英国dissertation：澳洲航空客户关系管理report
澳洲航空公司(Qantas)中客户关系管理的实践
本文内容
1.0 概要………………………………………………………………………. 2
2.0 前言………………………………………………………………………………. 2
3.0 分析澳航客户关系管理的相关组件…………………………………2
3.1 澳航中客户来源的价值……………………………………3
3.2 澳航的客户关系…………………………………………………5
3.3 澳航的客户行为……………………………5
3.4 澳航的客户细分………………….... 6
3.5 分析澳航的客户满意度和客户忠诚度………….......... 7
3.5.1 澳航的顾客满意程度………………………………………….... 7
3.5.2 澳航的客户忠诚度……………………………………………………8
4.0 澳航中客户关系管理策略的应用………………………..... 8
4.1 澳航客户关系管理战略的实施目标………8
4.2 澳航客户关系管理战略的实践….... 9
4.2.1 客户关系中客户关系管理战略的实施过程…9
4.2.2 澳航中的客户关注….12
5.0 澳航客户关系管理战略向客户传递价值的过程…. . 13
5.1 澳航的渠道策略….... 13
5.2 澳航和他的竞争对手中客户关系管理战略实施的对比……………14
6.0 澳航中客户关系管理战略的影响…. . 15
7.0 客户关系管理战略对澳航的影响………………15
7.1 客户关系管理对组织结构的影响和文化形成…….......... 16
7.2 客户关系管理战略对战略制定的影响……17
8.0 建议改善澳航的客户关系管理战略和性能………17
9.0 结论…………………………………………………………………………………18
参考文献…………………………………………………………………………………………19
附录…………………………………………………………………………………………20
1.0 前言
这个报告的主要目的是探讨澳大利亚航空公司(澳洲航空)的客户关系管理。报告主要分析澳航客户关系管理战略的相关组件,客户关系管理策略和技术,并简要分析客户关系管理对澳航的影响,进而分析讨论澳洲航空公司客户关系管理的理论与实践。
Implementation of Customer Relationship Management in Qantas
Table of Contents
1.0 Executive Summery………………………………………………………………………..2
2.0 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..2
3.0 Analysis on Relevant Components of CRM in Qantas………………………………….3
3.1 Sources of Value for Customers in Qantas………………………………...3
3.2 Customer Relationships in Qantas…………………………………………………5
3.3 Customer Behaviors of Qantas………………………......5
3.4 Customer Segmentation of Qantas…………………....6
3.5 Analysis of Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty in Qantas…………..........7
3.5.1 Degree of Customer Satisfaction of Qantas…………………………………………....7
3.5.2 Degree of Customer Loyalty to Qantas………………………………………………...8
4.0 CRM Strategies Applied in Qantas……………………….....8
4.1 Objectives of Implementing CRM Strategies in Qantas………….8
4.2 Implementation Tactics of CRM Strategies in Qantas…....9
4.2.1 Implementation Processes of CRM in Customer Relationship….9
4.2.2 Customer Focused Technologies in Qantas….12
5.0 CRM Technologies for Delivering Values to Customers of Qantas…..13
5.1 Channel Strategies in Qantas…....13
5.2 Automation of Customer Related Processes in Qantas……………15
6.0 Comparison of CRM Implementation in Qantas with Its Competitors…..15
7.0 Influence of CRM on Qantas……………….16
7.1 Influence of CRM on Organizational Structure and Culture Formation……..........16
7.2 Influence of CRM on Strategy Formulation…......17
8.0 Recommendations on Improving CRM Strategy and Performance of Qantas………17
9.0 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………...18
Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………...19
Appendices……………………………………………………………………………………......20
1.0 Executive Summery
The main purpose of this report is to investigate the customer relationship management in an Australian airline named as Qantas. The report comprises the analysis on the relevant components of CRM in Qantas, CRM strategies and technologies, and influence of CRM on Qantas, and relevant recommendations will be provided through analyzing the theory and practice of customer relationship management in Qantas.
