Helping Snälltåget with re-bookable tickets and digital vouchers
08/06/2020
Written by Yvonne Dahlberg
A few days ago, the Swedish rail operator Snälltåget launched re-bookable tickets, which means that travellers can either amend their booking for free or get vouchers for future travel. Snälltåget is also launching digital vouchers, which will enhance the customer experience and improve internal efficiency by reducing the manual work required.
We were planning to launch re-bookable tickets in 2020, but Covid-19 forced us to speed up the process. From decision to launch, it took just a little more than two months. We will most probably need some fine-tuning, but it has been important to act fast to deliver this functionality that adds value to our customers, says Marco Andersson, Marketing Manager at Snälltåget.
What does it mean for you to offer your customers re–bookable tickets?
Re-bookable tickets significantly reduce the risk for travellers when booking train trips. They know that if their travel plans get disrupted, they will be able to make the journey at another time at no additional cost.
How will this impact your finances?
Since we mainly sell to private customers, very few trips are booked at short notice. In order to uphold our commitment to our customers, re-booking is free if the traveller gives us 24 hours notice so that we can resell the seat to another customer.
You are now also introducing digital vouchers, tell us a little more about it:
A voucher can be issued either as compensation for a re-booked trip or to compensate for the difference if the amended trip is cheaper than the original trip. We expect the volume of re-bookable tickets to increase so we want the process to be as automated and digital as possible. This helps improve internal efficiency but also enhances the customer experience by making it smooth and simple. We have used SilverRail’s API to build the booking process together with our own payment solutions and can this deliver a digital voucher directly when the customer is re-booking their trip. Digital vouchers will also be used to compensate for delays, which is a process we are also working on automating.
