We have (almost certainly) all been there: you get stranded at the train station or airport because your flight got canceled or it is massively delayed - what a bummer!
The upside? Well, if certain criteria is met - e.g. amount of time delayed - you can get your money back (or at least most of it). Nowadays there are quite a few players which make good money by taking care of your claims against the airline or railway company.
The pain point
Nevertheless there is quite a bit of paperwork involved since you are not getting your money back automatically. You either have to deal with the providers themselves or third parties such as flightright. You are in for quite a bit of emailing back and forth!
The solution
Data whether a means of transportation is late or not gets collected anyways. What if this data could automatically trigger a smart contract that pays annoyed customers their money back?
Why should the Deutsche Bahn do such a thing and not just hope that most of their customers won't claim their money back? Well, good question! Here is why:
- you directly engage with annoyed customers and do not send them to third parties, so you are actively improving your customer relationship
- automating the whole payment process through blockchain technology can save a lot of money
- you are able to establish another digital touchpoint with your customers
- the chance to get money back without any hassle is likely to make customers create accounts with your platform and not any other provider
- that way you can collect more data
Why blockchain?
Blockchain is a good fit, because different parties have access to the same set of data. In addition they can trust the data due to the characteristics of DLTs and show it to others (e.g. a judge) in order to settle claims.
What do you think?
#LifeWithBlockchain
Thanks also to Pascal Mehrwald (@pascalmehrwald), Benjamin Pabst von Ohain (@benpvo), Prof. Dr. Isabell M. Welpe and the TUM seminar team.