Earlier this year, Air Canada announced that it had embarked on a global brand repositioning journey that would eventually see it touch down squarely in the land of one-to-one relationship marketing. Four months later, Canada’s largest airline has yet to reach its chosen destination, but it’s a lot closer.
Last summer, Air Canada convened a marketing and advertising ‘Dream Team’ to plot a new strategic direction for the airline based on the results of its massive Customer Relationship Management (crm) survey (see Strategy, Feb. 16, ’98), which polled more than 15,000 business customers about what they wanted and expected from the airline.
Based on the survey, Air Canada realized it had to improve its performance in four key areas; specifically the Aeroplan frequent flyer program, overall brand positioning, product and service design, and customer service.
What began with a very high-profile roll-out of a new general advertising campaign during the Winter Olympics has culminated in the recent formation of an internal team of customer segmentation specialists whose job it is to increase the airline’s share of wallet within its customer base.
According to Marc Trudeau, Air Canada’s crm director, the survey provided the means to identify many of the elements that go into a customer’s choosing and sticking with an airline. As a result, he says, ‘We’ve dissected our customer base to identify key segments, so that we can tailor our products to the most profitable segments and increase our share within those segments.
‘It’s like the maitre’d in your favorite restaurant remembering what you ordered the last time you were in, remembering your favorite table and knowing your favorite drink … and integrating all of that information to provide you with optimal service,’ Trudeau says.
An early outgrowth of the new strategy is the new Super Elite frequent flyer tier, which was added to the airline’s longstanding Aeroplan program earlier this year. It was launched this past winter with a direct mail campaign created by Montreal-based FCB Direct Canada.
Aimed at people who fly literally almost all the time, the program was conceived with the recognition that even among the airline’s Elite level of frequent travellers, there was still an opportunity to win a greater share of their travel dollar.
The key, Air Canada learned from the survey, was to treat these people like the creme de la creme that they are and offer them such important benefits as guaranteed reservations, free seat upgrades, dedicated Super Elite agents available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, international toll-free telephone assistance, and ‘Gold’ member status when flying with any of Air Canada’s five Star Alliance partners.
According to Joanne Ward, Air Canada’s manager of Aeroplan marketing, the airline had already been considering introducing the Super Elite tier when the crm survey was conducted. She says that while the survey confirmed many of the marketing team’s assumptions about the target audience, it did help to provide a distinct blueprint for the future direction of the program.
Perhaps the greatest pearl of wisdom afforded by the survey, says Ward, is that the Super Elite target group ‘doesn’t want to be treated the same as everybody else. They have different needs and desires.’
Trudeau says that by meeting the identified needs of business travellers who have the potential to become the airline’s best customers and giving them more of a reason to concentrate on a single airline, Air Canada has successfully managed to influence the market behavior of this crucial segment. ‘The Super Elite program has very significantly moved the share of top frequent flyers towards Air Canada,’ he states.
And just how exclusive is the Super Elite program? Well, of Air Canada’s 3.4 million Aeroplan members, only 6,000 or so will accumulate the 100,000 miles or 150 travel blocks needed to qualify for the program.
Trudeau says the Super Elite program is a step in the right direction but that the airline is still only about halfway toward its goal of perfecting its customer segmentation functions and integrating them with a carefully constructed marketing strategy. As it gets closer to this goal, he says, the company will focus more intensely on other customer segments.
‘We’ve built a database that gives us tons of information about the habits of our customers,’ he says. ‘Now we really have to be able to predict their behavior and model it on a much more one-to-one basis. We have to be able to better satisfy the needs of our customers and influence their behavior so that we can maximize the relationship we have with them.
‘This is not a program or a project,’ he states. ‘It’s a journey.’
