This is not an industry we cover regularly in the NICE Fizzback blog, but this week we mean to make amends. Many airlines operate extensive and hugely expensive loyalty programmes to secure bookings from the occasional to the frequent flyer. But how do you know if the scheme is working?
Requesting customer feedback is common practice however, traditional paper-surveys, emails, focus groups and anecdotal feedback all have serious drawbacks that impact the accuracy of the results. One of the biggest problems is the time lag between the experience and the feedback request, as this delay lessens not only the ability to respond, but also the quality and level of response. Asking questions as close to the experience as possible produces a more accurate response, as the memory is still fresh in the mind. As a result many airline loyalty program managers are moving away from the traditional methods in favour of Voice of the Customer (VoC) solutions.
The biggest appeal of VoC is the real-time speed at which feedback can be requested from a passenger, collated and shared with the airline personnel who can make the difference, such as the cabin crew, check-in staff, the person running the website etc. It works by simply sending every passenger a message (through their preferred channel), inviting them to rate their experience from the performance of the cabin crew, quality of the in-flight entertainment, cleanliness of the facilities, the safety demonstration, food and beverages, products for sale etc.
In turn these insights can be fed back in real-time for example to the cabin crew manager, in the form of a post flight report, enabling them to continuously refine and improve their in-flight service. Additionally, managers can interact with the system to generate reports to score and monitor the quality and performance of particular routes and flights, calculate satisfaction, identity potential issues, opportunities and trends, and act on them. For example, if a customer provides feedback on a particular issue they had on their outbound flight, the cabin crew can use this real-time information to take corrective action and ensure the passenger does not experience a repeat on their inbound journey.
Other transportation organisations such as the high-speed rail operator, Eurostar, are using VoC to collect, collate, assess and transform customer feedback into actionable insight and recommendations and in turn improving the customer experience. The final word goes to the Business Analysis Manager at Eurostar, Chris Haynes, who offers his experience of using VoC: “It empowers us to engage with individuals and we are able to pick up on the little things that might otherwise elude our grasp, and promote greater loyalty from our customers.”
Craig Pumfrey
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