Qantas is an Australian civil aviation company, and it is considered as the leading company specialized in long distance airline service in the world. As the strongest brands in Australia, Qantas employs one effective management strategy, which is the customer relationship management including the channel strategy, CRM technology, etc., to achieve the objectives of sustainable development, safe operation and world class product standards.
The report also analyzes the CRM implementation situation and CRM implementation strategies in Qantas with its direct competitors to tell the CRM implementation differences and uniqueness that allow Qantas to be more successful among so many competitors.
Qantas makes effective use of customer relationship management in formulating its organizational structure, culture, and strategies including marketing and management to achieve the goal of long term success in the competitive market. At the same time, customer relationship management plays a key role in customer acquisition, customer retention and customer development in Qantas. Customer relationship management is proved to be successful in Qantas according to the survey on the customer relationships, the customer behaviors, the customer segmentation, the customer satisfactory and the customer loyalty. But there are still improvements for Qantas to make in its overall CRM strategy and CRM performance.
2.0 Introduction:
In modern times, customer relationship management plays an extremely important role in improving the relationship between an organization and its customers so as to improve the loyalty and satisfaction of customers. At the same time, CRM is used for segmenting the customers and formulating specific strategies to meet the requirements of different customers, acquire, develop and maintain better relationships with the profitable customers, and formulating proper strategies to terminate the relationships with unprofitable customers (V. Kumar, 2012, pp 3-5). To the service industry, the competition among different organizations lies in the customer resources. Qantas, as the leading airline company in Australia, offers the services of airline booking, hotel booking, car hire, airport transfers, travel insurance booking, ticket booking for shows in most cities in Australia, etc. Qantas devotes to managing the relationships with its customers by using the CRM strategies within the corporation, and the concepts of CRM strategies in Qantas has been changed a lot due to the new situation in the relationships with customers.
The report will discuss current situation of CRM implementation in Qantas and provide relevant recommendations to the existing CRM issues within the corporation. At the beginning of the report, the analysis on the relevant components of CRM of Qantas will be provided. Then, CRM strategies employed by Qantas in its corporation as well as comparison with its direct competitors will be discussed. At last, relevant recommendations and conclusion will be provided so as to provide a good reference for other similar corporations to consider.
3.0 Analysis on Relevant Components of CRM in Qantas
In Qantas, the relevant components of CRM focus on the customer relationships, customer behaviors and customer segmentation. In this part, the degree of customer satisfaction and the degree of customer loyalty will be discussed.
3.1 Sources of Value for Customers in Qantas
According to the services and products offered by Qantas, its customers have the values shown in the following diagram:
Better Service: Qantas belongs to the service industry. It spent $10 million in improving the customer service excellence through opening the Qantas Centre of Service Excellence in Sydney in 2009. The employees in Qantas received exceptional service training for delivering an exceptional experience at every stage of the customer's journey (Qantas, 2009).
Lower Cost: Customers pay more attention to the cost of the relevant service and products from the organization. Qantas has the price promise for the customers to get the best deals on flights, hotels, cars, transfers and activities by price comparison of the same service and products from its direct competitors.
Convenience: Customers are not always able to access to the computers, and it can be difficult to book relevant products including flights, hotels, etc. without the computer. Qantas provides the service of allowing the customers to book domestic and international flights on their mobile phones by launching a mobile site (Qantas, 2012).
Processing Speed: Customers require a timely manner for the service and products that they desire to get. Qantas simplifies the processing procedures and time so that the customers can get what they want as fast as possible.
Communication: It is the fact that not all customers can deal with the process of booking flights or other service, and they require the communication with real time customer service. Qantas trained its employees to be fast and accurate in its responsiveness to the customers.
