Originally Posted by
uwbrother
Personally I wish AC provided good enough service where it could say "we're not the cheapest by price but we provide the best value for your money". We've all seen how Detroit automakers destoyed themselves by trying to compete on price alone, eventually building utter garbage while German automakers with worse unions did really well by focusing on quality. I wish there was an Apple of airlines, one that charged high margin but provided an experience where people happily paid that margin. I thought that's what the business class was designed to do. And I honestly thought reward programs (which are actually incredibly profitable for airlines) were also designed to do that. In that sence AC did fail for the OP.
I do agree with OP here, I wish AC focused on quality (if not for everyone then at least for proven loyal customers).
And I couldn't agree more on the whole
value versus
price battle except to add IMHO we're all equally to blame for that reality as we've conditioned airlines to focus on the former instead of the latter.
The irony to me is the IT tools are there, we keep hearing, for a more personalized business-consumer relationship, to use the computer to track our purchasing decisions and almost anticipate some choices to ultimately deliver what will keep us happy and spending with the company. It should be easy then, you'd think, to maintain and effectively manage a top tier profile list as was mentioned upthread to recognize the real value of long-time high revenue pax and react in a manner that would make those customers feel appreciated.
Yet IMHO big companies more often fail to deliver and still treat the consumer as a number focusing on the small rather than the big picture. Why can't companies like AC that have nimble operations centres that coordinate a vast amount of uber complex logistical details on an almost global scale daily in real time be able to more effectively accomplish better customer service by recognizing and understanding trouble spots their top clients experience and delivering a timely personalized response?