Everything else is an option – the Spirit barebone experience

Interview with Spirit Airline’s EVP & CMO Barry Biffle

Barry greets me with his broad Texan smile at Spirit Airline’s unpretentious Miramar headquarters in the backyard of Fort Lauderdale. “You are biased”, are his first words, but said in such a friendly, un-accusatory manner that I feel no need to defend myself.

Of course, I am biased! Of course, I am a huge fan of segmented and well-designed value propositions because I have seen how they help airlines and hotels to make money as they become translated into unique customer experiences. Of course, I wrote in my last blog entry something like that the most hated airlines can be the most profitable.

 “People consider us something close to Saints”, he counters. “They love us because

we allow them to fly back home for the first time in their life or to take the family on vacations to places they never dreamt of visiting.”

The price experience.

Barry is visibly fond of the turnaround Spirit has achieved since he and CEO Ben Baldanza took over the management of Florida’s low cost airline more than six years ago.

In the US Spirit is similarly outspoken and controversial when it comes to lobbying conditions that favor airlines with low fares as Ryanair is in the EU

“I got to know Ryanair’s business model when I spent several months in Ireland opening routes for my former airline in 2003. I was mesmerized”, the ex US Airways executive says. “That is exactly the experience passengers want: get from A to B safely, reliably and at the lowest possible cost. Everything else is optional. Our fares are sometimes seven times cheaper than those of our competitors. That’s what I call a mesmerizing experience!”

When I dare to remind him that many customers do not like Ryanair (I prefer not to mention Spirit), he makes a clear point: “Most people like cheap tickets and punctual flights. If somebody disagrees, no problem! Pay many times more and get what? A meal? Doesn’t exist any longer elsewhere either. Who cares, anyway?”

Running out of argumentative ammunition, I try a last assault to the walls of the sacred city of low cost airlines: “But you could only win by being nicer to your passengers, particularly when they have a complaint”, I stammer, feeling increasingly childish.

Barry takes a deep breath, shakes his water bottle (yes, I got one for free at the headquarters) and watching the bubbles slowly emerge he responds patiently: “When we screw it up, we are nice to our passengers and try find a good solution. But more than 90% of all complaints are just expressions of not understanding or not wanting to understand our policies. Our policies have been designed to keep operations simple and costs down. If you find out after buying your trip for travel on Tuesday that you could have saved a few buck on Saturday, that’s nothing we can do about. We are not going to let you change the ticket for free, even if you cry that you hit the wrong button on the computer and that you had always meant to buy that Saturday ticket. With a traditional airline, typically, the passenger who yells loudest gets what he wants, even if it breaks the rules. The agent forces the booking to get rid of him. We don’t do that. No way. It adds costs. It is unfair towards the other passengers, better behaved and who end up paying for his ticket. It demotivates employees who don’t know how to react. The only thing we are prepared to learn from these complaints is how to communicate better our policies so that nobody can ever claim that he or she did not understand them.”

Wow! That’s clear. That’s expectation management at its best! Of course, only an undifferentiated absolute cost-leader can afford to treat customers that way. But it’s great. Simple. Straightforward. Low cost transpiring even at the slightest details.

I am mesmerized. But Barry will not let me go without talking about my preferred baby: value creation.

 “Rainer, no problem, if you want a superior experience, buy one of our big front row seats! Not that cheapish European quick-fix of an empty middle seat. We have real first class seats, nicer than American’s and still have our Airbuses configured to the highest density,” he says, leaving, however, unanswered my question about which pitch between seats this leaves for the passengers in the rear.

Back to the hotel, I still felt impressed. Such a passion for absolute straightforward simplicity was a fresh breeze. For a moment I sincerely considered calling Barry and ask him for a job at Spirit.

But a moment later I shrugged off these bucolic temptations to return to a simple life and submerged myself in the beautiful universe of complex spreadsheets to calculate the ROI of different Customer Experience Management initiatives for customers who had no choice, but to develop highly desirable, really amazing value propositions. They have no choice because they need to generate those price premiums which only a cost leader can afford to ignore.

With these thoughts reverberating in my mind, I remembered Barry’s last comment while escorting me out of the building: “Other airlines spend millions to know what customers want. We don’t spend a cent because we already know that: cheap tickets, and safe, reliable flights.”

In reality, that’s the challenge for every service company: know so well what your customers want that you can provide them, without further complications and unnecessary costs, with a “mesmerizing” service or product.

Now it’s my turn to take a deep breath, stretch out my arms and feel satisfied over recovering my professional sense of purpose. Isn’t that exactly what we, the customer experience experts, are doing? Conceiving “awesome” value propositions…

The upcoming Practical Airline Customer Experience Management guide will include the full Spirit case study, and much more. To keep you informed, please click here to sign up for our free newsletter! (never more than 1-2 emails per month)