The questionnaire needs to be organized in a manner that establishes the customer’s trust before progressing to behavioral inquiries. To start, respondents should be asked demographic questions about their age, profession, purpose of travel, and have their gender confirmed. Next, geographical questions should be posed, focusing on the destination or departure location.
It is important to inquire about the other airlines customers considered before purchasing British Airways tickets and the factors that influenced their decision. The researcher can provide predetermined multiple-choice questions or allow customers to provide their own answers. The survey can be organized into two sections: the present situation and the past situation. The present situation can be further categorized into passenger information and flight information.
The initial section focuses on gathering data on the present situation, including airports (departure/destination), travel duration, cabin class, travel purpose, and customer characteristics like age, gender, nationality, and aspirations. The objective of this section is to acquire a comprehensive set of demographic information and discover distinct traits of the airline’s customers, such as their personality and its influence on their airline preferences (Leick, 2007).
The second part of the research will endeavor to examine the factors influencing customer behavior, such as why they selected British Airways and how they rate the airline in comparison to its competitors. This segment is aimed at investigating customer perception of British Airways and enabling a comparison with other competitors (Leick, 2007). The survey will present the questions in different formats.
- Multiple-choice questions: such questions consist of three or more categories and can ask for single or multiple questions.
- Rank order scaling: questions that are answered by ranking several products or services based on particular attributes.
- Rating scale (Likert scale): a product or service is rated along a well-defined sequence in which the elements are not perceptibly different although the extremes are quite distinct.
- Semantic differential: the customer is asked to rank a product or service based on a point rating scale that has two bipolar adjectives at either end.
- Open-ended questions: where customers are allowed to answer the question in any way by filling up the blank space.
The survey will include detailed instructions for correctly answering each question, including the required action and an alternative option if none of the answers are applicable. The table below outlines the different types of questions that will be used in the survey. Each question aims to collect specific data as indicated in the table (Gilbert, 1996).
The research will be carried out by using a questionnaire, which can be given through either one-on-one interviews or email distribution. For the interviews, they will be conducted in the check-in area of different airports. It is important to target passengers randomly, considering factors such as gender, presence of a traveling companion, cabin class, ethnicity, etc. Both domestic and international travelers should be included in the study.
The research duration is up to the company, but it should be longer than a day. Emails can be sent to both frequent-flyer-programme members and members of companies participating in the airline’s loyalty scheme. Analysis of Data After gathering the data, it must be analyzed to identify which passenger groups are represented by the questionnaire information. This can be accomplished through chi-squared analysis. The chi-squared technique will be employed to conduct a “test of independence”.
This test aims to determine if different observations on variables are independent of each other. For instance, chi-squared analysis can be used to examine if customers’ selection of cabin class is influenced by their purpose of travel or age. This analysis can provide insight into the thinking and behavior of various customer groups by linking demographic data with decision-making rankings. Many hypotheses will be formulated regarding the relationship between different variables, and the probability will be calculated accordingly.
A chi-squared probability of 0.05 or less is typically sufficient to reject a hypothesis regarding the significance of the relationship between two variables (Lind, Marchal, & Wathen, 2007). In such cases, new hypotheses will be proposed and reexamined. After completing the chi-squared analysis, results will be presented using graphs and tables, along with comments and remarks. The semantic differential method can be used for further analysis of specific questions.
The method used to measure customer reactions involves using bipolar scales with antonyms. The results of this measurement are then presented in a graph, with each line representing different characteristics of various variables. This graph allows for a more convenient assessment of the airline’s performance across multiple sectors (Lind, Marchal, & Wathen, 2007). By dividing and analyzing the data, the company gains a better understanding of how specific customer groups think, act, and make decisions when buying flight tickets. This segmentation helps in effectively targeting these groups (Gutman, 1982).
Bibliography
- Gilbert, D. (1996). Relationship Marketing and Airline Loyalty Schemes. Tourism Management , 17, 574-582.
- Gutman, J. (1982). A Means-End Chain Model Based on Consumer Categorization Processes. Journal of Marketing (46).
- Leick, R. (2007). Buikding Airline Passenger Loyalty Through an Understading of Customer Value: A Relationship Segmentation of Airline Passengers. Cranfield, UK: Cranfield University. Lind, D.
- Marchal, W. G. , & Wathen, S. A. (2007). Statistical Techniques in Business and Economics (13th ed. ). McGraw-Hill Education.
