Cathay Pacific Vs. China Eastern Airlines: A Comparison on their Customer Experiences

This case study is contributed by the master degree students of e-Commerce and Internet Computing, Master of Science of the University of Hong Kong.

Airlines are in troubles: price-wars, strikes, rising threat from high-speed railway, just to name a few. Is 'Costs-cutting' the only way out, just as Continental cutting free food?

Customers concern service and all service-related attributes (and of course free food :)), price, on-time, to be safe and to not lose luggage, etc. There is a long list of critical needs from customers. Ryanair's always been trying to offer the lowest price and at the same time be safe, be puntual, and keep your luggages, Ryanair knows well they're (some of) the critical needs of their target customers, and also the DNA of Ryanair (i.e. reflecting Ryanair's core brand values). They focuses most resource on those critical few attributes but not all. They also understand Ryanair is not everything to everyone. You can't find good service, free food, and 'smile' from Ryanair. They focus their resources on a few things that are critical to target customers, and can reflect their differentiated brand values, so that a highly effective branded Ryanair's experience could be delivered.

There are two successful airlines, Singapore, Southwest, offer entire different things to different customer segments, but they've one thing in common: both deliver branded customer experience.

In this case study, though authors demonstrated the beauties of branded experience with Emotion Curve*, you will not find any direct answers to the airlines' problems. However, it inspires ideas and triggers thoughts on how a branded experience could beat competition, earn loyalty, with limited resource.

It's a straight-forward case study and is interesting to read. Download now. No registration required.

Enjoy.

*Emotion Curve is invented and first put into applications by Mr. Sampson Lee, president of G-CEM, in 2006. It is one of the experience assessment and management tools of the U.S. patent-pending Branded Customer Experience Management Method registered by G-CEM. Emotion Curve maps the customer emotions generated at each touch-point or sub-process, and links them to form a curve in reflecting the perceived experience across the entire customer lifecycle (covers all touch-points at stages of pre-purchase, at-purchase, and post-purchase), or at a specific touch-point (e.g. retail, call center, website, etc.). Unlike the conventional approaches focus on enhancing efficiency and are process-centric; emotion curve represents the genuine customer feeling by addressing emotions and five senses, in a natural time sequence from an experience perspective. It is a truly [customer-centric] experience assessment and management method. The statistic data of emotion curve is derived through substantial X-VOC surveys, from the experience ratings on each touch-point or sub-process, evaluated by different target customer segments. The definition and selection criteria of touch-points and sub-processes are based on vigorous and scientific research, method, and sequential steps. An Emotion Curve shows how customers perceive experience. It is an innovative and powerful tool for creating a branded customer experience strategy. Furthermore, through a simple curve, from CEO to receptionist, no matter in boardroom or post room, all people in a company could easily understand and communicate the customer experience levels, by using a common graphical language.