#GiftofTravel: Amadeus' head of the Airlines Partner Network, Karin Dodson, recently interviewed Qwikcilver Solutions' president Shankar Balan to talk about gifting travel, the benefits for airlines, and lots more!
This is the first of a series of interviews to showcase some of the cutting-edge partners Amadeus works with and look at how their solutions support airlines.
At Amadeus, we work with a wide variety of innovative partners from various sectors, all with the same objective of adapting to airlines' needs and contributing to their bottom-line growth.
In the first of a series of interviews to showcase some of the cutting-edge partners Amadeus works with, Shankar Balan, Qwikcilver's president, tells us how the company's solutions support airlines and how the partnership is progressing.
Amadeus and Qwikcilver joined forces to improve the traveler's post-booking experience. This collaboration offers airlines a purpose-built solution, Asset Manager, to integrate gift cards and vouchers into their booking flow, increasing customer stickiness and retention.
Amadeus: What solutions can Qwikcilver offer airlines in partnership with Amadeus?
Shankar Balan: Qwikcilver is an expert in stored value products such as gift cards and vouchers. Qwikcilver benefits from Amadeus' tools, technology, and distribution network to achieve high visibility in the B2B travel market. This partnership allows airlines to reignite the love for travel by integrating vouchers or gift cards within the booking flow for those who want to give the gift of travel. Airlines can also use the solutions in case of disruption and effortlessly convert pre-issued EMDs into easy-to-use vouchers for passengers to redeem at a later stage, depending on each airline's policy.
Amadeus: How do you see your solutions benefitting airlines to help them accelerate recovery from the pandemic?
Shankar Balan: Qwikcilver and Amadeus created Asset Manager, a tailor-made solution for the airline industry to provide a seamless customer experience, boost satisfaction, and preserve cash flow. Asset Manager has commercial and functional advantages that airlines can easily enjoy, such as a two to three-month integration with Altéa, increased brand awareness, and improved customers' brand stickiness.
Amadeus: Can you share some success stories from airline implementations and how this worked on a practical level?
Shankar Balan: Luxair has been able to implement our solution easily, piloting Asset Manager to power its refund, compensation, and commercial gift card use cases. The airline then integrated Qwikcilver's APIs to generate vouchers directly from its CRM system, with Qwikcilver's platform enabling the airline to sell commercial gift cards to consumers via its website. Qwikcilver orchestrated a successful migration solution to convert open EMDs into vouchers that enabled Luxair's passengers to redeem them at their convenience.
The collaboration with Amadeus also resulted in us signing a gift card program with Vistara. The Indian airline launched its Purple Ticket gift card to allow its customers to purchase Vistara tickets, preferred seat booking, lounge access, and excess baggage.
Recently, we launched a partnership with South African airline Airlink to launch a gift voucher program. With this new initiative, Airlink's customers can purchase flexible travel vouchers in exchange for tickets and other airline services
We are in discussions with more airlines, and we look forward to sharing more success stories shortly.
Click here to know more about our Asset Manager solution developed in collaboration with Amadeus.