0:00 - on key focus areas 12-18 months ahead • 2:26 - on changing CX and balance between "bricks & mortar" and digital sides • 4:26 - on the importance of CX during disruptions • 6:03 - on being part of the Miles & More program and building a loyalty-based program • 8:14 - on partnerships and data sharing • 10:02 - on simplification of the proposition and loyalty by flight • 10:56 - on the 'Swiss-census' approach • 12:15 - one advice • 10:56 - on 'Swiss-census' approach • 12:15 - one advice
GLO
0:00 – on key focus areas 12-18 months ahead
2:26 – on changing CX and balance between “brick & mortar” and digital
4:26 – on importance of CX during disruptions
6:03 – on being part of Miles & More program and building loyalty-based program
8:14 – on partnerships and data sharing
10:02 – on simplification of the proposition and loyalty by flight
10:56 – on ‘Swiss-census’ approach
12:15 – one advice
Listed as a Podcast (Audio) here
Read the interview:
0:00
GLO: Dear Tamur, thank you so much for joining us at Global Loyalty Organization. We are delighted to have you at the World Aviation Festival. The industry had an amazing rebound after COVID-19 but undoubtedly it was a challenging 18 months. For you as a Chief Commercial Officer of Swiss Air what were the key focus areas in the last 12 months and how they will differ from what you will be focusing on in the next 18 months?
Tamur Goudarzi Pour, Swiss International Airlines: First, thank you for having me. Indeed, it has been challenging not only for the last 18 months but the last 3 years for all the airlines and of course also for Swiss. Thankfully we have turned the ship around and Swiss – now is a profitable company and that’s a great success in itself. We’re also happy that we have brought back many new colleagues and some of the old colleagues. So, with the right team, I think we’re very confident.
What has been observed in the last 12 months or so of course is the structural excess demand of the passengers coming back, which is a very good sign. Flying is still attractive and desired. that’s something that people have recognized as a fundamental human need and that’s something we cherish. At the same time, we have seen a lot of constraints in the ramp-up but also structural supply side constraints – be it on the aircraft side, be it on the engine side, be it on the air traffic control side, or also on the manpower side. It’s been quite challenging, but we have been doing quite well. Looking forward now I think we are quite positive that we continue the successful economic track. We still will see for the next years the supply side constraints. We just have the example of the engines from Pratt & Whitney affecting almost the whole industry and we see other constraints still being prevalent over the next years. I’m still positive about it because I think the airline industry has the means and the tools to face these challenges despite higher oil prices and all other challenges. I think we will be doing quite well in 2024.
2:26
GLO: Customers are pursuing “revenge travel” as we heard on the panels at WAF even business travel is coming back. Clearly, a customer is at the center of the focus of a lot of airlines. Partially because the demands and expectations of the customer slightly changed after COVID-19. What do you see at Swiss Air? Do you see customer expectations shifting? What kind of innovations or features you’re bringing into your customer journey proposition to answer these demands?
Tamur Goudarzi Pour, Swiss International Airlines: Yes, the customer is and should be of course at the center of everything we do. We have to say also that we disappointed thousands of customers last year, but we also brought millions of customers safely and sound to their destinations. This summer was better than last summer. Still, there were a lot of areas where we disappointed customers – we had quite a few baggage issues in some of the airports and with manpower in some of the hubs. On the other hand, we are also doing a lot to inform and interact with the customer better now – we bring new digital products for self-servicing, rebooking, and refund – all that can be done now either in the chatbot or even in the booking flow. So this makes the life of the customer also easier. We see already a lot of change. We have learned it the hard way and I’m confident that with the new products coming that we are now developing there will be even more features that will help the customer to navigate from A to B. I think that’s the absolute basic necessity, the ‘brick & mortar’, we have to transport the customer from the place he starts to the place he wants to go in time, punctually, even more punctually than we currently are, but also with high schedule stability. That’s absolutely the number one key focus for us as Swiss and the whole industry
4:26
GLO: At Global Loyalty Organization, the focus of all our members such as Star Alliance Emirates or Air France – KLM, is on delivering the best full journey experience to the customer. A lot of airlines started to implement big data, AI, and as you mentioned chatbots to personalize the experience as much as they can to deliver a unique preferred-client approach. How do you see these new technologies, big data, in your business? Do you think it’s more of a challenge at the moment for airlines or do you think that it will be implemented quite fast in the coming year, year and a half?
Tamur Goudarzi Pour, Swiss International Airlines: As I said the absolute key priority now is for us to fly the customer from A to B and I think this is something we have to secure first. We’re using all those technologies for the main ‘brick and mortar’ business, especially in disruption cases – when you can inform the customer, how can you handle a refund with him, how can you get an automated hotel or voucher tool. But we must go beyond that – beyond the pure flying from A to B. It should become a real true customer experience. Then we’re talking about modern airline retailing, and this is everything from inspiration to post-flight engagement. There are many topics in development here, where we see how we can excel and how we can create true magic moments in travel and make the journey an unforgettable experience for the customer.
6:03
GLO: Swiss is a member of Miles & More and you are a member of a big family including Lufthansa and others. How do you see the loyalty program and the loyalty may be in the wider sense, supporting or delivering on the customer expectations and customer experience? Is this a critical element or do you think that it’s more of the cost center?