3.2 Customer Relationships in Qantas
Qantas is mainly an airline service corporation, and excellent customer relationships become its competitive advantage. Maintaining customer relationships in Qantas is the means for Qantas to improve its customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. The most effective method for maintaining customer relationships is communication. Qantas is fully aware of the situation and opens up the communication channels to enhance the communication with its customers. Qantas employs e-mail marketing to keep strong relationships with the customers by sending newsletters with enticing advice and offers to increase the customers’ confidence in Qantas. Qantas also rewards the loyal customers with the points which can be used for paying the cost of other flights. Customer feedback forms are provided to collect the information about complains, suggestions, requirements and needs from the customers so as to improve its service. Qantas’s flight booking business can be considered as a B2C business. Qantas uses CRM to value its customers by providing customized services such as seat selection in advance in flight booking, and reduces risks for the customers in financial aspect. Qantas achieves the goal of maintaining customer relationships with trust and commitment.
3.3 Customer Behaviors of Qantas
Customer behaviors greatly influence the profitability of an organization. The customer behaviors deal with various stages the customers decide to purchase the products and service, and the behaviors also involve the activities of the customers before the purchase, during the purchase and after the purchase (Kardes, Maria, and Thomas, 2010, pp 8). The purchase of the customers involves both the beginning of the buying experience and the post-purchase experience of the customers, and the purchase experience will influence the customers to purchase the products or services again (Jim, 2013, pp 327). In Qantas, stages in consumer purchase behavior for flights are shown in the following diagram:
Qantas adopts technologies to influence the purchase behavior of the customers so that the customers determine to purchase flights from it finally. Qantas makes use of social media including e-mails, advertisements, promotional materials, etc. to cover all needs that the customers may want to make the customer to be aware of the brand of Qantas so that the preference formation can be accelerated their final purchase decisions in Qantas.
3.4 Customer Segmentation of Qantas
Customer segmentation relates to a one-to-one marketing approach. Customer segmentation belongs to market segmentation which has the main principle of making different marketing offerings for different customer bases (K. Rama, 2011, pp 172). With the development and expansion of business in Qantas, the number of its customers has become huge, and the customers differ in needs, locations, purchase attitudes, purchase behavior and purchase power. Qantas segments the customer bases in order to recognize the profitable customers to ascertain the core objective customer market, and analyze characteristics and needs of different customer bases to implement different strategies so as to achieve the goal of personalized one-to-one service for the customers. Customer segmentation in Qantas belongs to differentiated customer relationship management. The basis of the customer segmentation in Qantas includes geographic segmentation, gender segmentation, income segmentation, behavioral segmentation and consumer loyalty segmentation. Geographic segmentation helps Qantas to feature the best flight routines for the customers in the specific locations. Gender segmentation helps Qantas to optimize the hotel selection for female customers and male customers. Customer income segmentation allows Qantas to provide economic products and luxury products for customers with different incomes so that they can select suitable products. Behavioral segmentation in Qantas helps it to distinguish browsing customers, information collection customers and direct buyers to improve the attractiveness of its booking webpage. Consumer loyalty segmentation allows Qantas to provide more specific service to the loyal customers and somewhat loyal customers.
3.5 Analysis of Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty in Qantas
Analysis of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in Qantas helps Qantas to know preference, complains and needs of the customers.
3.5.1 Degree of Customer Satisfaction of Qantas
Customer satisfaction is of great importance to an organization because it presents the overall performance and excellence of the organization, and measuring the customer satisfaction is an effective and direct method for getting the feedback of the customers’ preferences and expectations (Evangelos and Yannis, 2010, pp 1). Qantas's satisfaction rating is the guidance for its improvement of service and products. It is reported that the rating was 81% in 2010, 84% in 2011 and 80.2% in 2012. The satisfaction rating of Qantas is not increased due to the fierce competition from its direct competitors. Appendix 1 contains the diagrams of satisfaction ratings of Qantas and its direct competitors from 2010 to 2011.
