Recently low cost carriers (LCC) that are known as budget airlines have rapidly grown in the airline market (Quest 2016). Passengers have more choices for their travel and oversea or domestic travels by plane become familiar to people because of budget airlines.
With increased number of passengers of budget airlines, new terminals have started operating for budget airlines in Japan, Narita airport and Singapore airport (Baker 2015, pp. 20-21). Also, in Melbourne new terminal 4 is opened in 2015 for budget airlines, Jetstar Airways and Tiger Air (Panahi 2016).
Photo: Jetstar Airway
Jetstar is one of the popular budget airlines in Australia. They provide what customers want at a low cost. Jetstar is selected as best low cost airline several times (Jetstar Airways 2015). How do they make this possible? Jetstar listens to the voice of their customer through marketing research.
What marketing research
Company should know about their targeted customers to go a long way, so marketing research is necessary. Marketing research is the method used to collect the data needed a company to make marketing decisions (Iacobucci 2014, P.199). Jetstar gathers information about new service acceptance and customer service experience from the online survey. Based on the marketing research, Jetstar offers new services and improve their services.
New service acceptance
Before Jetstar makes a decision about new routes in New Zealand, they conducted several surveys. Jetstar requested the research following its statement that they were planning to begin regional services to four destinations. The candidate sites were Hamilton, Rotorua, Tauranga, Napier, New Plymouth, Palmerston North, Nelson and Invercargill (Jetstar Airway 2015).
The research was the Quantitative research and Jetstar conducted survey. Their target was 900 New Zeeland citizens whose segment is between urban and regional areas. Also, all participants had taken local domestic flight at least once in prior years.
Results of survey are; approximately 95% of respondents had responded positively about Jetstar’s planned new routes, two out of three tourists think current domestic flights do not provide value for the price and 68% of participants have an experience to go to another city and catch a domestic flight since it is cheaper (Jetstar Airway 2015).
Based on the survey, Jetstar decided to add new routes; Napier, New Plymouth, Palmerston North and Nelson in 2016 (Gray 2015). From this example, we can see how Jetstar’s corporate strategic decision is influenced by taking various aspects of customer’s demands into account.
Customer service experience
Many companies are willing to get feedback from their customers to improve their products or services (Iacobucci 2014, p. 207). Jetstar also asks their customers to provide feedback. Customers can easily access online feedback page and complete the survey.
Photo: Jetstar Airway
In addition, customers also tell Jetstar on social networking services such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Instagram and Flickr how they value Jetstar’s service and how they think Jetstar can perform better (Jestar Airways 2014).
In fact, Jetstar improved their services based on customer feedback. For example, they reformed a policy of having musical instruments as carry-on baggage after reviewing the customer feedback on Facebook and Twitter (Jetstar Airways 2014).
In conclusion, Jetstar takes advantage of marketing research and keep improving their services.
By SHOKO KOBAYASHI (211723445, skobaya)
References
Baker, C 2015, ‘Dedicated budget’, Asian Aviation Magazine, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 20-23, retrieved 15 April 2016, Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost.
Gray, J ‘Jetstar’s new routes: Nelson, Napier, New Plymouth and Palmerston North make the cut’, Nzherald, 31 August, retrieved 16 April 2016, < http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11505499 >.
Iacobucci, D 2014, Marketing Management (MM4), South-Western, Cengage Learning, Mason.
Jetstar Airway 2014, ‘Jetstar voted best low cost airline Australia-Pacific in Skytrax Awards’, retrieved 16 April 2016, < http://newsroom.jetstar.com/jetstar-voted-best-low-cost-airline-australia-pacific-in-skytrax-awards-blog >.
Jetstar Airway 2015, ‘Facts and stats’, retrieved 15 April 2016, <http://newsroom.jetstar.com/facts-and-stats >.
Jetstar Airway 2015, Survey finds overwhelming support for new Jetstar regional flights, Jetstar, retrieved 14 April 2016, <http://img.scoop.co.nz/media/pdfs/1508/Media_Release__Survey_finds_overwhelming_support_for_new_Jetstar_regional_flights.pdf >.
Panahi, R 2016, ‘Melbourne Airport’s Terminal 4 ensures budget travellers know their place’, Herald Sun, 6 January, retrieved 15 April 2016, <http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/opinion/rita-panahi/melbourne-airports-terminal-4-ensures-budget-travellers-know-their-place/news-story/f772a07a466ff851115269e4ebc6e357 >.
Quest, R 2016, ‘Around the world by budget airline: 10 flights, £1,653 – here’s how to do it’, The Telegraph, 8 April, retrieved 15 April 2016, <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/advice/around-the-world-by-low-cost-airline >.
T1 2016 MPK732 Marketing Management (Cluster B) 