Archives for "The Travel Industry"
How Not to do Social Media
If you can’t do it right, just stay away.
UPDATE: I’ve now had a response from Heathrow. See the bottom of this post for details.
On Wednesday I got up at an unholy hour to catch the first flight back to London, keen to capitalise on a full working day. After a few weather related wobbles I landed at Heathrow in good time.
I needn’t have bothered.
My early start was gradually eroded as I waited, and waited and waited for my baggage to arrive, my mood slowly worsened by the stench from the nearby toilets and the awareness that, having waited for close to two hours for my bag in the same spot in late December, I could be in for a very long wait.
I turned to Twitter to vent my frustration:
And then something wonderful happened. They actually tweeted me back:
Imagine my surprise. Well done Heathrow! They care! They listen to customers! They actually realise that it is 2010.
Or do they?
Revenue VS Customer Satisfaction: Do Airlines Get it?
A £150 in potential revenue, or a delighted customer
Flying home the other day, I managed to arrive at the airport 4 hours early due to some overly conservative traffic planning. Knowing there were two flights with the same airline departing prior to my flight I asked at the desk if there was any space on an earlier plane.
Yes, space was available and £150 would make my non-flexible ticket a little more flexible.
However, I decided instead to treat myself to a good meal and settle down somewhere with my laptop before arriving home just before midnight feeling tired, and as usual less than enamoured with the airline.
Revenue vs Customer Delight
The airline have obviously calculated that taking £150 from me now is a safer bet than their chances of selling the available seat with the extra four hours I’d allowed them by flying early. Further, perhaps the inconvenience suffered might persuade me to buy a more expensive ticket next time.
This is a reasonable bet, albeit a defensive strategy designed to maximise cash return instead of customer delight.
I left the counter feeling that the airline had been fair, but not overly helpful. To the question “How was your flight” my answer would be “Ok”, or “Terrible” in the case of additional delays, grumpy staff, irritating fellow passengers and other realities of flying.
Alternatively the airline had an opportunity for me to leave the counter with the feeling that they had been helpful, that they had my interests and comfort at heart, arriving home 4 hours early, less tired and extolling their virtues. “How was your flight?” “Excellent, they let me on the early flight and I was home early.”
Ok, an extra £150 is cash in the bank and I’m just a single customer.
But multiply this scenario over thousands of customers over many years. Given the choice, you’ll choose the airline you trust to make your journey easier. You’ll even pay a little more because you like them, and because you don’t feel like they take every opportunity to extract more of your money. When the airline is mentioned over dinner people will relate positively and not negatively. People will not try to avoid you.
The airline develops brand power, a power that can often be measured in billions of pounds and mark the difference between a firm in decline and a firm with prospects. The difference between the airline of choice and the airline of no choice. The difference between profit and loss.
Undoubtedly the airline have calculated all of this as well. However, looking at the industry I would argue that a number of airlines have gotten their sums badly wrong..
Photo courtesy of diamond geezer via Flickr under a Creative Commons Licence
3 questions for Heathrow’s website. Any answers?
How does website design reflect customer priorities?
On Saturday I drove from Zürich to a small village in the Swiss countryside, about 50 minutes away. The temperature was about –10 degrees, and it was snowing steadily with a thin covering of white stuff on the motorway. After a pleasant dinner I dusted about 2cm of snow off the car and drove home again, with many other motorists and without drama or incident.The next morning the temperature was –15 degrees and I drove the same car (not a 4×4) up and down a mountain. Apart from the view there was little to write home about.At the same time the trains have been punctual and planes have been taking off as normal.
Tomorrow I will fly to London Heathrow and, it seems, that despite slightly milder weather the planes, trains and automobiles are having difficulty in keeping things together. This is an oft commented phenomena, but it leads my to an example of web design that hints at a common corporate problem which does no favours to companies, or their consumers, and particularly to travellers in this case.
Three questions for consideration
Have a look at the this screenshot from Heathrow Airport’s website this morning
1. Does the website answer the exam question “Can I get home or away?” What does “some disruption” mean? Delays, cancelations, inconvenience? What exactly?
2. What is the communication priority of this website considering the placement and design of the different messages? Shopping, or information for customers?
3. Does this website reflect a company that is focused on getting people from A to B as effectively as possible, or a company that wants to screw as many £ as possible out of a captive audience?
Am I being too harsh and reading too much in to things? Or is this a fair reflection of that fact that many corporations focus on priorities that suit them instead of the customer, don’t understand customer service, and don’t understand how to deliver it via the web?
Update
Following my journey, here is my latest Twitter post:
Time required to fly from Zürich to UK: 1hr10min. Time for luggage to be delivered to baggage hall: 1hr45mins. Heathrow is a national disgrace.
Seriously. And excuses about Christmas peaks and weather don’t wash since they have shown so many times previously that they can also screw it up on a good day..
Instructions For Flying On Airplanes
Warning: this post could be considered to be tedious, but I just wanted to say it.
I recently saw an article in Travel Weekly entitled “Golden age of air travel has ended”. Of course it has – air travel is, quite simply, a pain.
Here are the instructions for flying on an airplane.
1. Travel to airport
Not trivial, and worthy of an entire blog post on its own.
2. QUEUE for Check-in
A few years ago savvy travellers could get around this by checking in on-line. However as most people are now on to this, at most airports on-line check-in just means swapping the very long queue for a slightly less long queue.
UPDATE: Social Media in Travel is a Waste Of Time
But not a complete waste of time
In my last post I suggested that social media might be a complete waste of time in the travel industry. However, reading the post again this morning I realise that I’ve failed to make a very important distinction: that between sales and branding.
I maintain my contention that social media is a poor travel sales medium, although what I didn’t talk about was its power as a banding tool: As the world becomes increasingly tried of faceless corporations, the ability to join the customer conversation is crucial – although enough has been written of that elsewhere.
Nonetheless, the point remains that most ‘social media managers’ fail to understand this difference.
I was re-awakened to this fact this morning whilst reading a blog post by Dennis Schaal lamenting Continental Airlines’ “old school” approach to public relations. Dennis writes:
What does this impersonal, legalistic tweet, brimming with marketing-speak, actually tell Continental customers about the airline’s approach to customer service and passenger rights?
With that I’ll revise the closing sentence of my last post: Social media is a great way to help manage your brand and your relationships with customers, but too often it is instead used as a poor sales method.
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