Category: CRM

Austrian, surprise me!

I am writing this post for three reasons:

  1. To find forgiveness for a small act of revenge in a tweet
  2. To correct my behavior from criticism to constructive dialog.
  3. To motivate an airline for change.

 The story about my revengeful tweet

Rainy September, late evening. I am surrounded by a group of strangers having a late dinner at a hotel probably none of us know the name. All of us are here for the same reason – we missed our flights due to late arrivals and the airline assured the dinner and accommodation at this place in the center of Vienna. A young French couple is sitting at the opposite table. I can hear the woman talking to the waiter: “You want to say that despite our business class ticket we have to pay extra for some cheese on my pasta?” The clerk’s answer is unemotionally neat and clear: “Yes exactly”. Cold and factual service is what I really got enough today. I’m taking my smartphone and tweeting the following.

It all happened during my flight from Belgrade to Bucharest over Vienna. To have a more productive day, I decided to take a less comfortable evening flight over Vienna instead of the direct one in the morning.

My flight from Belgrade was late in departure, so I missed the next one from Vienna. This was not the worst thing one could have experienced, but all the “I don’t cares” (#idontcare) within the service chain that preceded and followed the event, really disturbed me. Moreover, I believe that if the attitudes were different, I could have made it to catch my plane. Here is the story on my perspective and suggestions on how Austrian airlines could have done it differently.

 The First #idontcare at the airplane

Just after we landed to Vienna, while some of the passengers were still at their seats, I told the flight attendant that my boarding for the next flight ends in 20 minutes. She responded by telling me just to go through the regular procedure. Without any additional information – will I make it or not. At the time, I was sure by the tone of her voice and her expression, that she meant: “You should make it by passing the normal procedure”. It turned out lately that this was my first #idontcare that evening.

 If you won’t, competition will set standards for expectations

Second #idontcare I experienced was in front of the craft. While we were waiting for the cabin luggage, passengers to Frankfurt were invited into a van waiting aside. Some of us with tight schedules also asked the attendant about our options but we were told just to proceed to the bus and gates. The Frankfurt van only increased my expectation-perception gap. “This was the way I should have been treated” was the only thought that could have come to my mind.

Glass of wine Austrian flight

 Security check is part of your service too – sorry to tell you that.

Third #idontcare was at the security check. My time was running out when I reached it. I saw that there were perhaps just a few minutes to make it to the gate some 30 meters away. From my position in the queue I told the security person that my boarding is about to close. She just shook her shoulders and said that I had to wait. Some nice granny was the first to show some compassion that day and let me in front of her and her husband. However, the security check took it’s time with the second turn to pass my shoes through the x ray. I missed the gate closing for just about 4 minutes.

An airline might argue that security check is an independent organization not concerning them. I do not take that! Airport security does not take part of bureaucratic government agencies any more. I would not agree with an argument such as “This is under airport authority, and we are just an airline”. It is up to the airline to develop a business model that assures certain service level (with delivering on schedule as its minimum), by that I mean including the whole ecosystem – security, airports, cattering, check-in process, travel agencies, on-line booking services, and even (to go to extremes) air traffic control authorities if needed.

It is also about the way we associate brand with service: Austrian airline – Vienna – Vienna airport. Now tell me who do you associate the security service with. Got it?

Some airports do not require additional security checks when switching flights. Austrian airlines (ups sorry Vienna airport) does. Competition sets expectations (once again).

 The fourth #idoncare: at the service desk

When I reached the gate, the person standing there, just concluded that “The boarding is completed. You have to go to the service desk”, pointing to the nearby booth with 5 or 6 working places and 2 or 3 persons servicing clients.

Although short – maybe 6 or 7 people, the queue at the both was very slow. After 10 minutes, I started feeling uncomfortable: “What if there is a next plane departing in minutes? What if I’m missing it by standing in this queue, what if…”. The problem was I could not check any status as there were no displays in my sight, and I was afraid to leave the queue that was becoming seriously long behind me. A young woman cried because she missed the same flight, a group of people in front of me discussed about what they should do. After a long waiting, the group of people in front of me was serviced in seconds as they obviously stood in a wrong queue. Overall, at the service desk the “#idontcares” reflected in significant lack of information as well as indifference about the impact of the process on the passengers. While standing there, you feel blind, dump and not really serviced. Next time in such situation, I’d like to understand what is happening, how long will it take and what are my options.

Customer care around empathy and caring

The general #idontcare during my experience with the missed flight is the overall absence of empathy in all interactions in which I was involved with Austrian airlines representatives. By that I meant the Vienna airport and security employees also – sorry again. I do not blame Austrian for not having designed the customer facing processes around empathy. However, I do mind the ease in which I was left to spend the night in Vienna, without anyone even pretending to try to help or at least care.