The satisfaction rating of Qantas indicates that there are some customers are dissatisfied with the service, products or other aspects from Qantas. For example, the customer whose review name is A Boys from Australia gave the 1/10 rating to the cabin flown, economy, value for money, seat comfort, staff service, catering, and entertainment on 20 May 2013. He complained that the paid promised service of using the annual lounge pass for $485 was turned away. It took about 50 minutes to sort the problem out, but unfortunately, the poor customer service from Qantas disappointed him. He felt being cheated and made the decision of terminating the use of Qantas. Qantas still has a long way to go to improve its satisfaction rating. Another customer with the review name as L Mackay rated 3/10 of satisfaction rating of Qantas on 25 March 2013. He complained the flight attitudes and cost performance of the whole travel with Qantas. The appendix 2 contains the most recent reviews from the customers of Qantas in a review website. Complains from the customers require the attention of Qantas.
3.5.2 Degree of Customer Loyalty to Qantas
Valuing the importance of customer loyalty is essential to the improvement of customer relationships (Geoffrey and Lester, 2010, pp 264). Qantas values customer loyalty because they believe that the loyalty of customers is the core discipline of their business. The degree of customer loyalty to Qantas is still high. There are a large number of customers who have been loyal to Qantas for many years even they have to pay higher price for joining the Qantas Club and enjoying services, products and offerings from Qantas (Frank, 2011). Qantas wins high customer loyalty due to many reasons. Firstly, safety and reassurance are provided by Qantas for the customers to take their flights. Secondly, the acquainted environment in the flights is provided because Qantas employs Australian pilots and cabin crew, and the customers can feel at home with these Australian crews on the planes when they fly to foreign lands. At the same time, Qantas thanks to its loyal customers by doubling the points, free flights, unique Qantas gifts, complimentary membership, etc.
4.0 CRM Strategies Applied in Qantas
Customer relationship management is widely employed in the airline industry because the results of effectively implementing CRM in the airline companies are good and the CRM strategies allow airline companies to be competitive among so many direct competitors. The airline companies make use of CRM to achieve their competitive advantages. Employment of CRM within a corporation can increase the loyalty of the customers who will purchase products and service from the corporation again, lower the cost on recruiting new customers and reduce defection and operation cost to boost profits. Therefore, using the CRM strategies is essential for Qantas to achieve sustainable development. It is necessary for the airline companies to identify its objectives achieved through employing CRM strategies.
4.1 Objectives of Implementing CRM Strategies in Qantas
The number of airline companies in Australia is continuously increasing, and the fierce competition among so many competitors arouses the idea for Qantas to apply customer relationship management strategies within the corporation. Qantas employs the CRM strategies to manage its sales, marketing and services to acquire, retain and develop customers so as to increase its customer number, profit, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty and delivery of values to customers. Employment of the CRM strategies in Qantas aims at changing and improving the customer experience so as to get a competitive advantage among its direct competitors.
4.2 Implementation Tactics of CRM Strategies in Qantas
CRM strategies are the guidelines for the corporation to follow, and the implementation tactics in different corporations are different because the objectives, customer segmentations, customer relationships, customer satisfaction rating and customer loyalty are diverse. Qantas has its own tactics for the effective implementation of CRM strategies within the corporation.
4.2.1 Implementation Processes of CRM in Customer Relationship
Qantas mainly employs analytical CRM in its operation. Customer portfolio management is the first process of implanting CRM in Qantas. Qantas employs customer portfolio management to improve its business performance because the customers have different requirements for service, products and offerings, preferences, expectations from the purchase process, and profits to the corporation (Francis, 2011). Qantas mainly focuses on different segments of customers to achieve customer acquisition, customer retention and customer development.
