CX World Employee Letter - Do we know what our customers want?
Dec 25, 2016, 5:52 pm
#1
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CX World Employee Letter - Do we know what our customers want?
Employee question and CX management answer which talks about perception of CX service standards.
As a CX traveller, I think what CX offers is a good product and overall good experience but there is always room for improvement especially when you run such a large scale operation with a successful history in providing premium service.
Do we know what our customers want?
From Cathay City colleague
Customers see Cathay as a more expensive full- service carrier, but they note a decline in service standard. While cost-cutting is temporary, and we are catching up on ancillary revenue, the question is: do we need a more substantial change?
Do we have any plans for updating our company direction? Are we aspiring to become the worlds most customer-centric company?
We can only move forward if we truly understand what our customers value the most, instead of what we think they want and need.
Currently, it seems were assuming every customer is a premium customer. But were offering what some see as a lacklustre product.
Can we tailor our fare products according to appetite? Give value-seeking people the most basic fare product? Ensure our premium customers get the best experience? This way, we can keep our premium proposition and simutaneously compete in the budget space.
I believe that being customer-focused is the new de nition of being premium, and would like to see changes being made in this spectrum.
Tom Owen, Director People, replies: Thank you for your letter.
Along with most Cathay Pacific employees, I care when I hear negative perceptions from customers (or sta ) about our products and service standards. We have been successful in the past by creating relevant reasons why customers will choose to pay good money to fly with us, rather than someone else. And as our customers have di erent travel motives and needs that are changing over time, we must always do more to understand these better. So this is at the centre of the new strategy we will be sharing next year.
This strategy has been developed by the senior leadership group over the past months, and puts focus on us working in different ways ahead, being a lot more productive in how we do things and reorganising ourselves around customers, operations and commercial. This will make a lot more sense in early 2017 when you begin to hear about whats coming. And, as per your comments, the plan indeed has customers at its very heart. Our future way of working and investing will be driven by deeper customer insights into what they value and how this manifests itself in their purchasing behaviour and interaction with our brand.
The good news is that transformational new technology and tools are now available to harness and organise customer and operational data to allow us to make a step change here. Our goal is to become a company of people that truly understand and are motivated by our brand promise of a Life Well Travelled.
Change is always a challenge, especially in an organisation that until recently has been quite successful, so it will require all of us to understand the new
strategy and to play our part in building a future where we can begin to win again. This is where my teams communication role comes in, as we will clearly need to bring our people along on this journey with us if we are to be successful.
I firmly believe that Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragons best years are ahead, given the talented and passionate people I have met across this organisation who want us to succeed. There is everything to play for with our many strengths and the future investments planned in products and services that our customers will love. But we have all got a lot of work ahead in order to secure this future.
It is clearly time to win again, and winning will start and end with our customers!
As a CX traveller, I think what CX offers is a good product and overall good experience but there is always room for improvement especially when you run such a large scale operation with a successful history in providing premium service.
Do we know what our customers want?
From Cathay City colleague
Customers see Cathay as a more expensive full- service carrier, but they note a decline in service standard. While cost-cutting is temporary, and we are catching up on ancillary revenue, the question is: do we need a more substantial change?
Do we have any plans for updating our company direction? Are we aspiring to become the worlds most customer-centric company?
We can only move forward if we truly understand what our customers value the most, instead of what we think they want and need.
Currently, it seems were assuming every customer is a premium customer. But were offering what some see as a lacklustre product.
Can we tailor our fare products according to appetite? Give value-seeking people the most basic fare product? Ensure our premium customers get the best experience? This way, we can keep our premium proposition and simutaneously compete in the budget space.
I believe that being customer-focused is the new de nition of being premium, and would like to see changes being made in this spectrum.
Tom Owen, Director People, replies: Thank you for your letter.
Along with most Cathay Pacific employees, I care when I hear negative perceptions from customers (or sta ) about our products and service standards. We have been successful in the past by creating relevant reasons why customers will choose to pay good money to fly with us, rather than someone else. And as our customers have di erent travel motives and needs that are changing over time, we must always do more to understand these better. So this is at the centre of the new strategy we will be sharing next year.
This strategy has been developed by the senior leadership group over the past months, and puts focus on us working in different ways ahead, being a lot more productive in how we do things and reorganising ourselves around customers, operations and commercial. This will make a lot more sense in early 2017 when you begin to hear about whats coming. And, as per your comments, the plan indeed has customers at its very heart. Our future way of working and investing will be driven by deeper customer insights into what they value and how this manifests itself in their purchasing behaviour and interaction with our brand.
The good news is that transformational new technology and tools are now available to harness and organise customer and operational data to allow us to make a step change here. Our goal is to become a company of people that truly understand and are motivated by our brand promise of a Life Well Travelled.
Change is always a challenge, especially in an organisation that until recently has been quite successful, so it will require all of us to understand the new
strategy and to play our part in building a future where we can begin to win again. This is where my teams communication role comes in, as we will clearly need to bring our people along on this journey with us if we are to be successful.
I firmly believe that Cathay Pacific and Cathay Dragons best years are ahead, given the talented and passionate people I have met across this organisation who want us to succeed. There is everything to play for with our many strengths and the future investments planned in products and services that our customers will love. But we have all got a lot of work ahead in order to secure this future.
It is clearly time to win again, and winning will start and end with our customers!
Dec 25, 2016, 8:46 pm
#3
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: HKG/HND/OOL
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simple:
-Y is the new LCC.
-PEY is the new Y
-J is always the J even they market as superior to old J which, strictly speaking about hard product is not a lie.
-F is a niche CX is happy to go away with except the most lucrative of all routes as per seperate thread)
but for this to work they need to seriously adjust their pricing strategy. They need to lower the fare at back and cut further corners, whilst maintain PEY segment and beef it up...
and for those who aren't happy with the new model there are always other airlines that offers. Just as i type this, google Ad is showing me FinAir special promotion HKG to London at 3.3k HKD. that's boarderline fanfare on CX.
-Y is the new LCC.
-PEY is the new Y
-J is always the J even they market as superior to old J which, strictly speaking about hard product is not a lie.
-F is a niche CX is happy to go away with except the most lucrative of all routes as per seperate thread)
but for this to work they need to seriously adjust their pricing strategy. They need to lower the fare at back and cut further corners, whilst maintain PEY segment and beef it up...
and for those who aren't happy with the new model there are always other airlines that offers. Just as i type this, google Ad is showing me FinAir special promotion HKG to London at 3.3k HKD. that's boarderline fanfare on CX.
Dec 26, 2016, 3:19 am
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And here's another one, along with a few "comments"
"Hmm..
New strategy rollout in 2017"
http://www.pprune.org/fragrant-harbour/588755-hmm.html
"Hmm..
New strategy rollout in 2017"
http://www.pprune.org/fragrant-harbour/588755-hmm.html