 Austrian can you do that?

Finally by writing this, I am answering to the Austrian airlines tweet, I’m  investing time and energy to “co-source” the design of Austrian’s “#idocare” processes. To be honest, I’m not sure that it will make any difference. I suspect that this correspondence will remain just another check on a to do list of some “social media specialist” who did his or her job just by finally showing some compassion and care thus avoiding bigger harm to the image of the brand.

There are just a few companies which have the culture and the business model integrated responsive and actionable in the way that a client complaint would have made any substantial internal changes, and I’m really not sure that Austrian Airlines with its service ecosystem (the craft crew, the security check, the service desk, the lady at the gate, the airport stuff,…) is among those.

 Austrian Airlines, surprise me!

Brief History of CRM

The post presents the history of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) within the context of academic research and business applications. This is the excerpt English from the article published in Croatian in April 2010 in “Mreza”, magazine for IT professionals. The CRM history is described from its starts in mid eighties to day, with a view on the years to come.

The history of CRM can’t be observed without considering the development of business applications with contemporary academic research.

Eighties, THE second half

MARKETING SCHOLARS: After the concept of services marketing, particularly developed within the so-called Nordic school of marketing, a new concept has emerged. Early definitions of Relationship Marketing could be found mid eighties (1985 Jackson).

BUSINESS APPLICATIONS: Sales Force Automation (SFA) and Customer Service (CS) applications were still considered as part of the wide family of ERP solutions. Few years later a new and distinct software solution category emerged and SFA and CS became part of so called Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.

Nineties, the first half

MARKETING SCHOLARS: Relationship Marketing has been studied by Morgan and Hunt (1994) and Reichheld (1996). In 1995 Relationship Marketing was defined by Koiranen as “approach to establishing, keeping and enhancing the long-term relationships with customers and other shareholders.”

BUSINESS APPLICATIONS: Analysts from the first half of the nineties still did not recognize the rising strength of CRM. SFA and CS were classified as a small sub-segment of the ERP market. In 1994 the total CRM software (SFA and CS) market amounted to around 200 million US dollars, compared to the 6.4 billion of the global ERP sales.

Nineties, the second half

MARKETING SCHOLARS: Unlike Relationship Marketing, the CRM was studied relatively late by the academics. First academic definitions of CRM were written relatively late compared to Relationship Marketing. In the 1999 Srivastava, Shervani and Fahey described CRM as a broader concept than Relationship Marketing defining it as “a process that identifies customers, creates knowledge about customers, builds relationships with customers, and forms customers’ perception around the organization and its offerings.”

BUSINESS APPLICATIONS: Towards the end of the nineties, CRM fever heats up. The awareness of the big new market is rapidly growing. Everyone sees the opportunity for a continued growth in a somewhat saturated ERP market. During previous years, ERP applications have generated and stored an impressive amount of data about customers, so indispensible to fuel successful CRM initiatives.

Year 2000 to date

MARKETING SCHOLARS: Despite some terminological dissonance, academics are better aligned with the business practice. Through basic research, they contribute to the development of business concepts that are being embedded within CRM.

BUSINESS APPLICATIONS: Many applications are experiencing their maturity, backed up by better understanding of business processes as well as motivation agendas of individuals and departments within organizations . This maturity was influenced by the evolution of information technologies backed up by cheaper and faster data storage systems, accessible broadband and flexible IT environments, like service-oriented architecture (SOA), SAAS (software as a service) and cloud computing.

2010 and years to come

MARKETING SCHOLARS: The intensive progress in behavioral studies over the past two decades creates the basis for “intelligent” approach to large customer segments. In addition to corporate business systems, such segments are emerging within the social networks of the coming years.

BUSINESS APPLICATIONS: Social networks are opening a new page on the CRM agenda. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Second Life and other engaging social media networks, enable a more precise segmentation, affinity grouping, customer participation in offer definition and their impact on formulating corporate strategies, in a way that has never been possible before.

 

Social Networks' role in CRM
Social networks in CRM ecosystems enable a more precise segmentation and customer involvement. ©2010 Alen Gojčeta, Mreza magazine April 2010

This is the excerpt in English from the article published in the issue of April 2010 of Croatian magazine for IT professionals “Mreža“. The work above us the copyright of Alen Gojčeta and the Mreža magazine. The CRM history is part of the findings of the research done for author’s master degree thesis “Segmentation models in CRM”, 2006.