cheapest? We could think about this issue... Businessmen are not willing to take the time to book their own flights, is it because of the time needed to book? Could be a new target !

@Edith:
You see, the target group is getting rather small. Could that really be compatible with the estimated 8.374mio visitors in 2010?

@Florent:
Of course, you are right. Most of the businessmen won't book their flights themselves. So we should have in mind that we are talking about secretaries doing it, when we say "businessmen". But if they are good secretaries they also will care about the price and have also time constraints.

Hi,
just concerning the targeted customers, I think Etrip does have great opportunities with "businessmen".

At the 2 companies I've worked at (as an intern, so no travelling for me...) most managers were flying over to the headquarters at least every 2 or 3 weeks. Maybe it was due to tough economic times, but even for the plant managers they were booking with low-cost companies.

The managers I knew didn't have personal secretaries so they were often going onto easyjet.com to plan their trips.

So I think the "cheapest price" approach also concerns people on business trips.

Both service and price are important; however some people are not just looking for the cheapest airline in town. They would choose a certain airline due to:

personal perception of airline safety
mileage accumulation
number of connection flights.

no?

I would like to say that nowadays, more and more people are looking for cheap flights. However, i m pretty sure that with the 10 percent discount offered by etrip, people could begin to use this website for all the flights. In the short run, they will just take the cheapest offered by Etrip.
But in the middle run / long run, i mean after a few flights booked thanks to etrip, people may be willing to acquire a little bit more services, like comfort especially if the price with the services is the price of other companies without any service...

Would you be willing to pay more for an airline ticket with a package of services associated with the ticket or would you prefer to buy the cheapest airline ticket, withou any extra service (such as Ryan Air)?

I would prefer to pay a little bit more. If I had a problem with my reservation I would be happy to call an after-sales service that works rather than having to call a number at my own cost and to talk with a machine that ask me to press 1, press 2, press 5, and so on and so on; or to deal with a cyber operator, like for EDF (french company for electricity supply)

Well, if you look at page 9, you can see that Har Adir himaself made the distinction between students or people who are only looking for the cheapest deal they can find and business people (not only men!! ). So, all the comments made above regarding who is likely to pay for services were actually considered by Har Adir when building his financial strategy.
For example, he assumed only corporate customers would be willing to use the paid services, while the "average" customer would only use the search engine's free capabilities. Based on this assumption, he made the prediction that only 1-3% of the users would use the paid services, and they will generate 40% of the total revenues.
I think this is a reasonable assumption, and it is consistent with most comments made above - that most people using the website are students or people with low budgets. So, by taking this into account when considering a revenue model is appropriate and makes the model more realistic and therefore achievable.

Don't you think that This distinction between students and business people need to be improved:I'm sure that there is some customers' target who are not students but who are still searching for the cheapest prices (even you are an employee, a business man or you have another job, you still want a lowest price for your flight). Even you are not business man,maybe you are searching for the best complementary services (if you already had bad experience in foreign countries, lost your luggage, had a really bad travel, take the wrong reservation on Internet,...)

chloé_laluc wrote:➢ Can the proposed revenue model actually work? Are services to customers really useful?
➢ Would you agree to pay more for services, or do you just want to find the cheapest ticket?

I think Etrip can collect the affliate fee not only form the suppliers but also the customers, especailly the frequent flyers, in the future when the custemer base is big enough.

Because if Etrip can save more time and cost and provide customers with the best solution, the "customer value" will be far more higher than the price. Then the customers may think about paying for the service that Etrip provides. However, I suggest that Etrip should make a lower price as possible as it can and the fee should centainly be lower than the reduction of the cost of the ticket that customes get.

As for me, I am willing to pay for the services as long as the value is higher than or as good as I expect.

In my opinion, people who use website like Etrip to travel just want to find the cheapest tickets. They just want to have a very fast website which can compare every offers.
It is a little bit different when you travel for business, but in this case companies have often a partnership with travel agency which search for them the good prices with the customer services they need.

TA_Max_Huang wrote:

chloé_laluc wrote:➢ Can the proposed revenue model actually work? Are services to customers really useful?
➢ Would you agree to pay more for services, or do you just want to find the cheapest ticket?

I think Etrip can collect the affliate fee not only form the suppliers but also the customers, especailly the frequent flyers, in the future when the custemer base is big enough.

Because if Etrip can save more time and cost and provide customers with the best solution, the "customer value" will be far more higher than the price. Then the customers may think about paying for the service that Etrip provides. However, I suggest that Etrip should make a lower price as possible as it can and the fee should centainly be lower than the reduction of the cost of the ticket that customes get.

As for me, I am willing to pay for the services as long as the value is higher than or as good as I expect.

I agree with you on this one. When the value of the service is higher than the cost, customers will appreciate the service.