Which online activities primarily drive customer retention for your organization? [#ChartoftheDay]

Retention strategy often takes a backseat in marketing efforts, find out what leading global travel brands are doing to combat this.

Performance Horizon and WBR Digital have recently joined forces to publish the Benchmarking Performance Marketing and Digital Strategy in the Travel Industry Report, which we got a sneak preview at. They surveyed a large range of executives representing leading global travel brands back in may to unearth their findings.

The report brought up some interesting results. Email marketing is by far and away the most favoured channel when it comes to customer retention, followed by Social Media, which is used by 63% as their primary driver of customer retention.

Bringing up the rear was Marketplaces and Comparison Shopping Engines with 8% and 11% respectively. This was of interest to me, particularly the lack of focus on comparison shopping engines, as at this point the customer is surely thinking about changing provider.

Does the travel industry think that once the customer has decided against using a company, that they never will? Surely a solid strategy in this area could claw back some of your customers, who are clearly still interested/making the purchase decision. Instead many are opting to just hand the custom over to their rivals. What do you think?