SNCF Connect: the marketing stress explodes especially the servers!

Do you know about marketing stress? It is simply a matter of “creating a sense of urgency” and “betting on scarcity” to create the famous FOMO syndrome in the consumer: Fear of Missing Out, or anxiety of missing Out in French.

In other words, we make the prospect afraid of missing an interesting offer and regretting it later.

Well, SNCF has decided to bet everything on this marketing stress to sell its train tickets online. After an operation in September consisting of sending thousands of notifications early in the morning on French people’s smartphones to wake them up with an immense need for compulsive buying for €10 tickets, the company has done it again this morning for end-of-year trips.

Thanks to its failed marketing operation, the SNCF recreates the queues online

But since this morning, it is the servers who are no longer following. The SCNF Connect website is no longer responding. “There is a little waiting. Many of you want to book your train tickets,” he is registered on the online sales site, which has not been working since the start of the operation, early this morning. The magic of digital transformation, thanks to its failed marketing operation, the SNCF recreates online the physical queues in front of the ticket offices of the stations.

“From dawn, travelers will be able to book their train tickets at the best prices for the end-of-year holidays. Train ticket sales are opening for the following dates of circulation”, however, the SNCF communication boasted.

It was therefore without counting on the scalability limits of the servers, which are currently facing a large mass of connections. Surely the flip side of the FOMO medal!

A bad copy of Trainline

This technique of marketing stress, which tests the emotions of customers and the VMs of servers, is increasingly used in online commerce.

Trainline had initiated a few years ago an e-mail marketing campaign that also used stress marketing. The brand had communicated about the opening of sales of specific train tickets for the 2015 end-of-year holiday season. The stress factor was the following: “It starts in a week”.

SNCF Connect sent notifications the day before the operation and from 7:00 am
this morning of October 4th. A nice FOMO for a wobbly service.

For its operation, SNCF has shortened these deadlines even more, sending notifications the day before the operation and from 7:00 am this morning of October 4th. Just causing frustrated awakenings, and a huge mess.

Always further in marketing stress!

However, SNCF intends to persist in its ambition to stress the customer more and more. By the end of October, the company will be testing a new feature that will delight heartthrobs. The “Full Train Alert” will make it possible to “register on a waiting list and take back the seat of a traveler who has canceled his trip”.

The principle? “When a seat becomes available, an availability notification is sent to the first customer on the waiting list indicating that the ticket is automatically put in his basket for a defined period. He then has a limited purchase period to allow him to finalize his order (…) before updating the waiting list”.

Yes, you will always throw yourself more on the SNCF notifications of your smartphone. And having to complete a purchase in a few minutes. Unless the SNCF servers explode once again.