CRM EXCELLENCE AT KLM ROYAL DUTCH AIRLINES | | | | | ----------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Submitted To: ------------------------------------------------- Sir Kamran Maqbool | Question: 1: Why do you think KLM won the Gartner 2004 CRM Excellence Award? Introduction KLM Royal Dutch Airlines is an international airline operating worldwide with home base Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, The Netherlands, as most incumbents of the European airline industry, had been facing declining yields (i.e. the revenue per seat) and increasing competitive pressures during the last years. Some of the main reasons behind this were Increase competition due to the deregulation in the airline …show more content…
Disintermediation: Using the Internet, airlines can sell to and support an increasing number of customers directly. The opportunity to exploit and extend these direct relationships is growing all the time. Commoditization: Alliances, code-sharing, growing competition from low cost airlines, and increasingly standardized products mean that for many travelers, on short-haul routes in particular, airline seats are a commodity. KLM realized that it had to differentiate itself by offering a better customer experience at every point of contact. To do this, it needed to rethink its approach to customers, moving beyond the limitations of Frequent Flyer Program data models and processes created in the 1990s. But first it had to overcome internal skepticism, partly derived from a stalled CRM initiative in 1997. CONCLUSION KLM won Gartner’s European CRM Excellence Award in 2004. This award highlighted the airline’s ability to combine grand strategic vision with pragmatic execution, and deployment of software applications with company-wide cultural change. Many lessons learned by KLM are equally valuable to other companies planning a CRM program. Think big, start small and act quickly: Have a definite goal in mind, but start by demonstrating measurable return on investment for small projects. Build on the commitment gained from these early achievements. Keep the communications flowing, and
The airline industry has long attempted to segment the air travel market in order to effectively target its constituents. The classic airline model consists of First Class, Business Class and Economy, and the demographics that make up the classes have both similarities and differences to the other classes. For instance there may be similarities between business class travellers on a particular flight, but they will not all be travelling for the same reason. An almost-universal characteristic of air travel is that customers do not fly for the sake of flying; the destination is the important element and the travel is a by-product, a means-to-an-end that involves the necessity of an aircraft that gets the customer from point A to point B.
Airlines are now able to expand their outreach directly to consumers through e-commerce. For example, airlines like Qantas are able to introduce ticketless travel through the use of technology (Thompson and Gamble, 2012).
The airline business is an industry that is competitive and unique, focussing on consumer choice and the responsiveness of airlines to changes in the external business environment. For any airline, this environment can be very complex as it is ‘hard for them to fully understand and impossible for them to fully control’ (The Times, n.d. p1). Virgin Atlantic is an international airline that is based in the UK. It was started by the entrepreneur Richard Branson in 1982 and now flies to 30 destinations around the world (Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd, 2011). By looking at
Gittell, J. (2003). _The Southwest Airlines Way: Using Power of Relationships to Achieve High Performance._ New York: McGraw-Hill. Retrieved June 8, 2014
The airline industry has always been a fiercely competitive sector. Since the invention of low-cost carriers, also known as no-frills or
3,4- The Airline industry and the market The airline industry is large, specially in the United States, mainly due to the “ Deregulation” of the industry. In 1938, the Civil Aeronautics Board was created to control the growth of the air transportation industry. This board had the authority to control entry, exit, prices and methods of competition. In the late 1970 this structure was found inefficient and in 1978 deregulation took place. Due to the deregulation of the industry competition intensified, prices dropped, and the number of people travelling increased. Many new companies emerged and regional airlines saw deregulation as an opportunity to expand. Due to the rise in competition, by 1986 mergers started to take place and in 1987 64.8% of the market was controlled by the four largest airlines. The demand for air travel is determined mainly by price, studies revealed that half of the leisure travellers and on quarter of business travellers did not have a preference for a particular airline, which means that prices determined the
There have been few inventions to change how people live and experience the world considerably as the creation of the airplane. Today, traveling by air has become the norm and it would be difficult to imagine life without it. Air travel has improved the way people are able to conduct business by shortening travel time and changing their thought of distance. The companies within the airline industry exist in a very competitive market. One of those companies, Southwest Airlines, features low-fare, no-frills air service with frequent flights of mostly short routes. Costs are kept down by the exclusive use of Boeing 737 aircraft, which allows for low maintenance costs and quicker turnaround times for flights, and by an emphasis on ticketless travel (Encyclopedia Britannica). This paper will address two segments of the general environment and how they affect Southwest and the airline industry; evaluate how Southwest has addressed two forces of competition; predict what Southwest might do to improve its ability to addresses these forces; assess the external threats affecting Southwest; discuss Southwest’s greatest strengths and most significant weaknesses; determine Southwest’s resources, capabilities, and core competencies; and analyze their value chain.
