CIAM In The Sky
Hiya,
CIAM shows up in the most unexpected places. I was on a Delta flight the other day and saw the below example of CIAM in action. I could sign into the seatback screen. Even on airplanes, businesses have a chance to interact with customers with online applications.
In this case, logging in let you save favorite media (movies, TV shows) as well as save your place in a movie. I didn’t test it out, but I imagine that feature is pretty nice if you are doing a multi-flight trip and want to resume your movie after a layover. It replaces the user remembering to note the time they stopped watching the movie on flight one and fast-forwarding the movie on flight two.
Technical Obstacles
While the network on the flight is strong in the plane, it has to handle spotty connectivity with the wider internet. For example, if you are crossing the ocean and someone stops watching a movie, the system needs to save the user’s profile information locally and then sync it once the flight is over land and reconnected.
However, in this case the remote server does not have any data changing, so the sync should be relatively straightforward. When the local data changes, you push the changes up to the primary or remote server. Then just before the flight takes off, the local system can pull the latest data from the remote server, including the moment you stopped the movie.
(A system using satellite internet like Starlink doesn’t require any syncing because you are always connected to the remote server, but I have not yet been on a flight with Starlink access.)
Why CIAM?
Why does Delta offer a customer profile after you log in? I don’t have any special insight into their business. But I think there are a few reasons to offer login and personalized services:
offer features that make customers lives better
to get to “know” and “understand” their customers better (I put the words know and understand in quotes because a company can’t really know their customers. Certainly human beings in the company can, though.)
to sell or trade customer data
Features
It is convenient to be able to restart a movie just where I stopped it. If not, I have to:
remember the movie
write down the time it stopped
fast-forward to that time when I get on the next plane ride
That isn’t a huge effort, but it is annoying. While I didn’t fully explore the features of the Delta seatback experience, I can imagine other customized functionality like letting me know if my next flight was delayed, offering up a shopping experience, or displaying what trips I earned based on my frequent flyer account balance.
Understanding
Knowing more about Delta’s customers leads to a better customer experience, usually behind the scenes.
For instance, teams at Delta could be able to better suggest movies, or better able to decide what stations to carry, based on this data. Just like using CIAM can lead to a better haircut experience.
A better customer experience leads to more loyalty and profit.
Data Brokering
This data might also be useful to other parties.
After I log in, Delta can correlate my demographic data with behavior on the flight. What movies or TV shows interested me, a middle aged male?
Again, I have no special knowledge or insight here. I don’t know if Delta is selling or sharing that back to the media providers, but with a CIAM system in place, they have the option.
To respect my privacy they could even group the data by larger demographic categories, like males or people of a certain age. I’m sure if this is something they are pursuing, there’s language buried in their Terms of Service.
CIAM and its benefits are everywhere, even 30k feet above the ground.
Cheers,
Dan