CRM - June 2008 - (Page 16)

Airlines Web site had not been updated enues for airlines—but it’s also going to with news of the cancellations. Seaney be a problem for airlines.” Harteveldt refers to this CRM response as being points out that any passenger paying $900 for a seat but getting a $200 expe“tone-deaf.” Even before the chaos of bankruptcy, rience is going to be furious. “Airlines have traded in price for cusshutdowns, and cancellations in the spring, customer service ratings for the tomer service,” Seaney says. “The next airline industry were lower than they’d level is to ration down any type of serbeen in two decades. Brand loyalty also vice and charge a [fee] for things that remains low, with only 29 percent of used to be free.” Some airlines, in fact, are trying to leisure travelers and 37 percent of business travelers claiming they’re loyal to capitalize on the same service disrupany single airline brand. And the people tions that passengers may hold them accountable for. Air Canada, are talking: The number of confor one, is adding what it calls a sumer complaints went up 60 “Airlines have percent last year. traded in price customer-service “innovation” with a new program called One factor isn’t likely to lose “On My Way,” providing—for altitude any time soon: the for customer a price, of course—additional price of jet fuel. Customers can service.” support and flexibility when expect airlines to blame exorbitant fuel costs for vanishing creature passengers face flight changes due to comforts. With fuel now representing as weather and other issues. Harteveldt much as 40 percent of an airline’s cost estimates that it’s possible U.S. airlines for a coast-to-coast flight, it’s no wonder will explore similar plans. “As airlines they’re searching for additional revenue face extraordinarily high fuel costs, they sources. “Airlines have changed the busi- are exploring every option to generate ness model,” says Henry Harteveldt, revenue beyond ticket prices,” he says. Provided the expected spate of consolvice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research. “Like the movies— idation doesn’t derail the trend toward in coach you can soon expect fees for competitive pricing, customers can coneverything. This is to bring in more rev- tinue to expect low airfares, but no sud- den reordering of customer service seems likely. “The fact is that airlines are not charging enough for their product,” points out George Hobica, founder of AirFareWatchDog.com. “They have no pricing power and they have not been able to charge what the product is worth.” Hobica predicts that what he calls the “cheapo” airlines will soon disappear—similar to the fate of Aloha and SkyBus—and that, down the road, there will be five major airlines providing service in the U.S. But what happens to customer data, frequent-flyer information, and loyalty programs when airlines suddenly disappear? (See “Lollipop Loyalty,” page 22, for more on the sorry state of today’s loyalty programs.) Harteveldt says that customers can rest assured that their data is not going anywhere—unless a shut-down airline is acquired, which he says is not likely to happen. Hobica compares the airline industry to the glamor of the movie business: Every little boy, he says, dreams of being a pilot someday. That may be true, but travelers don’t really care about those dreams—they just want to get from Point A to Point B, and not feel like cattle in the process. —Lauren McKay CRM on joiningdots: Zoho spotted my grumpy tweet and responded. Am impressed. @arvindnatarajan Thanks! As the microblogging site explodes in popularity, CRM has become a common topic. Many industry vendors (Salesforce.com, Oracle, Zoho, Ribbit, Etelos, among others) are generating leads and responding to relevant tweets, and some forward-thinking consumer companies (Comcast, Baskin-Robbins, JetBlue, FastCompany, Zappos, to name a few) are beginning to use Twitter accounts for customer service unparalleled in its immediacy. To bring the Web 2.0 world full-circle, we’ll be highlighting a few choice tweets in print. Ksilebo: Our CRM system is so delightfully ghetto. It’s spitting out emails received earlier this week. baskinrobbins: @stevehall thought it was about time we got on Twitter. Saw everyone tweeting about the event tonight and wanted to connect :) thinktwice: Day 2 of data import issue in Salesforce. Records imported successfully? 0. blacktar: Got a ready-to-go Web-based CRM with ERP to hawk me? I got the cash to throw your way. Fed up with searching. Message me! 16 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JUNE 2008 www.destinationCRM.com http://AirFareWatchDog.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - June 2008

CRM - June 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Making Mashup Masterpieces Trouble in the Air CRM on Twitter Is SaaS Ready for Its Contact Center Close-up? CRM: In the Public Interest Required Reading Lollipop Loyalty Best Practices Series: CRM & eCommerce eGain NetSuite Infor Longwood Software Vovici The Second Coming of 2.0 Believe the Hype About Hosted Contact Centers All Talk So Hot It’s Cool Linksys Gets Shaken, a Community Is Stirred The Risky Risk Business Awana Hears a SaaS Sermon Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - June 2008

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