The operator finally simplifies its digital offer with a single point of entry for information, ticket purchase and post-trip. Simplicity and power are highlighted.
It’s D-Day. This Tuesday, SNCF is putting SNCF Connect, its new unique application for smartphones and on the Web, online. The objective is simple: put an end to the proliferation of online applications and services which leads to considerable confusion among users.
The carrier’s digital offer is indeed fragmented with a site/application for reservations (Oui.sncf), and another for traffic information (the SNCF Assistant) without forgetting certain specific tools such as “My line C, or the customer service.
Concretely, SNCF Connect brings together in the same place:
- route search from the first to the last kilometer (the application will therefore replace SNCF Assistant)
- the purchase of tickets (TGV INOUI, OUIGO, Intercités, TER except in the Paris suburbs, Thalys, Eurostar, TGV Lyria, public transport in Ile-de-France including Transilien, subscriptions)
- the purchase of FlixBus and BlaBlaCar bus tickets
- car rental with Avis
- booking taxis or carpooling
- the possibility of combining several types of tickets for a journey (train + coach for example)
- real-time passenger information
- exchanges, refund requests, cancellations and complaints
- eventually, scooters, bicycles and buses will also be found there
“Today, we have applications within the SNCF group that are focused on certain uses, certain customer targets,” explains Anne Pruvot, project manager, to AFP. “We are not opposed to maintaining these habits, but we want to ensure that a user no longer has any questions to ask themselves about whether to open such or such an application. By opening SNCF Connect, you have all the features.”
On the other hand, if the SNCF should eventually integrate the competing TER offers on its app (from the moment they are digitized), we will not find there for the moment the competing operators on the main lines, namely Trenitalia on Paris-Lyon-Milan. Which could be deceptive and open a boulevard to competing offers like the now famous Trainline app.
Ergonomics
This simplification also involves ergonomics. “The idea is to be able to do everything in a single gesture, to launch searches in natural language and to enrich the offer with more than 170 features and 4,000 passenger scenarios compared to 800 for Oui.SNCF”, underlines Benoît Bouffart, Director Products & Tech SNCF Connect.
SNCF Connect also relies on the considerable amount of data that SNCF collects daily.
“In concrete terms, when we have a million route requests per day, we are able to offer a lot of things to the user in terms of the relevance of routes, associated offers, all fed by artificial intelligence. The app will be able to make gestures in place of the customer: 20% of the functions will be motorized, such as the automatic addition of a free discount card for example”, continues the manager.
The operator also insists on its approach of co-construction with consumer associations and customers in order to clearly demonstrate that this offer was not developed in its area.
And to reinforce the sustainable dimension of the SNCF, which wants to be the leader in sustainable mobility, the application plays the card of energy sobriety: the app does not run when it is not used, the interface uses the “dark mode” (dark screen) on a smartphone in order to limit its consumption.
Just like the back-office, 100% in the cloud (with Amazon… which created some gnashing of teeth), enough to easily adapt the load or add new services, while up to now, everything was internalized through an infrastructure that had to run constantly at maximum capacity.
SNCF Connect for Android, iOS and the Web can be accessed by simply updating the Oui.sncf app, which will therefore disappear.