Highly critical YouGov report shows collapsing British Airways customer perceptions
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One thing that was missing from the ‘Investor Day’ presentation given to the City recently was the ‘net promoter score’ for British Airways. It is an accepted statistical method of showing how well regarded a company is by its customers and is also a number which IAG is known to focus on closely.
Luckily, polling firm YouGov published its own report last month on the collapsing public perception of British Airways. For some reason this slipped through the PR gap when it was published but I have now got hold of a copy.
You can read the full document here (PDF).
Take a look at this chart (click to enlarge):
This chart is a net score of whether consumers believe a brand offers value for money. It is important to note:
“By ‘value for money’ we do not mean cheap or expensive, but that the brand offers customers a lot in return for the price paid.”
“Looking at value for money, the decline started earliest among those who fly with British Airways. The drop among BA customers’ perception in this area started in autumn 2016, shortly after the introduction of inflight food and drink charges for short-haul flights. But the general public’s view began to change notably in May 2017, at the time of the brand’s much-publicised IT problems.”
Here is another chart showing changes in perceived ‘value’ and ‘quality’ over the last year. Again, click to enlarge:
Again, you can see that BA registers sharp falls on both counts. None of the airlines covered by the survey comes out smelling of roses, but then again we are only talking about a one year period.
However, the chart above is based on ALL flyers questioned. Look at what happens when you only include the data from people who have flown British Airways in the past year:
Oh.
The report is not all doom and gloom:
Despite the fall in perception among several key groups, it should be remembered that British Airways is still the highest rated airline in the UK according to many metrics, and, despite falls in views of the carrier’s quality and value for money, the vast majority (87%) who flew with BA in the last 12 months were satisfied with their experience.
You can download the full PDF document here if you want to take a closer look. Note that you need to provide your personal details first.
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