Originally Posted by
sdsearch
What does NPS stand for here? (Why does the original article explain one other acronym but not this one? Good journalism dictates that the first time you use an acronym that it's just possible not everyone knows in a story, you always explain what it stands for.)
Agreed that it was bad form to not explain the acronym in the original story. NPS is
Net Promoter Score and is basically how likely the customer is to recommend the company to a friend or colleague. Given that the target audience of the original is the marketing folks and the acronym is commonly used in those circles it isn't completely off-base that they did't define it, but a bit annoying for the rest of us.
Originally Posted by
sdsearch
But how does the airline identify complainers, if they only complain anonymously (say, via FT handles), and never directly to the airline, and never directly in any forum where they can be easily identified?
Not all of them are as anonymous as they appear. Also, the airlines - if they are doing things correctly - are targeting offers based on FF# combined with other metrics. They're also tracking complaints and such through those same mechanisms. So they should know if you've complained about a broken seat on every single flight and they might just reply telling you to find a different seat to fly in or ignore your repeated complaints completely.
Originally Posted by
sdsearch
But perhaps "complainer" needs to be clarified. If I tell people my attempt-at-objective opinion of one airline or another, and it comes out negative (because of the facts), is that a complaint? Or is it only a complaint if I "whine" about it?
I think it is up to the company to decide just how they want to define their customers, but the NPS numbers can help them with that.
Originally Posted by
drbobguy
I think the most important conclusion we can draw going forward is that this whole exercise is kind of pointless. It makes a good powerpoint slide, having 4 bins to drop people into it, but the whole point of new kinds of IT and data collection and analysis is that companies will be able to target people individually. Remember the best business efficiency is charging a different price for every person. That's not legal for public prices, but it is for things like promos and discounts. So I expect they will get more individualized as time goes on.
Promos are definitely becoming more personalized and targeted. Months of Miles, mentioned above, had different thresholds for customers in different tranches. Similarly, many promos have different earn rates based on the fare basis (high fares are worth more). I do believe that the targeting is getting more and more specific, but I do not think that we'll see truly individualized pricing/targeting in the near future as the operational requirements to run such promos are still too high vis a vis bundling reasonably similar customers into groups and offering promos based on the groups.