Continental Airlines
A Travel and Hospitality Case Study
Continental Improves Online Sales and Reduces
Web Abandonment with eStara
Country: United States
Industry: Travel & Hospitality
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Company Profile
Business Challenge
In a period of intense competition,
Continental Airlines makes its website a
priority. Continental sought to overhaul its
online reservation process to improve
conversion rates, reduce website
abandonment and drive even higher
customer satisfaction.
Solution
Continental Airlines deployed eStara’s Click
to Call service. Click to Call connects online
website visitors to reservation agents at key
points of sale across the online process. It
is a fully-hosted VoIP service that offers
real-time collaboration and no significant
internal IT resources.
Results
• ROI from Click to Call of 50X cost
of the service
• Click to Call resulted in a 35%
conversion rate- twice the rate of
traditional leads
• Click to Call reduced website
abandonment by over 25% on web
pages where the service was offered
• 78% of Click to Call users say Click to
Call increases the likelihood that they
will use Continental.com in
the future
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Continental Airlines is the seventh largest
airline in the world, offering more than
2,200 departures daily to 127 domestic and
96 international destinations.
- Kevin McKenna, Managing Director, Continental Airlines
In a period of intense competition from
other air carriers and travel portal sites, Continental Airlines makes its website a mission
critical business priority. The company works
hard to make it easy for online customers to
make reservations and get quick answers to
their travel questions. In 2002, Continental
sought to overhaul its online reservation
process to improve conversion rates, reduce website abandonment and drive even
higher customer satisfaction. The company
deployed eStara’s Click to Call as a key part
of this process. The Click to Call deployment
has doubled Continental’s online reservation
completion percentage and generated a 50X
ROI for the company.
Business Challenge
Continental Airlines, the seventh largest
global airline, has one of the most frequently
visited airline websites in the world. As air
travel has become more competitive, Continental has constantly worked to improve
its online customer experience in an effort to
drive higher online reservations and revenue
from its site. The company deployed eStara’s
Click to Call service to facilitate real-time
collaboration and communication between
website visitors and call center staff.
Solution
Continental Airlines uses eStara’s Click to Call
service throughout the online reservation
process. The Click to Call solution uses Voice
over IP technology and provides online users
the ability to make PC-to-Phone and Phoneto-Phone calls and collaborate from the Web
in real-time. Continental used web traffic and
call center analysis, customer feedback from
over 5,000 online survey results and internal
financial modeling to determine the success
of the deployment. Continental deployed
Click to Call at key points throughout the online reservation process.
In particular, Continental wanted to make it
easier for customers to make online reservations and resolve online problems during the
Web session. Within weeks of deployment,
Continental saw higher sales conversions,
lower website abandonment, and stronger
customer satisfaction.
Continental Airlines needed a technology
solution that could be implemented quickly,
without taxing internal IT resources or forcing the company to increase its call center
staff. eStara’s proprietary Voice over IP platform met this key requirement.
Case Study
Continental Airlines
A Travel and Hospitality Case Study
Click to Call calls are routed and handled
just like traditional inbound calls over eStara’s fully-hosted platform and deployed
on the content layer of the Continental
Airlines website, eliminating the need for
significant internal IT resource allocation.
The eStara deployment took less than two
weeks and required minimal internal IT
involvement.
Results
Continental used web traffic and call center analysis, customer feedback from over
5,000 online survey results and internal
financialmodeling to determine the success
of the eStara click to call deployment.
“Within the first few weeks, eStara’s service
had already paid for itself, increasing onlinesales and lowering abandonment rates,”
says Kevin McKenna, Managing Director at
Continental Airlines.
Continental’s Click to Call sessions resulted in
a 35% sales conversion rate, approximately
double the traditional sales conversion rate
within the airline’s reservation group.
”From both a customer user perspective and
a business results perspective, eStara has exceeded our expectations from day one,” says
McKenna. “eStara is driving meaningful business results, higher online sales conversions
and almost unheard of levels of customer enthusiasm.” In online survey results, over 25%
of Continental’s Click to Call callers said that
without the Click to Call option they would
have abandoned the online reservation process and gone to a competitor.
“eStara’s Click to Call service generated glowing reviews from customers and is demonstrating strong business results,” says McKenna.
Over 92% of Continental’s Click to Call
callers said the service “greatly” or “significantly” enhanced their online reservation
experience. 78% of Continental Click to Call
callers said the service increased the likelihood that they will return to book with Continental again.
“Our challenge is to make a visit to Continental.com as positive as the overall Continental
travel experience. Click to Call is a natural
extension of our first-class customer service
and further demonstrates our commitment
to add value to our online customers,” says
McKenna
The eStara’s Click to Call
service generates a ROI of 50X
by doubling Continental’s
sales completion percentage
and reducing abandonment
throughout the online reservation process by 25%.
-- Kevin McKenna,
Managing Director of Electronic
Marketing. Continental Airlines