Customer acquisition: Qantas wins back new customers and starts relationship with them. Customer acquisition refers to new customer acquisition. According to the Airline Trends and Ancillary Revenue Report 2010, 20% to 30% of all passengers use the internet to book flights - the potential of this online channel to create additional ancillary revenue is estimated at a staggering $58 billion. That is to say, Qantas need to acquire more customers from these passengers to take more share of domestic market so as to increase its revenues and profits. Many methods are used for acquiring new customer. Advertisement becomes the most important measure to attract new customers. In 2012, Qantas launched the advertising campaign “You’re The Reason We Fly” to attract the domestic people in Australia. The campaign changed the “Spirit of Australia” into “Spirit of Australians”. Australian people were encouraged to feature their photos in a TVC, and the campaign invited the customers to print their names on plane of A380 or B737 (Marketing, 2012). Qantas tried to meet the expectations from the customers and potential customers in Australia in this campaign. The campaign helped Qantas attract more attention from the Australian people, and the page views on Qantas official webpage, reports, news, Facebook pages and other social media relevant to Qantas. The advertisement contributed a lot to the dynamism in the number increase of customers in Qantas in recent years.
Customer retention: To a profit corporation like Qantas, the retention of customers lies in the customers that can contribute value to the corporation. Qantas adopts positive strategies. Qantas delight its frequent flyer by providing them with free and spontaneous upgrade to higher class at the airport. For example, the customer who paid for a business class airfare may be surprisingly picked up at his or her house by a limousine at the door. The customers in Qantas can get flyer points earned from purchasing tickets from Qantas to pay for other plane tickets at a much lower price. Qantas value the loyal customers by the card-based schemes, customers of different loyalty levels get differentiated services and offerings from Qantas, and some loyal customers in Qantas can get gifts from Qantas at Christmas or other festivals. Qantas has its own Qantas Club which is the airline lounge for Qantas Gold Frequent Flyers and Oneworld Sapphire Holders. The corporation also promotes many campaigns for providing best deals, discounts and coupons for the customers to use. However, due to some reasons, the customers will leave Qantas. Qantas uses its way to acquire the left customers. For example, in 2011, after Qantas Airways grounded its global fleet dramatically and indefinitely after weeks of disruptive strikes of staff, Qantas made use of the strategy to cut fares by providing special promotional deals to win back customers. At the same time, the frequent flyer points earned from purchasing the flights from Qantas can be doubled for the members. The customer acquisition process is considered as the recovery phase with the competitive lower ticket prices and flexible tickets. During the event, the affected passengers vow to never take Qantas’ flights again, and about 70 million Australian Dollars was lost. Joyce from Qantas said that Qantas would put a plant to win back the loyalty of the disrupted customers in the event with the commitment of no more industrial action by the three unions involved (Amy, 2011). By trying many methods, the loyalty of the customers is gradually restored, and customers become more satisfied.
Customer development: It is not beneficial to retain all customers. Therefore, Qantas implement customer development to enhance the profitability of existing customers through cross-sell and up-sell. Qantas cooperates with the QBE travel insurance via the Qantas Frequent Flyer programme. The full integration of the plane ticket and travel insurance is the best cross-sell example for maximizing the sale opportunities in Qantas. At the same time, the customers get the commitment from Qantas for speedy and straightforward booking process in the booking engine of Qantas. Qantas get the return after the investment in a month, and the conversion rate of purchased air tickets is increased by 8%. Besides, when the traveler books the tickets, Qantas provides the recommendations of hotels and rental cars at discount with the plane ticket. As long as the traveler books the hotels and rental cars, Qantas can get interest from the hotels and rental car companies. The cross-sell strategy is proved to be successful. In addition, up-sell strategy is employed by Qantas. Sometimes, the up-sell belongs to the negative strategies. For example, Qantas has the policy that when the customer has commenced a ticket, it is unpermitted to downgrade the ticket to a lower class until the ticket is booked by other customer even the lower class seat is available.
The customer experience management is employed as the second process of the CRM. Customer experience management is considered to be a method for delivering value for customers. Enhancing the customer experience allows the company to enjoy the benefits from customer satisfaction and customer loyalty, lower the customer acquisition cost, increase customer acquisition, help customer development, increase revenues and profits and achieve long-term success (Bernd, 2003, pp 42). Qantas adopts the following CEM frame to implement customer experience management.
