{"id":5104,"date":"2020-10-23T11:09:42","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T10:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/french\/?p=5104"},"modified":"2020-10-23T11:10:03","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T10:10:03","slug":"facing-the-dilemma-of-limited-resources","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/french\/facing-the-dilemma-of-limited-resources\/","title":{"rendered":"Facing the dilemma of limited resources"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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23 October 2020<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When companies should do more to secure the future business of members, airlines and hotels start to be faced with a shortage of resources as layoffs across the industry set in. But there is no problem without a solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Let’s face\nit, looking at current or past performance data of your loyalty program\nprovides only limited hints which members will really be the members bringing\nyou business tomorrow. Some elites will return, but not all. And you have no\nclue, who belongs to which category. A current absence of activity of certain\nmembers, although travel is slowly picking up again in the industry, should not\nlet you conclude too early that the member is dead since various reasons may\ndelay his resumption of his travels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In one\nword, CRM becomes more important than ever and it definitely needs to become\nfar more intelligent than in the past. And competition will become tougher,\nincluding at a micro local level, making it particularly difficult for companies\nin the travel industry, where most have, by definition, a very international customer\nbasis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the\nother side, resources at companies are limited, both in financial terms, but increasingly\nalso at a level of manpower. This makes it very difficult to justify the\nbusiness case to invest efforts into a member, who is inactive now. But failing\nto capture now the clients, which will potentially be at the heart of any\nfuture success of your company, will push you into an even more disastrous\nvicious circle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me take\na concrete example as showcase: myself and my credit card strategy. The\nco-branded credit market in France is pretty poor in terms of choice, dominated\nby a (reasonable fair) product by Air France KLM\/Flying Blue and American\nExpress. While no issue for travellers and in spite of some progress over the last\nfew years, the acceptance of American Express card at a daily level remains challenging\nin France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When another\nopportunity opened a few years ago with a co-branded Visa card, I was hence\ncertainly one of the first ones to jump on that opportunity. Generating 100% of\nmy activity in the program in question with my credit card, the question is justified\nwhether I am a good client for them or not. (When I occasionally fly on that\nairline, I actually credit the points to a more relevant partner program.) But\nI certainly generate some good revenue for them. The reason that I stick to that\ncard is the absence of alternatives and the fact that the currency has\nnevertheless some value to me thanks to the partner network. But it is clearly rather\na strategy by default than by conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, Accor\nis announcing the upcoming launch of a co-branded Visa card in France (and other\nEuropean countries). Details are not yet known, but they promise that the\noffering will be \u00ab\u00a0generous\u00a0\u00bb. If we have only approximately the same understanding\nabout generosity, I am likely to become an early cardholder and drop my current\nVisa card since I’ll definitely value the Accor currency more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, danger\non the horizon for my current credit card. And what is the airline doing? Okay,\nthey’ve recently fired their Head of Loyalty (what might not have been the biggest\nloss for the company…), but even before that, I have never received a single\nmessage from them since I obtained the credit card. Now they stopped serving\nToulouse (where I am based) and you should think that they should care at least\nabout their credit card holders? I assume they only have a low 4-digit number\nof cardmembers in France – if at all. Actually, the airline might have even\nrestarted limited services to Toulouse by now, but again, no direct information\nfrom the airline about whatsoever (and they are not the primary airline I need\nhere, so I don’t really follow everything around them).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being a foreign\nairline, do they understand now the imminent danger of the Accor initiative?\n[No, first question: Do they know about it at all?] Accor will clearly put the required\nresources to make their card a success. While they might do more harm to Air\nFrance\/American Express, the handful of such lower profile products will suffer\nfrom that as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\nexample shows how programs are clearly missing a trick by not moving to a more\nlocal and more efficient CRM approach. This is particularly sad since this is\nnot really difficult to realise. It requires a basic understanding of local\nmarkets, from a cultural perspective and understanding the relevant competitive\nloyalty forces – which are now obviously in full flux with some clear winners of\nthe crisis on the horizon and some dinosaurs trembling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If your\norganisation belongs to those 98% of organisations without a global loyalty\nteam across key markets, there is definitely a business case for buying in some\nexternal expertise. The traditional focus on its home market will not be sufficient\nanymore for any loyalty program going forward in a shrinking market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So don’t be\nafraid to extend your horizon. There are actually some very low-hanging fruits\nout there for anybody willing to think a bit differently, in spite of – or\nmaybe rather because of – more limited internal resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the crisis might force us to think differently than what we did in the past in order to continue to be successful in the future. As such, it might be worth recalling the wise words of John F. Kennedy [sorry, not easy to find any wise words with certain more recent US Presidents]: \u00ab\u00a0When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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23 October 2020 When companies should do more to secure the future business of members, airlines and hotels start to be faced with a shortage of resources as layoffs across the industry set in. But there is no problem without a solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5104"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5104"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5105,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5104\/revisions\/5105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalflight.net\/french\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}