Radhika Chadha

Indian Airlines has improved but still has a problem with its image; the Jet experience is not on par with its reputation. What lessons does this hold?

THE other day, I watched a friend gradually question her loyalties, and the process brought home to me the importance of customer advocacy in an experience-based brand.

I bumped into an old friend in Delhi and found we were both flying to Chennai on the same day. "Let's catch up on the flight," I said, and persuaded her - with considerable difficulty - to join me on Indian Airlines (IA). She had shifted to Jet several years ago, and stuck to it with the loyalty of a true convert. It was an eye-opening trip for both of us. For her, because she was revisiting her beliefs about IA after aeons. And for me, because it revealed how difficult it is for a service brand to regain customer loyalty once it is lost.

The face-off between IA and Jet is among India's most interesting competitive cases. It illustrates both how competition can change the dimensions of performance, and how players need to constantly re-invent themselves. Everyone remembers the pre-Jet days, when travelling by IA was a nightmare of non-choice. Unpunctual flights, indifferent hostesses, and sky-high prices - those are the memories of IA that are hard-wired into most Indian travellers. Fast forward to 2004 - and many travellers I meet these days are pleased at the upgrade of the IA flying experience.

My friend was one such surprised passenger. She flies 4-6 times a month, yet hadn't flown IA for five years. On this trip, everything about the IA experience came as a happy surprise. She found the IA frequent flier programme excellent. She gazed around the sparkling clean IA terminal with the wide-eyed interest of a tourist. Built on the larger side, she was able to relax in an economy seat much roomier than what she was used to on Jet. The service was excellent, the hostesses were pleasant, the food was on par. It was a delight to use the aerobridge, especially when using a strolley.

The revamped IA domestic lounge struck her as being on par with an international terminal. And she found out to her dismay that while economy class passengers on most Jet flights get only `flotation devices,' IA provides life jackets to all. (This last bit might strike some as morbid or irrelevant - after all, what are the odds of surviving a crash? But as she put it - if there is no chance of survival, then why have any device? And if you need a device, why have different ones for executive and economy classes - shades of the Titanic, she said!)

Anyway, coming back to my revelation: here's a situation where the incumbent was a monopoly, and displayed all the associated indifference. Years later, there is a dramatic turnaround. I fly both airlines depending on availability of timings, and at least on metro routes, I believe IA has got its act together on practically all service parameters. There's more - in one 10-day period, I had to take five Jet flights, and believe it or not, all were delayed.

Here we have a piquant situation: Jet is less comfortable than IA, punctuality is a question mark, and the pricing is being aggressively driven downwards by IA. But, turn around and ask anyone which is the better airline and you are almost sure to get Jet as the answer. It's like that zen koan: "If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is around to hear, does it make a sound?" If IA betters its service, and nobody perceives it as having improved, does it matter? Can you have a sustained marketing campaign predicated on the belief that perception is reality, or will the integrity of the reality penetrate consumer consciousness?

Sometime ago, Jet was ranked as a `super brand' in a brand survey. This puzzles me - a super-brand should be able to charge a premium. Yet, today, Jet flights are priced on par with IA. If customers rate the Jet experience that much better, why are they not willing to pay for it?

Here are two apparent paradoxes. First, an experience that ranks on par on most objective parameters is actually perceived to be far superior. Second, even though the experience is perceived as far superior, very few would be willing to pay extra for it!

I believe this has several lessons for service marketers, both in terms of "branding the experience" and in "experiencing the brand." There are significant insights to be gained from understanding how this situation developed, which in turn can be used to answer the all-important question "What of the future?"

How should IA translate its service turnaround into a perception turnaround? How long can Jet rely on the mismatch between perception and reality? That's what I will look at next time.

(The author is a Chennai-based management consultant. Karate-gy is the proprietary name of strategic exercises conducted by Paradigm Managemet Knowhow.)

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