航空公司定价战略失策

    为了顺利地对这些服务进行收费，航空公司将不得不检测客户真正的需求。普华永道美国交通物流咨询主管乔纳森•克莱佐尔称：“很多航空公司已经获得了必要的信息，不过，他们还没有开始在组织内部共享、使用这些信息。”他说：“航空公司都是在开展忠诚度项目之后才开始跟踪老客户的。”航空公司现在已经开始运用这些数据，不过具体使用情况差强人意。

    航空公司可以借助在线销售、办理登机手续以及登机口这几次机会向客户推销一些服务，比如更大的腿部空间。有些特定类型的乘客会愿意购买额外服务。克莱佐尔称：“但如果他们已经拒绝过一百次，就算再多推销两次，他们同样还是不会改变主意的。”如果只凭借广告轰炸，而不是对他们的个人偏好进行追踪，会让乘客觉得航空公司斤斤计较。

    航空公司还可以关注单个客户采用的旅行方式。克莱佐尔表示，人们在商务旅行和全家休闲旅行时的表现是不同的。如果他们是商务旅行，他们通常更可能选择更为舒适的机舱体验。

    根据普华永道的报告，很多客户实际上更喜欢捆绑式服务。报告称，65%的休闲旅行者更喜欢全套机票，而不是把各项服务分拆。克莱佐尔说，现在再把各项服务重新捆绑起来提供全套票价，背后的技术性难度之高令人却步。但谁能说得准呢？如果航空公司开始运用手中掌握的客户数据，考虑乘客的真正需求，我们在航空旅行时或许就不会像现在这么不满了。

    译者：李玫晓/汪皓

    To successfully charge for these services, airlines will have to monitor what their customers want. "A lot of these airlines already capture necessary information, they're just not sharing it and using it across the organization," says Jonathan Kletzel, U.S. transportation and logistics advisory leader at PwC. "It wasn't until loyalty programs that they started tracking repeat customers." Airlines are using that data, but not well.

    Airlines have several opportunities to sell services like added legroom to a customer -- online, at check-in, at the gate. Certain types of fliers want to pay for extra services. "But if they've declined a hundred times, they're probably not going to change their minds on the 102nd when you try to sell these things," says Kletzel. Spamming customers without tracking individual preferences can make customers feel nickel-and-dimed.

    Airlines could also pay attention to the type of trips individual customers take. People behave differently on business trips then they do with their families, Kletzel says. They are generally more likely to spring for a more comfortable coach experience when they're flying for work.

    Many customers actually prefer services to be bundled, according to a PwC report, which claims that 65% of leisure travelers prefer all-inclusive airfare over scattershot options. At this point, the technical challenges behind re-bundling ticket prices are pretty daunting, Kletzel says. But who knows. If airlines start to use some of the data they already have about what people actually want, we might be less ticked about getting where we need to go.