Virgin Atlantic: Uniting qual and quant to let Virgin

Atlantic's research take wing

Source: MRS Awards, Winner, December 2014
Downloaded from WARC

This article explains how Virgin Atlantic, the airline, uses a customer engagement programme to
understand how people experience its service and make improvements.

The airline industry is extremely competitive with high fixed costs and low profit margins, and
Virgin needed to stay ahead by providing a superior service.
The customer satisfaction survey methodology was rethought to produce bigger, more
representative samples both on the day of flight and in follow up emails.
Extra layers of understanding were generated by two qualitative approaches - mobile apps that
allowed participants to upload photos, videos and comments, and ethnographic work.
Virgin continues to make business decisions as a result of this research, including changing
airport signage and queue management, and aiding strategic decisions.

ABA Market Research and Virgin Atlantic

Summary
Virgin Atlantic's (VAA's) most recent advertising campaign, 'Flying in the Face of Ordinary', showcases the
unique experience customers can expect to receive when travelling with the airline. In an industry characterised
by low profit margins and high fixed costs, VAA knows that customer retention is paramount and prides itself on
putting customers at the heart of everything it does.

Since 2010 ABA has partnered VAA to ensure the airline delivers the optimum service experience for its
customers. From the outset, ABA breathed new life into a programme that had become stagnant and lost traction
within the business - introducing innovative techniques to enrich findings and uncover hidden insight.

The application of sound techniques, and the findings these revealed, have re-established the programme's
credibility within VAA and led to hundreds of critical business decisions being made off the back of it. From
aiding strategic boardroom decisions, through to airport signage and queue management, the mixed-mode
programme has proved its worth and become a 'go-to' resource for many of VAA's business units.

Synopsis
Helping Virgin Atlantic make headway in the tough world of long-haul flights

The airline industry is notoriously competitive. To stay ahead, propositions must continually evolve, yet
constraints are immense. Planes cost millions, safety regulations slow implementation, teams are scattered
around the globe, delivery happens at 30,000 feet/in confined spaces and, to cap it all, many rivals have
government backing.

Nevertheless, Virgin is a world-class airline – with a differentiated brand image and award-winning service,
which sees crew offer the 'dash of red' that makes passengers fly again.

This paper explores how ABA, in partnership with VAA, reinvigorated its Customer Satisfaction programme. The
year we were appointed, 2010, was particularly challenging for Virgin. Fuel-cost inflation meant ticket prices
were rocketing, its fleet was aging and competition was intensifying - airlines like Etihad and Emirates boasting
newer planes.

ABA has transformed the programme from something distrusted and ignored into a 'must-hear' event that sees
extra chairs being carried into VAA's boardroom.

This has been a collaborative process with Virgin's Insight team. They've proven themselves technically
inquisitive in a way few clients are, immensely supportive and always keen to keep us updated on the business
issues our reports need to reflect. The last 4 years has been a shared journey – we've set out to drive change
and, as you'll see, have done just that. The truth is that, at times, it's been hard but, as the cliché goes, no pain,
no gain!

An early example of the foresight of the Virgin team was their asking us to integrate survey data with operational
information such as aircraft type and load factor. We can now account for these factors when analysing results –
crucial in judging whether changes are real or merely due to flights being 'full-to-bursting' vs. '4-seats-to-
yourself'!

Rethinking methodology was the first step to success

In 2010, our first job was to rethink methodology – Virgin had been using a paper-based in-flight survey. Our
initial reaction was 'surely not!' but we soon realised safety regulations meant technology-enabled data
collection was several years away.

We therefore focused on perfecting the paper-based approach and made 4 key changes.

Firstly, by analysing sample/invitation patterns, we increased sample sizes 30% at no additional cost. The
knock-on effect of this simple change was huge – it increased, by 70%, the number of airports/routes where
robust data was achieved.

Secondly, we scrutinised where technology could improve accuracy/speed of turnaround – the

masterstroke was finding a state-of-the art scanning partner who allowed us to cut the lead-time for results from
4 to 2 weeks - still not real-time but a big advance!
Thirdly, we implemented detailed invitation instructions for crew - moving from 'invite at random' to
selection by seat number. This led to less cherry-picking of 'happy flyers', more representative results and,
ultimately, greater confidence to act on findings.

Finally, we added a post-flight email invitation survey, allowing coverage of the arrivals experience
(previously a missing link) and access to verbatim comments, which had been too costly to accommodate on the
in-flight survey.

You might wonder why we didn't turn to a post-flight approach for all touch-points. The answer is simple. Virgin
only hold a third of passenger email details and, often undertaken 2 weeks after the outbound flight, results are
less reflective of the 'on-the-day' experience and more influenced by wider brand perceptions. Unhelpful if you
want actions to be accurately guided by findings!

Adding qualitative created a transformational moment

3 years into the programme we worked together with Virgin to introduce a qualitative component, which we
called 'PlaneTalk'. This provides answers to the 'why do the numbers say that?' and 'what would they like to
see?' questions a numbers-only approach cannot unpick. This has given the programme an additional lease of
life – in particular galvanising change in teams 'left cold' by the survey-only approach.