Segmentation & Targeting: Qantas segments its customers according to their different attributions. Qantas identifies its customers and builds a deep understanding of them. Services, products and offerings from Qantas are optimized according to the segmentations, and targeting of Qantas has insight into the customer experience so as to meet the requirements from different customer bases.
Poisoning: Qantas Group has diverse business, but it still positions the corporation and the brand in flight business. The flights from Qantas are positioned with the labels of low price and high quality so that a strong image is formed to be meaningful for the customers.
Branding: In Qantas, the experimental world of the customers is well understood, and the corporation is focusing on improving the customer experience with the brand.
Service: The customers care about the attitude of the customer service and booking process when they purchase flight tickets from Qantas. Qantas trained its employees in Qantas Centre of Service Excellence in Sydney for better service, and simplified the booking process on its website.
Innovation: The innovation of Qantas’ services and products is implemented due to different sources of value for its customers. For example, customized service is provided in Qantas to understand and meet customers’ expectations
These strategies are proved to be successful due to the full-year profit of Qantas. It was reported that Qantas doubled the profit in 2010 to 250 million in 2011.
4.2.2 Customer Focused Technologies in Qantas
Qantas focuses on customer intimacy strategy and customer-centric strategy to be competitive through achieving customer intimacy and operational excellence. In 2010, the customer loyalty program which is called as Qantas Frequent Flyer was established to connect with the customers for achieving customer intimacy. Qantas can learn the attitudes of the customers towards the services, offering or products from the corporation. In order to hear the real voice of the customers, the Qantas program cooperates with the Communispace to build a private online community where the customers can join through the invitations to tell their needs, complains and advices and the leaders can connect the customers for the first time to know what kind of improvement they can make. The communication with the customers is enhanced so as to improve the customer relationship. There are some examples of Qantas applying customer-centric strategy. In 2008, Qantas financially compensated the passengers on the A330-300 plane which made a terrifying plunge. During the plunge, some passengers were scared, tossed around and injured. Qantas focused on the passengers experience and compensated every passenger with the airfare refund, and in addition, travel vouchers at the value of a flight of Australia-London was also provided to all these passengers on the plane. In 2011, Qantas provided the further compensation and refund to the customers who suffered from the grounding event. These examples ascertain the customer focused technologies in Qantas, and the strategies allow Qantas to promote the loyalty and satisfaction rate of the customers.
5.0 CRM Technologies for Delivering Values to Customers of Qantas
Qantas employs CRM technologies to deliver values to the customers for sustainable profit achievement. A deep and comprehensive understanding of value for the customers in Qantas should be addressed. Values from customers are different due to the different segmentations of customer bases. Therefore, communication channel strategy is employed by Qantas.
5.1 Channel Strategies in Qantas
The first channel strategy refers to the product and service related strategy which can be named as distribution channel. Consumers in Qantas have the expectations for speed, convenience and real time information. Qantas provides different distributional channels for the customers to book their flights on Qantas’ official website-Qantas.com, Qantas Telephone Sales, Qantas Travel Centers, Qantas Airport Service Centers and other travel agencies. The customers can get the paper tickets or electronic tickets from these channels easily. In all these distribution channels, the customers can enjoy equal promotions including air fare discount, Frequent Flyer member points, buy one ticket get one free ticket, seat upgrading, etc. and the customers can enjoy excellent service to get optimized customer purchase experience. The distribution channel delivers the values of products and service from Qantas to its customers effectively and efficiently. The second channel strategy relates to the communication channel which is used by Qantas for collecting the needs and advices of customers and solving the problems occurred during the whole journey of the flight experience. The communication channel greatly helps Qantas to acquire, retain and develop customers.
