assignment 50

UNITED AIRLINES

The organization

United Airlines, founded in 1926, is a U.S. airline that is owned by United Continental Holdings, and the

airline's main base is currently headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. It is the world's largest airline in terms

of the number of destinations travelled worldwide. United Airlines offers flight connections to more than

1000 destinations in more than 170 different countries across the globe.

The IDIC Model of United Airlines

The IDIC Model is used to effectively manage individual customer relationships. The four tasks of

creating and managing customer relationships are to identify/differentiate/interact/customize. These

activities will help businesses cater/personalize their products/services according to customer's

preferences. This can help sustain a healthy and trustworthy two-way relationship between the buyer and

seller

It is important to identify who the target market is. According to Peppers & Rogers (2011), when a

business has identified their customers, they can gain a competitive advantage over their competitors, as

long as they have superior CRM strategies. The benefit of identifying customers is that a business would

be able to build much closer relationships with the target customers, making them trust the business more,

and eventually come back again. United Airlines have identified their target customers as the frequent

business travellers, with also some help from customer recognition programs.

The second aspect of the IDIC Model is to differentiate customers according to the value they bring to the

firm. This would allow businesses to efficiently allocate resources to the customers that would bring the

most profits in return. United Airlines must retain their most valuable loyal customers.

The third aspect of the IDIC Model is then to interact with the customers. Businesses should improve

their interactions with their different customers in order to provide a good customer experience. In order

for United Airlines to effectively deal with complaints, they allow their target customers to express their

dissatisfactions through mediums such as email, fax and telephone. (Yahoo Finance, 2009). This will

allow the airlines to alter their future course of action in order to provide better customer service.

Companies that effectively communicate with their customers regarding complaints could then develop a

reputation for being a highly competent service oriented firm.

Lastly, businesses should customize some aspects of their service according to the value a customer

brings. For example, according to The United Airlines website, frequent travellers would get more

personalized benefits such as priority check-in and baggage handling. This is to hopefully deter their loyal

customers from travelling with the rival airlines. This is an example of how businesses retain their "Most

Valuable Customers" (MVCs).

QUESTIONS

Q1. Identify the customers of United Airlines.

Q2 How an airliner can differentiate its customers according to the value they bring to the firm? Which

metrics can be used to identify the most valuable customers?

Q3 How the company interacts with the customers? Can you think of other ways that the company could

interact with its customers?

Q4 What kind of service customization is provided by the airliner? Can you further recommend other

types/examples of service customization for United Airlines?