Qualitative insight is derived from a mix of methods – each selected in response to issues emerging from the
survey data.

Stakeholders love the months we run online communities, which enable them to hear first-hand from
passengers. We use a mobile/tablet-enabled app where respondents can upload photos/videos during flights.
It's been a revelation to see passengers recording thoughts on secret visits to the loo – these providing
invaluable moments during debriefs.

Other approaches have included ethnography interviews (to understand the lives of first-class travellers and
how this shapes food expectations) and accompanied flights, which have shed light on why, counter to
engineering data, reports of faulty screens were increasing, plus why, after the introduction of a new menu, food
scores had decreased.

Online community allows passengers to upload photos and videos in-situ:

Transforming reporting from appendix-style slides to punchy, tailored decks

In true ABA style we put much emphasis on finding relevant, important stories for stakeholders – insights usually
being based on the triangulation of various data sources. We also pride ourselves on delivering these in a
concise, memorable manner – having learnt that less is very definitely more!

We have won frequent praise for our ability to tease out insights, challenge accepted wisdom at Virgin and make
people want to act on the findings.

From the outset we have developed 7 tailored packs per quarter; each focussing on a single business unit e.g.
crew or cabin. The addition of qualitative gives us the flexibility to dial up/down evidence types depending on the
stakeholder. For example, it's little surprise that Engineering like to act on hard facts about 'system failures' and
'dirty toilets' while, in contrast, crew get energy from experiential evidence such as video, photographs and
verbatim quotes. In short, if we want to drive change we have to converse in the language of the audience.

Working with VAA on their development of a key-driver model, using structured equation modelling, has helped
us prioritise our messages and avoid getting side-tracked by peripheral issues. This ultimately leads to business
actions that have impact – and the win:win that convinces stakeholders to come back for more insight!

In addition, by quantifying the link between satisfaction and sales growth we've been able to present findings
that potentially open up massive financial opportunities for VAA – something the board has responded
particularly well to.

Many, many actions!

Business action is what ABA is renowned for. This doesn't mean we make people 'busy fools' – instead we
believe in considered, thought-leader analysis that drives successful change. Having said this, even by ABA's
standards, we're gratified by the amount of change this programme has influenced – progress carefully
monitored at a quarterly Customer Board meeting where we make a summary presentation and stakeholders
give progress updates.

Here are 6 examples – bear in mind they're the tip of the iceberg!

In 2012, solid evidence of the negative impact of an aging fleet led to the decision to re-fit all of VAA's Boeing
747 Gatwick fleet. It was a multi-million-pound business decision that resulted in substantial increases in
passenger satisfaction on this route.

In 2013, we identified a decline in Clubhouse scores at Johannesburg airport - following a refresh of the Upper
Class lounge. Deep-dive qualitative work revealed significant issues around seating layout, which impacted on
privacy. Scores are now rising again since the layout was rearranged and the Business Centre, which the
research revealed passengers did not utilise, was converted to make way for additional seating.

Early in 2013, we identified deep-lying problems with Upper Class food, which eventually led to the re-tendering
for the UK in-flight catering supplier. The research led to a complete redesign of the menu style – seeing a
greater focus on presentation, provenance and nutrition. Scores are now sitting at a 5-year high. Where
appropriate, insights have been applied to Premium and Economy – and their scores are also responding well.

During 2012 we spotted the strong correlation between the number of interactions with crew members and
journey-satisfaction scores – in short, crew have the power to delight! This observation led us to consider how
passenger/crew touch-points could be added - inspiring the introduction of the 3-Course Menu in Economy.
Passengers now receive their meals in 3 stages; each providing crew with another opportunity to engage. And
voila! Crew scores are running at an all-time high – and given that the drive model shows these to be the
biggest driver of satisfaction, this has been a big win (at zero cost implications!).

From the beginning of 2012 we have modelled the likely impact on satisfaction (and therefore revenue) of all
passenger-facing investments. Virgin believes this focus is paying off. Last year VAA made a £7million pre-tax
profit between March and December, whilst load factor improved from 79 per cent to 81.6 per cent.

Paul Ward, Research Manager at VAA, believes the seamless integration of the quantitative and qualitative
programmes into one overarching project has been invaluable to the business: "It has enabled us to make
product and business decisions secure in the knowledge these are guided by robust, commercially-astute
findings. The outputs are reported at Board level and to operational managers, and all parties are much more
engaged than was previously the case."

© Copyright The Market Research Society 2014

15 Northburgh Street
London
EC1V 0JR
Tel: +44 (0)20 7490 4911

www.warc.com

All rights reserved including database rights. This electronic file is for the personal use of authorised users based at the subscribing
company's office location. It may not be reproduced, posted on intranets, extranets or the internet, e-mailed, archived or shared electronically
either within the purchaser's organisation or externally without express written permission from Warc.