Reducing friction with in-app customer verification updates

Many customers are eligible for discounted tickets, such as students, which require ID verification before they can be used.

Launched in 2020, Passenger offers in-app ID processing that gets these customers on the move quickly. Once approved, tickets can be used immediately. This is designed to reduce operating costs by replacing ID checks done by drivers and travel centre staff. The number of refund requests also drops as customers don’t get stuck with tickets they can’t use. Ultimately shifting the interaction to a digital experience increases customer engagement and opens up bus services to a wider range of customers.

In our latest update to the in-app verification service, users will be able to complete verification without needing to first purchase a ticket with a verification requirement. Ticketless verification allows customers to be proactive in their travel planning, helping to reduce anxiety around being verified at the time they need to travel.

Dan Claydon, Product Manager at Passenger comments, “User experience feedback showed that in scenarios where a customer wants to travel soon, our steps to buy a ticket and then get verified could be a point of friction for a customer – as in most cases they had expected to be able to use the ticket they’d bought straight away. Introducing the option for a user to get verified first, makes this more visible and will go some way to removing friction and reducing refund requests via operator Customer Services.”

Customers start the verification process in the app by navigating to the ticket listing and tapping ‘Get verified’ on any ticket that has a verification requirement.

Providing additional context to the capability update, Dan continues, “It’s an exciting product enhancement in its own right, but also from the perspective of what it’ll enable in the not-too-distant future. Now that we’ve removed the requirement to purchase a mobile ticket before a user can become verified, the service can be used to verify customers for other experiences in the app. This opens the door to verifying customers for contactless Tap On, Tap Off schemes. Right now, the bus industry is promoting a best-value promise for contactless but that isn’t true for all customers. But by using verifications on mobile this becomes a reality.”

Reduce operating costs and increase customer engagement with quick ID approval for concessionary or restricted tickets. To find out more about the Passenger in-app verification service, including the new ticketless verification option, please drop us a line.