Delta Airlines the Airline Industry

Delta Airlines

The airline industry in general has suffered a lack of customer service over the last decade due to exceptional economic and environmental forces impacting their ability to perform profitably. All available financial resources went into surviving, not adding to the comfort, customer experience or customer satisfaction of passengers. As a result, customer satisfaction ratings have plummeted in the last ten years. Delta has been faced with the same economic and environmental factors that had led them to initially cut back on flights and service. Delta's initial strategies of concentrating on cost efficiencies over customer centricity have cost them in customer satisfaction ratings over the last ten years (Fitzpatrick, 2005). With such a strong orientation on cutting costs and efficiency, customer centricity became an afterthought.

Review of current state of customer-centric orientation of Delta

Instead of becoming as utilitarian in service attitude as many of their competitors however, Delta made the decision in 2006 to concentrate on how to become one of the leaders in airline customer service and earn the trust of customers as a result (Field, 2006). Many airlines do not take into account customer service in their core marketing plans. American Airlines has slipped precipitously down in customer satisfaction polls, as has United Airlines. Delta Airlines initiated a re-branding strategy that included the development of entirely new approaches to listening to customers' needs, and integrating them quickly into their service strategies (LaMotta, 2006). As a result, Delta has risen in the J.D. Power & Associates rating of airline satisfaction to second place in the latest year's rankings. Delta scored above average on the factors of overall satisfaction, flight reservations & scheduling, check-in process, aircraft interior, boarding & deplaning including baggage handling, flight crew, in-flight services, and cost & fees. The current state of Delta's performance has significantly improved over previous years as a result of the customer listening systems, commitment to embrace social networking technologies including blogs and participating on Twitter and Facebook for example. Delta's commitment to aligning their many processes to maximize the customer experience of both commercial and pleasure or leisure travelers is having an impact on their customer satisfaction scores.

Delta Customer Service and Customer Centricity

Delta's journey from being entirely focused on the efficiency of running their airline for a profit to caring about customer centricity has been in progress over a decade. Their legendary lack of service led to their receiving the lowest customer satisfaction scores during the 1990s. Forced to compete against low-cost carriers, Delta began cutting fare prices and under-staffing planes leading to significant loss of customer satisfaction (Fitzpatrick, 2005). Only after a significant loss of passengers and resulting revenue did Delta begin to re-evaluate the role of customer service and customer centricity in their strategic planning process. The realization that Delta was no longer trusted even by its loyal customers was one of the primary catalysts for the company decided to revisit its approach to listening and interacting with customers (Field, 2006).

Customer centricity is most often exemplified in organizations through continual improvement of processes that directly influence the customer experience. The customer touch points that Delta has modified include their check-in process, which can now be managed entirely over the Internet, from a wireless Internet device or via a cellular phone, a program initially proposed in 2003 yet not completed until 2006 (Ott, 2003). In addition, Delta has concentrated on the baggage handling and baggage management touch points with passengers, working to make these interactions as efficient and accurate as possible through the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technologies (Wyld, Jones, Totten, 2005). Third, Delta will be the first American-based carrier to have free WiFi on all jets by 2009, beating out Virgin America as well by a year (Wilson, 2008). Despite all these improvements in customer centricity, Delta still lacks the process-centric expertise to become the leading airline provider in customer satisfaction in the U.S. however.

Identification of problems or areas for improvement

The greatest source of dissatisfaction with airlines in general and Delta specifically is the perceived inequality in fare pricing. Delta has frequently been said to be one of the most opportunistic in pricing fares from their hubs and markets they dominate (O'Neal, Jacob, Farmer, Martin, 2007). There is also a lack of coordination between fare pricing and the use of one and multi-stop itineraries in high traffic corridors of the U.S. And other nations (O'Neal, Jacob, Farmer, Martin, 2007). As a result, there is much dissatisfaction specifically in the areas of pricing, price discounting and the configuration of schedules to get optimal pricing. It has been common in the past for customers to be charged up to $300 to $400 more fares for alleviating a one-stop fare when a nonstop fare into a non-hub city became available. Customers have complained this is more of a factor of Delta's lack of flexibility in managing flight reservations and scheduling. Second, Delta has room for improvement in the boarding and deplaning process, specifically in how zones are defined and the planning & deplaning process is management. The queuing of this approach has at times been considered elitist due to the separate lanes and the cavalier attitude given to the most senior frequent flyers over just a customer (Wasmer, Bruner, 1991). It had been common for a full paying fare customer to be bumped from a flight just so a last-minute Medallion customer could fly with no reservation. This enraged regular customers and drove them away from the airlines. Customer began websites saying they had been fired by Delta for not flying with them enough.

Recommendations to make Delta more customer-centric