Qantas has online tutorials, FAQs, and the online contact forms on its official website for the different segmentations of customer bases to consult relevant issues according to their needs. In addition, in order to achieve the goals of customer acquisition, customer retention and customer development, communication with the customers is enhanced by Qantas. As one of the largest long distance airline companies, Qantas nonetheless needed the social media strategy to maintain its reputation for excellence in the flight service, flight safety and reliability for millions of customers from the whole world. The internet has become the most widely used social medial channel for the customers and Qantas to enhance real time communication. The private online community provides an approach for the customers to their needs, and about 13,000 posts and topics in the ongoing discussion provide Qantas with the approach on enhancing the customer relationships. Qantas also has groups in Facebook and Twitter. There are over 40,000 members in Qantas Facebook groups. Qantas not only collects insights from these social medial, but it also publish relevant deals information or other news on these social media. These social media can spread the information about Qantas very fast. Some users who are available on these social media can receive real time messages from Qantas. For example, Qantas announced that all domestic and international services would be normal on Tuesday after the event happened in 2011 on Facebook, and it published the information that the customers could be confident of booking the flights from Qantas again on Twitter. Using such social media allows Qantas to improve customer loyalty and optimize the channel strategy. The presence of Qantas in social media is effective and conversational to have positive interaction with its customers.
5.2 Automation of Customer Related Processes in Qantas
Qantas has its customer-related processes automated by three strategies in CRM including marketing automation, sales automation and service automation. The customer-related processes are automated so that the marketing, sales and service can be automatically operated.
Marketing automation: In 2005, Qantas held the promotion campaign of Qantas Airways Vic's Daily Giveaway in which the visitors could win 31 travel prizes provided by Qantas' travel partners by using interactive Web technology to target the existing customers and potential customers in the internet market. The promotion campaign was considered as a valuable communication gateway to the customers.
Sales automation: Sales automation is very typical in Qantas because Qantas develops its sales in the mode of B2C. The customers can book the flights on Qantas.com with the automatic instructions so as to realize sales automation and saves cost.
Service automation: Qantas has its service automated in 2012. The customers in Sydney find that the airlines’ check-in service and bag drop service are automatic. The service automation is called as ‘next generation check-in’ project which can not only save costs for Qantas but can also reduce the flight fare for the customers. It is the fact that customer who books a ticket online can spend less than doing that over the phone. Customers find it very quick to check in by using a mobile device within 30 seconds without queuing up for a certain period of time (Liz, 2012). At the same time, the customers who are likely to being late for the flight can save some time through the automatic check-in and bag drop services. However, some customers still assume the attitude that they prefer the friendly staff from Qantas.
6.0 Comparison of CRM Implementation in Qantas with Its Competitors
The part aims at the comparison of Qantas’ CRM implementation with its competitors to figure out the advantages and disadvantages of respective CRM implementation tactics and situations. For many years, Virgin Blue and Tiger Airways are considered as the domestic direct competitors to Qantas Airways. Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Air NZ and Cathay Pacific are considered as its international competitors.
Comparison in Implementation Tactics: The domestic competitor- Virgin Blue can be taken as an example. In May 2012, Virgin got 1.422 million passengers while Qantas mainline got 1.371 million. The two airline companies are successful through employing CRM tactics. In order to take more share from the market, Qantas developed its low-cost brand-Jetstar. Virgin developed more flights to more places than Qantas, and the number of the flights reached 11,554 compared to the Qantas’s 10,208 scheduled flights (Travellers' Check, 2012). The implementation tactics of Qantas and its competitors are differentiated to weaken the strength and focus of competitive issues.
Comparison in Implementation Situation: CRM implementation situations in Qantas and its direct competitors are different. But CRM has been well studied in these competitors. The strongest competitor of Qantas is Virgin at the moment, and they are competing for the limited domestic market by employing different segmentations in CRM to gain their own competitive advantages. The CRM implementation situations lie in implementing different strategies from CRM to achieve diversified competition.
7.0 Influence of CRM on Qantas
Implementation of CRM in Qantas has influence on its organization structure, culture formation and strategy formulation.
