KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER'S NEEDS AND WANTS

Know Your Customer's Needs and Wants



Know Your Customer's Needs and Wants

One idea that all airline industry leaders, board, and staff members need to embrace about the basic nature of customers is that people want to believe in and be a part of something greater than them. The market for something to believe in is infinite. We are here to find meaning. We are here to help other people do the same? Everything else is secondary…. [Your customers] want to believe in you and what you do. And they'll go elsewhere if they don't. (Farris, 2010, 459-69)

People need to believe in something. An airline industry's constituents must believe that the organization aligns its efforts to its mission and that it will do so as effectively and efficiently as possible using honest practices. Here, the role of marketing in the airline industry sector becomes the development, maintenance, and enhancement of the organization's public perception, building, and reinforcing the belief and trust that sustains it and gives it purpose (David, 2010, 22-27).

If the old adage that “perception is reality” holds true, then it is imperative that the organization's marketing efforts first communicate truth, integrity, and trust to its constituents in all it does. In doing so, it can shape their beliefs and reinforce their trust in the organization, justifying its place in the universe and thereby supporting the reasons why it deserves to exist. Considering MacLeod's insight, marketing's role is to protect your customer's beliefs, managing perceptions while enhancing and building its reputation in a broken, busy world. Without organizational integrity, there is no reason to believe in your group and therefore no justification for your existence (James, 2008, 67-97).

Ultimately, airline industry marketing has to connect with, resonate with, and inspire its constituents. Unless you truly understand your relationship with your customers and honestly know the beliefs they hold about your group, you are lost. You must learn as much as you can about your different customer segments: their age, where they live, what they do for a living, their income level, what they like, what they don't like, their interests, and so on, using this information to develop the customer relationship and to connect the organization's mission and strategy to your customer's expectations (Berry, 2009, 46-64).

Identifying Your Customer Types

The organization has to identify the markets that would have the most stakes in the mission. Keep in mind that an airline industry organization can have several types of customers, all with different types of stakes and interests in the same mission. Customers can generally be narrowed down to the following types: internal, external, service, and referral sources. (Reizenstein, 2011, 12-23)

Internal Customers

Often, the internal customer is overlooked in the marketing plan, but his or her interest and involvement in the organization has tremendous impact on the fulfilment of its mission. The board of directors has a customer interest in the organization because they are the ones ultimately responsible for moving the mission forward, even more so ...