Tamur Goudarzi Pour, Swiss International Airlines: Of course, it’s a very important element. It differs by region and customer focus group. Loyalty is even more important, I would say, now in the USA than it is in Europe. But it is also a very high value in Europe. A lot depends on the way loyalty is actually created. In the USA you have also different values of credit cards attached to loyalty – it’s not just the loyalty program itself, hence there’s a different business proposal. I think we can learn a lot from the transatlantic experience but there are also elements of loyalty that we develop ourselves further. I think one example is the new loyalty program revamp that we’re doing for 2024. Here we differ as clearly – we do not build this as a revenue-based loyalty program for accrual of your status but we build it as a loyalty-based accrual program, more based on flight frequency. That’s a significant difference because we believe that the contact frequency with the customer has value in itself and loyalty also develops in the way you interact.
Loyalty has other forms that are important – it’s the brand positioning, it’s the question of how the customer interacts, particularly the young generation on platforms. It’s a question of how you nudge customers with certain incentives. So loyalty can be created in many ways. The traditional loyalty programs will further develop and we have to add new features to them – we have to add features of sustainability, and green elements, which give recognition as well to customers who are sustainable. We have new features where we ensure the customer for certain mishaps, such as anxiety management when something goes wrong, redemption flights, etc. Things like that are coming definitely in the future as additional elements of the traditional loyalty programs.
8:14
GLO: One of the fundamental changes we saw at Global Loyalty Organisation post-COVID-19 was a tidal change in the airlines’ openness to the new partnerships – partially it was driven by the customers demanding more flexibility of spending points, e.g. ‘earn and burn’. How do you perceive this as the chief commercial officer of one of the key European airlines? Do you think partnerships and wider partnerships are critical for success or do you still believe in the power of a single brand? Where is the balance?
Tamur Goudarzi Pour, Swiss International Airlines: No, definitely partnerships will play an increasingly important role and we have many partners, particularly in the loyalty sphere – there are hundreds of partners that we actually have. The question is how do we extend this now to modern airline retailing, which also means to the wider space from inspiration to post-flight engagement? There’s much more possible particularly when you can create additional value.
First, you have to identify what is the value that is meaningful to the respective customer and then you can deliver a product on that and maybe you join forces with a partner to enhance that value for the customer. This can be done sometimes with not so much additional investment if you just already pull data or certain loyalty program elements. But you can go even further and design new products together. So I think there’s a lot of opportunity, particularly with partners who not necessarily coming from the airline world but from other travel or retail space. A lot of partners are showing interest. The good thing is that airlines are becoming more open towards partners, so I think we are opening up as an industry. There’s a lot of technological challenges still but it’s the right way to go.
10:02
GLO: Swiss, as you mentioned, had a very good revamp of its loyalty and relaunch of its loyalty program earlier this year and it looks like you’re looking to enhance it even further next year. What was the most challenging feature or part of this journey of upgrading your loyalty program?
Tamur Goudarzi Pour, Swiss International Airlines: It’s the Lufthansa group loyalty program, not just Swiss, but we also wanted to make it easier to understand. Simplification means you have certain trade-offs and you have to always see what benefits can you give to which customer in which part of the journey. We want to make it simple but we want to make it loyalty-driven. We want to have an interaction with the customer, an engagement and we want to create loyalty by flying so flying will be still an essential element of the loyalty program. We will see next year when it is launched how it is perceived, but we think it is the right step forward.
10:56
GLO: This year at the World Aviation Festival a lot of topics or main themes like NDC and the new initiatives from some of the airlines, there was a lot of talk about AI chatbots and other technologies. If you had a magic wand and had zero funding constraints which is of course an ideal world, what feature would you implement immediately?
Tamur Goudarzi Pour, Swiss International Airlines: it’s not only a feature like a seat, it’s something we’re actually doing now and this goes beyond the classical flying from A to B. We call it ‘Swiss Senses’ – it’s actually a holistic customer experience. We bring in new seats of course, but we will also bring a holistic experience with it – that means what you eat, what you hear, what you feel, what you sense. It’s a holistic experience, which applies and appeals to all the senses of the passenger. I think with that we will really differentiate. That’s a very new thing and it’s going to be, I think, very interesting to see when it starts in 2025. We’re getting new seats on intercontinental flights and we will then bring the whole Swiss Senses program to life and you’re invited to test it.
12:15
GLO: As part of GLO tradition for our members who are loyalty professionals, we ask if you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, just starting in the commercial aviation industry, what that would be?
Tamur Goudarzi Pour, Swiss International Airlines: As you know we have a lot of challenges from legacy technology so the big elephant in the room for us is the backbone of the offers and orders program. Despite all the shiny apps we have still 60s technologies. So if I would give a piece of advice it would be don’t just think of metal, not of end customer perception but also think about how can we reform the old backbone
towards modern airline retailing a modern. Get earlier into this, be more inquisitive, be more disruptive, and start to challenge the legacy earlier and more forcefully than we have been so far. I think we are on the right track but it has taken a longer time to realize this is a precondition for all the great customer experiences. We have to also reform the offers and order system of the airline industry.
GLO: Dear Tamur, thank you so much for your insights. It’s really exciting to hear that actually there are a lot of underlying initiatives happening now and we hope to catch you next year at the World Aviation Festival. It’s been a real pleasure. Thank you.
Source: GLO
