TRANSPERTH customers were greeted by some very friendly people in pyjamas in the city last week with an important message about getting to work on time.
TRANSPERTH customers were greeted by some very friendly people in pyjamas in the city last week with an important message about getting to work on time.
Transperth has launched a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy called TravelEasy to ensure no-one ever misses the bus, train or ferry again.
It’s an ambitious target but Transperth marketing manager Louise Cummings believes it can be realised in WA.
TravelEasy is an information system that provides up-to-date information about Transperth services for consumers via e-mail and SMS.
“When I started at Transperth two years ago I was very interested in the Internet,” Ms Cummings said.
“Our (Transperth) site had a lot of traffic and we also had a lot of technical problems in terms of the content.”
Transperth already spends a considerable part of its marketing budget on off-line marketing, including timetables and stop-specific marketing.
This marketing works hand in hand with the call centre, which also has undergone a major review three months ago.
“All of this made me think about an integrated approach to marketing,” Ms Cummings said.
“And that led me down the path of CRM – I thought that was really our best model.”
Transperth already invests in the Travel-Smart program, which is a multi-nodal approach to transport.
The TravelEasy campaign is focused on ensuring customers are completely up to date with the service they are utilising.
“CRM is about understanding the needs of customers, it’s not just about software,” Ms Cummings said.
The campaign included a letterbox drop that asked people what services they wanted from Transperth.
Customers could answer by mail or online.
The direct marketing push received a good response rate and almost 7 percent of people wanted more information.
From these responses Transperth has built up a database of customers who can be targeted with information such as changes to timetables or service delays.
If the customer is online or has a mobile phone, this information can be transmitted immediately. The SMS campaign is still in its early stages but the response has been very positive.
“Precisely 15 minutes after the launch last week we had the impact on the website of thousands of visitors,” Ms Cummings said.
“By Friday 500 people were recruited into TravelEasy and half of those people said yes to the SMS trial.”
