Case Eckerö Line

Eckerö Line’s passenger numbers peaked in 2019 and have since fallen temporarily due to the pandemic. Nevertheless, the application has found its way into the hands of many of Eckerö Line’s passengers, with more than 20,000 downloads at the time of writing.

“We’re satisfied with the number of downloads the app has seen so far, especially given that travel for work between Finland and Estonia only opened up again in mid-June. We’ve invested in marketing the app so that we can let customers know how useful it is for things like travel bookings,” says Eckerö Line’s Marketing and Communications Director Ida Toikka-Everi.

When it comes to further development, Eckerö Line already has a clear picture of the journey ahead. The company wants to expand the selection of features and services offered on the mobile application to ensure it serves customers as well as possible at every stage of the voyage.

Alongside the services offered through the application, another important area of development is the digital cabin key, which is still something of a rarity around the world.

“The goal is to allow the app to also function as the primary cabin key going forward. Of course, this also requires us to update the cabin locks, which will be happening in early 2022,” Hannikainen explains.

“In the beginning, we’re naturally going to have to offer a more traditional cabin key as well, but the long-term goal is to do away with paper tickets and key cards altogether,” Toikka-Everi says.

In addition to passenger transport, Eckerö Line also offers cargo transport services. Because of this, commercial drivers are another customer group whose service experience the company wants to develop using the application.

At Eckerö Line, development of digital services is part of a wider effort to develop the customer experience. At the same time, digital services help the company anticipate customer demand and reduce waste, among other things.

“Our goal is to make the customer’s experience as effortless and simple as possible at every turn. Digital services are part of this,” Toikka-Everi explains.

“You can book most of our trips and services on our webstore, and the online price is often lower than what you would get booking face to face at the port. Advance bookings also allow us to do things like more accurately estimate the food demand at the buffet, which reduces food wastage,” she adds.

Eckerö Line’s broad customer base brings its own interesting challenges to the development of digital services.

“In addition to leisure and group travellers, travel for work is a big part of our business – and let’s not forget about cargo. Our customers include people of all ages from across the world. We need to think about the big picture from the perspective of trying to serve all these customer groups as well as possible,” Toikka-Everi says.

A diverse traveller base and evolving business situations also demand flexibility from digital services, sometimes in surprising ways, as the pandemic has shown. For example, Eckerö Line added a new temporary route in the summer of 2021: a day cruise from Helsinki to Hanko. The new route was easy to set up using Digia’s webstore platform.

Designing and developing comprehensive digital solutions also requires a wide range of professional skills. Digia’s Webstore and Mobile teams work closely with Eckerö Line. To ensure cooperation goes smoothly, responsibility for the overall solution is placed in the hands of a single service manager who holds the reins of development.