After completing her bachelor degree programme in Tourism and Leisure Management and her master degree programme in Marketing at IMC Krems, our alumna Agnes Renz combined a strong foundation in tourism with an analytical understanding of brands – a combination that has shaped her career in customer experience at Austrian Airlines and continues to influence her work today.
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Customer experience at cruising altitude
Outstanding customer experiences rarely happen in the spotlight. They are created through countless small decisions, attentive listening, and a willingness to explore new approaches. This is exactly how Agnes Renz works. Early on, she developed an understanding of how important the very first point of contact between a guest and a company can be.
At Hotel Graf in St. Pölten, she was the person at reception who influenced how a stay was experienced – from check-in to departure. This sensitivity to situations in which customer satisfaction can be determined within seconds left a lasting impression on her.
She subsequently gained first-hand experience of intercultural communication, organisation, and responsibility as an au pair in the United States, where she structured the daily life of a host family and learned early on how to manage multiple perspectives simultaneously.
After returning to Austria, she took on responsibility at Schloss Kreisbach, leading service teams, planning events, and creating content for digital channels. For the first time, working directly with guests and developing communication strategies became visibly connected in her role.
In Berlin, she broadened her perspective on brand management. At Elephant Gin, she worked in sales and marketing, managed influencer relations, developed social media content, and supported point-of-sale projects – touchpoints where brand identity becomes tangible.
Another professional step led her to Too Good To Go, where she worked at the intersection of marketing and customer service, taking responsibility for KPI development, app ratings, and projects aimed at increasing customer and partner satisfaction. It was here that she saw clearly how data can be transformed into meaningful improvements.
At Austrian Airlines: customer experience at cruising altitude
Since 2023, Agnes has been shaping the passenger journey across all touchpoints as a Customer Journey Manager at Austrian Airlines – from the first digital interaction to the emotional moment of arrival. Her focus remains clear: listening, identifying patterns, taking feedback seriously, and continuously improving customer journeys.
Her work sits at the intersection of innovation, testing, and implementation. Agnes supports projects from the initial idea and business case development through to pilot programmes and validation in real-world operations. One example is a project developed as part of a Lufthansa talent programme, where she and her team created the concept “SAFt”. The aim was to make sustainable aviation fuel more understandable and accessible for passengers. The concept was later implemented at Austrian Airlines in cooperation with waterdrop.
Exploring new forms of the onboard experience is also part of her role. In another project, Agnes contributed to the development of an alternative entertainment format for flights without an in-flight entertainment system. The objective was to offer passengers a deliberate digital detox experience and to rethink the travel experience beyond traditional screen-based solutions.
At present, extended reality (XR) plays a prominent role in her work, although Agnes sees it as only one element of a much broader picture. She is currently involved in practical onboard trials using VR headsets to better understand usage patterns, passenger acceptance, and operational feasibility. Her participation as an expert at UnitedXR Europe, where she discussed the future of immersive technologies in aviation, also demonstrated how she shares her expertise on an international stage.
Making improvements tangible for as many people as possible
Another topic particularly close to Agnes’s heart is making customer experience more inclusive. She is especially committed to addressing the needs of people with hidden disabilities, even though implementation is often accompanied by structural challenges. For Agnes, this is an essential aspect of modern customer experience: not only driving innovation, but ensuring that improvements are tangible for as many people as possible.
Her connection with IMC Krems remains very much alive. Her studies provided not only professional expertise, but also a mindset: remaining curious, listening carefully, iterating boldly, and constantly questioning whether a measure genuinely improves the everyday lives of customers. It is precisely this way of thinking that continues to shape her work today.
