CRM for Airline Industry

In the competitive travel industry, travel providers are undertaking initiatives centered on identifying, developing and retaining high-value profitable customers, under the overall banner of customer relationship management or CRM. The overall strategic business objective of CRM is to build loyal profitable customer relationships. Customer acquisition, development and retention are main points to consider. Now a days airlines have used CRM primarily as a competitive “catch-up” rather than a means of differentiation. Rushing to imitate the customer-oriented initiatives introduced by competitors many airlines have done little to determine the value to the customer of those initiatives, or to the business itself. Today, not only are frequent flyer programs a universal cost of doing business, but even recent innovations such as kiosk check-in, flight-notification systems, e-ticketing, virtual check-in and Web-based self-service have become commonplace. One of the primary goals of CRM is to differentiate a companys services to the customer through personalization, yet in the airline industry, CRM—at least in the form in which it is practiced today –has become a commodity, with many services indistinguishable from airline to airline.