7.1 Influence of CRM on Organizational Structure and Culture Formation
When Qantas adopts CRM in its operation, Qantas has re-thought its organizational structure. When Qantas implements CRM, relevant customer relationship managers and segment managers are employed to replace the territory sales managers and brand managers. In 2012, Qantas announced a restructure of its business and its executive team after it had implemented CRM for years and the five-year transformation plan was made. Market segmentations were made in the method that the combined Qantas Airlines were separated into the Qantas International and Qantas Domestic as two different businesses. Qantas employs Simon Hickey as the Chief Executive Officer Qantas International and Lyell Strambi as the Chief Executive Officer Qantas Domestic. Qantas employs Lesley Grant as the Chief Executive Officer Qantas Loyalty, and Olivia Wirth as the Group Executive Brand, Marketing and Corporate Affairs (Qantas, 2012). Qantas has formed its culture by employing the customer-centric strategy so as to deliver more sources of values to the customers. Qantas has the vision of being the great business in the world’s great airline group. In Qantas’ culture, Qantas values safety of all stakeholders, high quality service, innovation in products and service, collaboration and integrity in customer relationship management. The values present the unique culture and brand of Qantas.
7.2 Influence of CRM on Strategy Formulation
Implementation of CRM in Qantas also greatly influences its strategy formulation. The formulation of its strategy is based on the principle of customer relationship management so as to win the customer firstly and then win the market in next step. Qantas has the strategy of running its two flying brands of Qantas and Jetstar profitably so as to strengthen its position in the leading airlines in the world and be competitive in both domestic and international markets. Qantas becomes a strong competitor for British Airways to share the European market and Jetstar gradually sizes the opportunity to successfully expand in Asia.
8.0 Recommendations on Improving CRM Strategy and Performance of Qantas
According to the investigation in the customer satisfaction rating, the rating has not been increased for years. The issue lies in the ineffective problem solution. For example, a customer took the flight from Qantas. He put his Kindle in the bag on the front seat, and before he got off the board, he found that his Kindle was broken by the white liquid which was like baby’s formula. He could not find a number to call, but had to fill out the online form to the customer service. After a very long time, he got the compensation. The customer is satisfied with the final result, but Qantas did not define and delimit responsibilities for the problem clearly and caused a waste of time. Therefore, the process of defining and delimiting responsibility for customer issue should be accelerated by formulating more precise responsibility list. In addition, the service of Qantas should be improved to differentiate its airlines from its direct competitors. For example, many customers compare price, seat comfort, entertainment, food and service of different airline companies, and the rating for the entertainment of Qantas is a little lower. Therefore, the flight entertainment system of Qantas can be improved compared to other airline companies. Furthermore, the seat room of the plane should be enlarged more because the number of overweight customers is increasing, and these customers find it very uncomfortable to be squeezed in narrow space. There are more improvements for Qantas to make so as to improve its implementation effect of CRM strategy and performance of the corporation.
9.0 Conclusion:
In conclusion, implementation of CRM strategies including CEM, CPM, etc. is proved to be successful. Qantas adopts the analytical customer relationship management to analyze its customer relationships and customer behaviors and implement customer segmentations to realize marketing automation through social media strategy, sales automation through internet technology and service automation through intelligent machines. Qantas employs distribution channel and communication channel to deliver sources of value to the customers by providing optimized products and service. Therefore, the customer satisfaction rating and customer loyalty of Qantas are still at the leading positions in domestic and international airline companies. But according to the ratings, the service, products and offerings from Qantas should be improved more by implementing the CRM strategies more effectively. Qantas reforms its organizational structure and culture to optimize its business and market so as to be competitive with its direct competitors in the globalized market. During the implementation process of customer service management, problems can happen. Qantas should listen to the voice of the customers so as to have a better understanding on their needs and preferences so as to improve the CRM strategy of Qantas and enhance business performance of the group. All in all, implementation of CRM strategy helps Qantas to achieve the goals of profitability, long-term success and sustainable development in the fiercely competitive market.
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