Classic Airlines and Marketing

Classic Airlines and Marketing

Classic Airlines and Marketing

Classic Airline is the world's fifth largest airline that commands a fleet of more than 375 jets. In the 25 years of service, Classic Airline has more than 32,000 employees and earned $10 million for the last year net income (University of Phoenix, 2012). The company is still profitable, but an alarming trend of reward customers leaving Classic Airline and those customers staying are flying less. Price cutting has left Classic in a position that it can no longer reduce prices because of the small profit margin and rising fuel costs.

Marketing Concepts

Classic Airline must provide its services at a price that the customers find a good value. Value does not necessarily mean low price, but instead a price that the customer finds a value for the benefits of doing business with Classic Airline. The modern customer-orientated organization chart has the customer at the top signifying that the customer is the most important part of the organization followed by frontline employees who have direct dealings with the customers (Kotler & Kelly, 2006). Identifying the needs and wants of the customers such as on time flights, personal customer service, and other amenities will provide greater satisfaction to the customer and could allow a higher pricing model in return. Basically, customers will pay more to receive the services that they want or expect. As long as the customer perceives the price of the airfare is below the customer assigned value for the service ticket sales will occur. Satisfied customers will care about pricing less (Kotler & Kelly, 2006).

Customer Relations and Data Collection

Classic Airline uses a customer relation management (CRM) system, but does not use the system to form stronger customer relations. The system has been used to reduce costs through a reduction of headcount instead of providing customers with better service. The CRM system could be used to listen to the customer so that the operations of the airline could better reflect the desires of Classic Airline customers, especially the frequent fliers and Classic Rewards program customers (University of Phoenix, 2012).

The CRM will also provide data on the trends of Classic Airline fliers and allow for real-time collection of this data to monitor the success of the services that are implemented because of customer demand. Implemented programs can have data collected to monitor both negative and positive feedback so that any necessary changes can be made (University of Phoenix, 2012).

Conclusion

Classic Airlines has the proper tool, in the CRM system, to collect data on customers' wants and a way to monitor the success