The Airline industry is still reeling from the turbulence of 2008 caused by the global recession. Commercial and freight carriers have seen profits suffer because of a rise in fuel costs coupled with a fall in passenger numbers, particularly the numbers of lucrative business travellers. 

Airlines are being forced to compete in a smaller market for the first time in 17 years with passenger numbers falling 8% in the wake of the 2008 crisis. Recent hikes in the price of oil have caused a jump in fuel prices for airlines, which despite hedging has forced airlines to raise ticket prices. With the success of low cost carriers such as Ryanair, there has been too much focus on differentiating on price to the detriment of the customer experience.

Gaining increased Insight about customers would allow for a more tailored customer experience with more potential for upselling and gearing communication towards loyalty. As Airlines begin to engage more with their customers, they will begin to identify the areas where they can improve and with many companies in the market on low customer satisfaction scores, small changes and improvements will have an effect on loyalty.

Masterclass, 11 November 2010, London

In the latest survey conducted across Europe's 100 top banking executives, only 8% of customers rated their service as exceptional. The research conducted by Oracle Financial Services highlighted the need for financial services organisations to adapt, and in some cases transform, their go-to-market strategies. Customer feedback is key to enabling such large scale transformations.
 
FSA Director Sheila Nicoll reinforced the need for best practice to be adopted across the industry. "Good complaints-handling standards should be the rule, not the exception, and complaints-handling forms a key part of our intensive and intrusive approach to supervise how firms deal with their customers".

SynGro have been at the forefront of the market since its inception in 2004, enabling large organisations to capture, manage and implement world-class customer engagement programmes. Our technology and experts enable clients such as Stora Enso, Heineken and Outokumpu to capture real-time customer feedback across web, mobile, call centre and face to face channels in 61 countries and 40 languages.
 
I feel quite evangelistic about the transformation feedback management can make to a client's organisation. Customer feedback programmes must go beyond simple data collection and reporting. When designed and implemented correctly, the process will not only ensure true customer engagement, but tangibly improve retention and increase the number of those who actively recommend the services and products to others.
 
Click here to attend our next free of charge Masterclass "The secrets to driving customer loyalty" in London on the 11th November.