The airline industry faces enormous customer experience challenges. Just think of Qantas’ labor dispute that left thousands of passengers stranded around the world, or AirTran’s legal debacle with passengers suing over a cockroach-infested plane and now American Airlines filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. Yet despite these serious challenges, the airline industry remains one of the most fertile grounds for CE growth in the next decade. In 2012, the industry is forecast to have a value of $711 billion, an increase of 65.4% since 2007.
Tim Mapes, Delta Air Lines’ senior vice president of marketing, is rising to meet the CE challenge through innovation.
Like any good consultant, I am the “high-value” customer Delta is trying to retain as I am a Diamond status member of SkyMiles with enough points to fly to the moon (and back). I’ve also taken careful note of Delta’s CE initiatives as it affects me personally.
Regular readers will know I’ve previously written about how Delta has embraced CRM to enhance its experience. So far, so good. The new changes being proposed are also fine, but just that: fine.
In my experience flying Delta as well as many of its competitors, they all miss a vital part of the experience – the most important part of the customer experience: emotional engagement with their customers. Of course there are a few notable exceptions: Virgin, Southwest and Singapore all have found ways to engage their passengers on a positive, emotional level.
More than half the typical customer experience is rooted in emotions, or how a customer feels about the experience. The innovations being proposed now all address rational elements of the experience. I don’t see anything emotional that generates the type of loyalty these other standout airlines engender. This is a major problem for Delta. Why?
I am a transient loyal Delta customer. What is that? I fly more with Delta as I get rational benefits like free checked baggage, early boarding, access to lounges, etc., but as soon as someone else comes into the picture with the same offer, my loyalty is up for grabs. I can easily leave Delta behind to wonder what happened.
Herein lies the problem. Southwest is moving into Atlanta, where our U.S. headquarters office is located. Southwest offers free baggage check, a priority boarding system and cheaper flights. Now who do I fly with?
A great customer experience not only incorporates, but transcends rational physical attributes such as quality, quantity, delivery, price, safety, security and privacy. It is rooted in the emotional “how,” not just the rational “what.” Unfortunately, I don’t see any evidence of Delta embracing this. I hope I am wrong for their sake, otherwise I predict they will lose a large percentage of transient loyal customers to Southwest.
We know that addressing the emotional drivers behind customer experiences works. Using this approach, a client of ours just recently realized a 25-point increase in its Net Promoter Score®.