The Challenge
To reduce costs to the business by identifying areas of the existing customer experience that did not contribute to overall customer satisfaction.
Extensive conventional customer surveys (usage and attitude) had not identified a clear direction.
Our approach
Insight
Our ‘discovery’ programme using Searcher & Ethnotracker accompanied customers on their entire journey with Virgin Atlantic.
- Research and booking – we tracked every key stroke and site visited for detailed analysis
- Interaction with Virgin Atlantic customer service on a phone with all calls recorded for analysis
- Observed during limo pick up by researcher/driver – conversation audio/video recorded for analysis
- From arrival at airport, customers were tracked and monitored by researcher posing as fellow passenger
- Customers completed an audio diary of what they were doing and feeling at various moments
- Interviewed cabin staff on their opinions and ideas on the customer experience they provided
Full analysis of the findings were combined with Generator (internal VA staff) & Extrospector (customer feedback) tools to give a full picture of the customer experience
We then produced a league table of the constituent elements of the customer journey and their relative importance to the overall customer experience. We included opportunities for improvements.
Results achieved
By removing the least important elements for customers (which were completely the opposite to those identified by conventional research), Virgin Atlantic was able to save £10m per annum with no negative impact on load (number of passengers carried) or customer satisfaction scores.