Dear Continental Airlines, you have a broken funnel
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Dear Continental Airlines, you have a broken funnel
1–10 of 20 posts
Re: Dear Continental Airlines, you have a broken funnel
#2A similar approach is being piloted in the UK on certain train lines - on demand media streaming called Volo (http://www.volo.tv/). Its expensive, you have to pay for headphones and their content is mediocre. Train prices have consistently raised from year to year.
Re: Dear Continental Airlines, you have a broken funnel
#3Or sell tickets $3 cheaper than your competitors, advertise "Watch DirecTV on our flights (quiet voice: for a small fee)", differentiating on ticket prices versus in-flight amenities.
I may be mistaken, but I was under the impression that's what lead to airlines charging for drinks, meals, etc: it allowed them to lower ticket prices.
Re: Dear Continental Airlines, you have a broken funnel
#4TV? How quaint. Can I hook my iPad up to it?
Re: Dear Continental Airlines, you have a broken funnel
#5My understanding of TV-on-Continental is that it's mostly a venture of LiveTV (unit of JetBlue), the company that installs the equipment.
"We're providing most of the capital and we're retaining most of the revenue," Nate Quigley, chief executive of LiveTV, told Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/01/29/continental-tv-idU...
Re: Dear Continental Airlines, you have a broken funnel
#6As much as I'd like this to happen, I bet they would sell fewer tickets. A certain number of travelers sort ticket results based on price. If they added even just a few dollars to each leg to pay for perks, they would push themselves down on the results page and sell fewer tickets.
Re: Dear Continental Airlines, you have a broken funnel
#7A great example of why the funnel is often a completely incorrect, inadequate, and even misleading metaphor for measuring conversion.
Example: "I'm having trouble optimizing the last step of my funnel." Did the first four steps of your funnel consist of showing pictures of naked women while the last step prompted the user to refinance his house?
Unless the steps of your funnel are real, meaning they actually represent bounded, uni-directional escalations of qualification and purchase intent (think a 3-step shopping cart checkout), then thinking of the 'flow' that way is defeating.
What Chris is talking about here makes a lot of sense, and to my mind boils down to something like this: the airline's win comes through offering the greatest perceived value to the customer, so tread carefully as you unbundle low-cost, high-perceived-value features for a small (unguaranteed) marginal gain.
Setting false expectations is pretty egregious as well, and in addition to losing the good will that would have been generating by offering the DirecTV for "free," the airline generates ill will that could, of course hypothetically, result in angry blog posts being written and shared.
Here's the funnel for an airline: be amazing, underpromise and OVERdeliver, and book flights like a mofo.
Loyalty is no longer post-purchase.
The next time I fly across the Atlantic I will fly Virgin, the next time I make a restaurant reservation it will be Bondir, the next CSS I write will be in Sass, the next phone I buy will be a Samsung, the next vehicle I buy will be a Toyota, the next time I go to NYC I will take a Bolt bus.
I am 100% sure about these purchase decisions, and I have never flown Virgin, never eaten at Bondir, written in Sass, used a Samsung phone, bought a Toyota or taken a Bolt bus.
How do I know these are the right purchase decisions? Because I trust my friends' experience, and a delighted customer turns into a priceless evangelist faster than we often realize.
Re: Dear Continental Airlines, you have a broken funnel
#8The problem wasn't the $6 for Direct TV.
The problem was that it was presented in such a way that it seemed like a hustle. People would rather do without than think they've been taken advantage of.
Just announce the price before passing out the headphones. That's all. Conversion will increase without spending another nickel.
Re: Dear Continental Airlines, you have a broken funnel
#9The problem wasn't the $6 for Direct TV. The problem was that it was presented in such a way that it seemed like a hustle. People would rather do without than think they've been taken advantage of. Just announce the price before passing out the headphones. That's all. Conversion will increase without spending another nickel.
Continental could have already tested this, of course.
Most people will take free headphones, including those who initially have no intention of paying for TV. Most people will be too embarrassed to ask for headphones when bored during mid flight, especially if they've already refused them and told the air hostess they have absolutely no intention of paying such an outrageous fee.
Not telling people the price until they've decided they want something is just savvy marketing.
It's a hustle when you have to pay more than $6 to print your boarding pass for the flight you've already paid for http://www.ryanair.com/en/questions/how-much-does-it-cost-to...
Re: Dear Continental Airlines, you have a broken funnel
#10The problem wasn't the $6 for Direct TV. The problem was that it was presented in such a way that it seemed like a hustle. People would rather do without than think they've been taken advantage of. Just announce the price before passing out the headphones. That's all. Conversion will increase without spending another nickel.
I think you touched on both issues. The $6 after the fact (the fact being I already purchased my ticket) seems like such a petty way to make money. I've been on Continental on longer flights (Houston to Quito) and I've thought to myself "If they raised my ticket by $6, I would be fine, but asking for the money afterwards is so annoying." There's this mental block that I have, and I'm sure others, too, that after I've paid for my flight, that's it, no more charges or fees, I'm done.
As others have mentioned though, when it comes to searching for flights, we as consumers have brought this upon ourselves because more often than not, we don't distinguish based on features, we select based on price, so we have given airlines every incentive to pull these kinds of tricks. Once enough of "us" start buying the 4th, 5th or 6th most expensive fare because we like that airline's pillows/movies/flight attendants, then maybe things will change.