Commentary

Airlines: Fix Your Sites; They're Your Brand

by Paul Knegten , October 11, 2010

True story: I love United Airlines, and book exclusively with them (well, Continental now but since they've officially merged, that point is moot). Yet, inexplicably, I never perform a search for a flight through United.com. I'm a frequent enough flyer to call and book, so do I do that? No. I go to Kayak.com and find the flight I want, then click through to the specific flight on United.com.

Seems strange, right? Well, I find the user experience of United.com (and most airline websites) so egregious that I can't stomach using them to browse flights anymore. My favorite is when the site says I'm logged in, but when I click to see my point balance or current reservations, it tells me to contact customer service (when in reality, my session has just expired and it should just tell me to log in again). I can't imagine its customer service department is thrilled about fielding these calls.

This is a problem for United for many reasons: First, this costs them money. Every time someone can't find what they need and go to a better site like Kayak to find their flight, they have to pay. But, more importantly, they're losing the customer experience and moving closer to a fate that the cellular carriers are being more and more relegated to: just a commoditized service provider.

Here's what I mean: it's been speculated that Verizon loads tons of software on the phones it sells in order to build their brand into the technology they're selling. If they didn't, they'd really just be infrastructure for facilitating phone calls, which is a far less sexy business. This, by the way, may be why it's been so difficult for the iPhone to make its way to Verizon.

The same is true with airlines. As aggregators are able to sort your flight options by time of day, price, and any other key feature that's important to you, loyalty to a specific airline can become far less significant. For most people, the experience across airlines once in flight is strikingly similar, so it's up to marketing to help each one differentiate, and here's where the website booking experience is a great opportunity. Make it work, make it easy, and perhaps even put something in it for me that I can't get elsewhere: a special deal, an upgrade, or some point bump for going through your website.

Of course, there are exceptions -- there's a reason Southwest Airlines doesn't offer their flights through third-party search engines. They want to "own" the customer experience at every stage, and it should come as no surprise that they're the only airline that has been consistently profitable in an industry that has accrued a net loss since its inception. I think other airlines have an opportunity to follow suit, and treat the booking experience as an inexpensive but very powerful way to position themselves as the airline of choice.

airlines, travel, web sites

2 comments about "Airlines: Fix Your Sites; They're Your Brand ".

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Patricia Friedlander from Word-Up!, October 11, 2010 at 11:17 a.m.
As someone who has also sold her soul to United, I agree on the UA site. Serendipitous changes to the site from one week to the next don't help. I have learned that when I get one of those 'call customer service' notices that I can get my point balance through a back door in the site. But who needs that aggravation? the same goes for the ability to print out either a receipt or an itinerary. Used to be a simple task on the site--no more! And no, I don't want the options--stop it already. You're absolutely right, Paul. I tend to think very bad thoughts about the brand after one of those experiences.
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Bianca Haase, October 12, 2010 at 2:34 a.m.

The problematic effect of confusing user interfaces on airline websites is an important issue in a decade of airline bankruptcies, mergers, and acquisitions. If you, clearly a technology-savvy consumer, find United.com too troublesome for use, then it is easy to assume a vast percentage of travelers are experiencing similar reluctance. In fact, your complaints parallel those user interface designer Dustin Curtis held last year, when after visiting the American Airlines website, he spent two hours completely reconfiguring their homepage and emailing it to their corporate headquarters. His argument held that "customer experience is the new brand," and that from beginning to end, the ease of a traveler's experience is what ensures brand loyalty. Websites like Travelocity, Expedia, and Kayak, as you mentioned above, provide straightforward flight booking services for consumers, and I do not believe airlines solely suffer from third party fees. Instead, the sheer visibility of price comparisons is damaging. Though some consumers maintain brand loyalty despite other competitive pricing, the current economic climate inclines ticket purchasers to abandon their brands for cheaper fares. Poorly structured websites are capable of ruining airline loyalty.

Another component of this issue, which I discuss in my own blog entry, is how airlines, rather than streamlining their websites, are actually attempting to reinvigorate their brands and regain loyal customers. Rather than utilizing advancing technology, multiple airlines have taken to traditional marketing tactics. Recently, companies from Delta Air Lines and Korea Air to Southwest Airlines and Virgin Atlantic have released original commercials that reflect the brand culture they are trying to create. While Virgin's seductive James Bond homage invites consumers to travel glamorously, Southwest operates in an atmosphere of inexpensive fun. However, although creative advertising may attract consumers to specific airlines, corporate efforts become superfluous when it is impossible to navigate the airline's website. Would you agree that effort and funds must be evenly dispersed between traditional marketing techniques and utilizing advancing technologies? No matter how enticing the brand's culture may seem, the last thing potential travelers will put up with is a confusing scheduling process. Your insightful post about the need for the reconfiguration of airlines' websites is spot on, and I thoroughly appreciated your entry.