David Carpenter of the Associated Press wrote in a Denver Post article on May 20th that the airline industry has almost uniformly made a poor showing on the industry’s latest satisfaction survey. His title “There’s ire in the air” resonates with anyone who has flown recently.
My take is that most airlines not only don’t know the answers, the don’t even understand the question they should be asking.
Many businesses have scraped satisfaction surveys. These companies have come to understand that no one patronizes a company because they are satisfied. In fact, high satisfaction levels may give company officials a warm feeling, but they simply don’t indicate future patronage.
Loyalty is the only factor other than price which the airlines should be measuring and busting their behinds to improve. High customer loyalty does translate into increased patronage. In fact, a Bain & company study has proven across many industries that a 10% increase in net promoter scores (loyalty) translates into a 5% improvement in revenue.
So how can the airlines turn this around? Simply by measuring their net promoter scores and then asking customers what matters most to them? Again and again, the data comes in with a few items offering the potential to drive loyalty (net promoter scores) dramatically higher.
It’s interesting that one airline has adopted this approach. You guessed it, Southwest the leader of the pack in revenue growth, profitability and customer loyalty.
