Ryanair Takes Flight With Digital Transformation

Ryanair has had it’s fair share of negative press when it comes to customer service and not without incident it seems, using expletives to respond to customers who complain over the price of cheese and crackers isn’t going to win you any brownie points – even if it is somewhat amusing in a ‘how to build a business based on a ‘bad ass’ image’ kind of way. Now it seems the company is taking a digital first approach to turn around their customer communications. Here are a few initiatives that Ryanair are focusing on to help them transform customer relations:

• Launch of a new easier to use website, reducing the booking process from 17 to 5 clicks


• Launch of MyRyanair customer registration service to store personal and payment details


• A new mobile responsive website


• Mobile boarding passes in place by April 2014


• A state of the art mobile app to launch by end June 2014


• Country-specific websites


• First budget airline to partner with Google’s Flight Search function


• Significant investment in their IT platform


• A tripling of the advertising and marketing budget year on year with emphasis on digital marketing activity


• Drive to recruit more IT staff with a focus on keeping website and front-end development in house

CEO Michael O’Leary commented on the customer centric approach

“Going forward, we now want to welcome, instead of telling that 10 million or 15 million people to bugger off. We say, ‘Look, come to us, if you want a specific allocated seat, we have an allocated seat for you. You want to carry a second carry-on bag, done. You want a business type product where you get fast access through security, done.’ We want to cater to all of those markets.”

Ryanair are also encouraging customers to engage with them via Twitter and and the website with ideas to improve the airline’s service.

Digital transformation requires a culture change within the organisation in order for it to be effective. If this is being addressed, Ryanair might just have a bright digitally led future ahead of them.

via Business 2 Community http://ift.tt/1feA47G