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Customer Retention PAGE 3 Take a Lesson from the Airline Industry Airlines have learned that on-time departures are important to customers. Obviously, if a flight is delayed, this can lead to missed connections and other complications for customers. To boot, waiting to board a plane that should have taken off two hours before is flat-out not fun. Unfortunately, many airlines have measured this on-time issue by success in meeting the time the plane is supposed to leave the gate, not "wheels up." The result? Some passengers spend several hours waiting for takeoff in the cramped confines of a grounded plane! Airlines have no desire to reduce gate use. Airports want to get as much use of their runways as they can and often overbook flights. As an engineering friend in the aviation field mentioned to me, you’d think the number of aircraft would be the limiting factor in deciding how many flights can be made. In fact, though, it’s the number of runways and locations to takeoff and land from. The end result is the airlines pack more and more people into the airplanes on time, and the airplanes leave the gate on time. Then, the passengers wait....and the airplane doesn’t take off. The lesson is don’t become so focused upon one measure of customer satisfaction that it blinds you to common sense and to other factors which will conspire against it. To get some great examples of "measuring sticks" for your customer retention research, go buy First, Break All The Rules, What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. What Gallup Says Customers Want -- Food for Thought Incidentally, First, Break All The Rules, What The World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently mentions that Gallup has interviewed over a billion customers in an attempt to identify what customers want. Gallop has summarized customer desires into four key points: Accuracy -- If a customer orders soup at a restaurant, he expects to get soup, not French fries. Availability (Service) -- If the customer wants her check, she shouldn’t need to wait an unnecessarily long time before getting the waiter’s attention. Partnership -- Customers want to feel employees are listening to and understanding them. Advice -- Customers want you to help them solve their problems. How each of these will play out within your individual company is different, however. How do your customers define Accuracy, Availability, Partnership, and Advice? When customers tell you what they want, into which of these broad categories does the desire fall? continued Page 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 Enter your search terms Submit search form       Search Idea Cafe Web Small Business Tax Center • Idea Cafe Home • Sign Up • Biz Grant Center • CyberSchmooz •Coffee Talk with Experts • People in Biz Profiles • Starting Your Biz • Biz Planning • Running Your Biz • FREE Trade Publications • Marketing • Financing Your Biz • Human Resources • Legal & Biz Forms • Managing Your Biz • eCommerce • You and Your Biz • Gen X • Work@Home • The Fridge • De-Stress • Send an Award • Send an eGreeting • Yoga @ Your Desk • Web Guide • Idea Cafe in the News • About Idea Cafe • Advertise on Idea Cafe • Contact Us • Privacy Policy • Site Map • Small Biz News Copyright 1995-2024, Idea Cafe Inc. Downloads are for personal use only, not for resale to others, and may not be reprinted in any form without written permission from Idea Cafe Inc. DISCLAIMER: We hope whatever you find on this site is helpful, but be cautioned that it may not apply to your own situation, or be totally current at any given time. Idea Cafe Inc. and all of its current and past experts, sponsors, advertisers, agents, contractors and advisors disclaim all warranties with regard to anything found anywhere on this family of websites, quoted from, or sent from Idea Cafe. and its related sites, publications and companies. We also take no responsibility for comments published by others on these pages. TRADEMARKS: The following are Registered Trademarks or Servicemarks of DevStart, Inc.: Idea Cafe®, Online Coffee Break®, The Small Business Gathering Place®, Take out Info®, Biz Bar & Grill®, Complaint-O-Meter®, A Fun Approach to Serious Business™, CyberSchmooz™, and BizCafe™.

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