| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 17/04/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 33 |
| Copyright: Other |
BA draws up new customer plan
BRITISH Airways has invested millions of pounds in a new customer management system to take ownership of its passenger relations away from intermediaries.Distribution implementation manager Richard Sedgwick said the development of the system was prompted by the growing trend towards e-business and rising customer expectations. “We have never seen such fast responses from passengers to information on the Internet and we need to be able to react to that,” he said.
The new Oceanwave database is three times bigger than the airline’s previous system and capable of storing the details of more than 23m customers initially, although it can be expanded.
“We are in the process of migrating customers from the current system,” Sedgwick said. “E-commerce had led to a lot of behavioural thinking at BA that has resulted in a fundamental change in the way we do business to ensure we own the relationship rather than on-line intermediaries and travel agents.”
He said BA has also invested in a channel management system that pulls together areas of BA such as reservations, product and the database, and distributes it to the various customer interfaces.