The Airline Industry is in an interesting situation. Simply adding a low cost alternative is not enough in the industry. The Internet has made the power of buyers grow with the transparency of ticket prices. This is not something that will change any time soon. Because of this profitability is predominately reserved for low-cost yet distinctive carriers. No consumer wants to ride what they consider a “lesser” airline. Airlines need a way to distinguish themselves from one another while also acknowledging the increased power of buyers.
British Airways (BA) is a company that encountered several difficulties back in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The poor performances of the organization, was leading the company to failure. BA was offering a service that even though it accomplished the mission of the company, was not providing customer satisfaction. The organization was not taking into consideration the needs of the costumer and was not providing an acceptable customer service experience. “Productivity at BA in the 1970s was strikingly bad, especially in contrast to other leading foreign airlines” (Jick, Peiperl, 2010, p.28). Due to numerous changes, the company increased their revenues and became a respectful and well know organization.
The airline industry can be considered an imperfect oligopoly. There are several large carriers that dominate long distance flights, and many small carriers that compete for short distance flights. Competition is fierce, and the return for most carriers is very low. Some airlines are trying to differentiate themselves, like JetBlue for example, by offering superior services at low prices. Other low cost airlines, like Southwest, offer low costs with no frills. Most airlines offer a frequent flyer programs in order to develop brand loyalty. In recent years there has also been several alliances formed between airlines. These alliances enable
result of this, no other airline in the industry’s history has enjoyed the customer loyalty and
first it should be underlined, that in the airline industry, there are two types of buyers (Hartley, 2013). The first type is the individual buyers, who buy tickets for personal or business reasons, related to their own individual well beings. This type of buyers is extremely diverse and there is barely someone who had never bought a ticket, especially in the developed countries. A plane ticked could be purchased directly from the airline company’s ticket offices or from the second group of buyers, e.g. travel agencies and online portals. This buyer group works as a middle man between airlines and flyers. They work with many airline companies to give consumers the best possible flight. Between these two groups there is definitely a large amount of buyers compared to the number of firms. There is low cost shifting between companies because many people choose flights based on where they are going and costs at the time. This is a loyalty to the companies, but not enough high switching costs. Each client needs a lot of important information. They need
As a part of Crossman Communications, this essay will go into depth about the client, Malaysian Airlines and their recent campaign. Malaysian Airlines founded in 1957, currently flies to 53 different destinations having over 12 000 employees (Malaysian Airlines, 2017). The airline company offers the best way to fly to and from Malaysia flying over 40 000 people everyday (Malaysian Airlines, 2017). The campaign was set to rebuild the trust of Australian and New Zealander flyers due to the multiple aircrafts that have gone missing which have affected families in both countries (Crossman Communications, 2015). Having said that, the goal was to improve bookings, and generate positive media coverage (Crossman Communications, 2015). This essay
Other core strategy is flying to win customer and by observing and studying the non-financial aspect during the implementation of BTP1, they succeed in maintaining the customers’ value. This resulted in MAS receiving 11 non financial-awards during this phase including 5-Star Airline Award, 2006 and 2007 from Skytrax, Best Airline to Asia, 2006, Travel Weekly Globe Award and numerous cabin service awards from Skytrax, Readers Digest
Classic Airlines consists of 375 aircraft that travel to 240 cities more than 2300 times per day with a workforce of 32,000 personnel. Classic Airlines’ revenue was in excess of $8.7 billion last year bringing in a $10 million dollar profit and establishing the airline as the fifth largest air travel company in the world. Despite good sales and profits, Classic Airlines has been receiving harsh criticism from their customers resulting in a 10% decrease in profit shares, reduction in customer loyalty, 19% drop in rewards customers, 21% reduction in flights and the lowest morale seen in recent years. Classic Airlines remains optimistic about customer flight travel but must find