Monarch says customer service is its best weapon

Monarch Airlines will be focusing its marketing efforts on its staff and customer service in its new bookings campaign and believes it is leagues ahead of rivals like Ryanair in this department.

monarch-plane-2013-460
Airline dismisses Ryanair’s recent service changes and claims it can win any battle thanks to its heritage.

Monarch Airlines will be focusing its marketing efforts on its staff and customer service in its new bookings campaign and believes it is leagues ahead of rivals like Ryanair in this department.

Ryanair recently announced that it would improve its customer service and not “piss off” its fliers unnecessarily after the airline came under pressure from its shareholders.

However, executive chairman of the group Iain Rawlinson says: “What happened with Ryanair is more a comment about what consumers are really thinking. We already compete against Ryanair and think it’s different if you have been providing a product for 45 years.”

Director of customer and marketing for Monarch Tim Williamson, who sits on the company board, adds: “Having a service and a business is not something you can switch on and off. It’s about your culture and we can win because service is in the DNA of our business.

“However, we always recognise that Ryanair is a competitor and so we want to up the ante in talking about our service.”

Monarch plans a press, outdoor and online campaign launching on Boxing Day with the aim of building up more awareness of its product.

Its own staff will feature in “true” service stories where they have gone beyond normal expectations. The campaigns will be tailored for the regions around the six airports from which Monarch flies with staff “heroes” from the nearby locality

Williamson added: “Customer metrics are as important as financial metrics to the board” and explained that going forward there will be a monthly report to the board based on customer attitudes tracked by customer satisfaction questionnaires and NPS scores that will show “how customers believe us to be operating as a brand.”

Parent company Monarch Group, which includes tour operations and aircraft engineering, has reported a return to profit for the 12 months to 21 October after two years in the red, with all trading divisions profitable and attributes the recovery to its “transformation and renewal” agenda.

Monarch Airlines reported an 11.7 per cent increase in gross revenues to £763.2m for the year. However, the company said that it remained “cautious” about the market and that there was a definite lag between the uplift in the economy and consumer confidence.

Recommended

htc-ad-2013-304

2013: The year in mobile brands

Lara O'Reilly

Since the dawn of the handset, the “year of mobile” has long been predicted. Whether 2013 could aptly clinch that title will be for the historians to decide in decades to come, but the year was certainly a packed one for handset makers, operators and the newcomers harnessing mobile to make their fortune.

Asda

Asda plots own brand tablet launch

Sarah Vizard

Asda is considering following in the footsteps of supermarket rivals Tesco and Aldi by launching its own tablet to take advantage of the growing popularity of the electronics devices.