Service Marketing Triangle

Overview
Richard Branson and the Virgin Atlantic team
aspire to deliver the very best in air travel
services, keeping safety, security and,
consistent performance.
They built on these foundations by focusing on
business and leisure markets, having adopted
their highly acclaimed three-year strategy.

To grow a profitable airline, where

people love to fly and where people love
to work

Three-Year Strategy
Overview (2006-07, 200708, 2008-09)
The three year plan aimed at boosting operating
margins and building continuing profitability.
The airline targeted and achieved an increase of
8.9% in the first year, 15.4% in the second year
and 1.4% in the third year in the number of
business travellers.
The strategy was adopted as an external
marketing device to land the company into a
profitable era. Their annual turnover went from
1912m in 2006 to 2337m best the end of FY
2008..

Promotion and Awareness

Virgin Atlantic are known for their bold slogans
lashing out at their competition. Some examples
are:
No way BA/AA expressing Bransons
displeasure at the British Airlines-American
Airlines partnership.
Still hot for 25 years commemorating their
Silver Jubilee.
Flying in the face of the ordinary their latest
one.

Promotion and Awareness

Apart from notable slogans, Virgin Atlantic
have established a very strong position
credited to their incredible promotion
strategies.
Their most outstanding strategies include
painting and naming their aircraft, aside from
their strong foothold in social networking
websites through advertisement campaigns,
innovative branding and eclectic style of
leadership.

Employee satisfaction
Having long since achieved the pinnacle of customer
satisfaction, Virgin Atlantic also focuses on making sure
the employees remain satisfied too.
Employment benefits include a pension scheme, income
protection, air share (profit share), childcare, life
assurance, ticket loans and, gym, staff store and salon
amenities.
They also cater to holiday needs of the employees by
offering a weeks holiday to a destination of their liking in
exchange for a pat of their salary.
Virgin Atlantics commitment to its staff is very crucial to
their business, ingrained so in the very fabric of their
success.

Teamwork
The staff at Virgin Atlantic undergoes
comprehensive training to ensure customer
satisfaction whilst maintaining the standard of the
corporation.
Top class service to every passenger is key to their
employee in order to keep the customers satisfied.
Richard Branson emphasizes the importance of the
employees in the company by stating that the
company wouldnt exist without energy,
determination, wit and wisdom of every team
member.

Premium Customer Service

Virgin Atlantic aircrafts are known for their
three-class cabin configuration: Economy,
Premium Economy and Upper Class.
The benefits keep increasing in each class,
starting with the lowest at Economy with all the
in-flight basic essentials up till the extravagant
Upper Class.

Loyalty Benefits and

Rewards
Virgin Atlantic have a three tier frequent flyer
membership reward system: Red, Silver and Gold.
With each successive tier, the customer acquires
all the privileges of the preceding tier along with
some extra benefits such as high priority check in
and seating, lounge pass, extra luggage
allowances, discounts etc.
The frequent flyer system promotes customers
from tier to tier based on their travel record, thus
encouraging passengers to fly with Virgin Atlantic
more often in order to reap the benefits of brand
loyalty.

External Marketing

Superior Design and Style

Upper Class Customers

Internal Marketing

Recruiting
A candidate planning to apply for a job at
Virgin Atlantic need to 1st send in a covering
letter and CV.
The covering letter needs to be well drafted
and to the point.
Once the candidate is selected for the
recruitment process, he goes through the
assessment process.

 The assessment process has stages like group

discussions, role play, aptitude test and
presentations.
The candidates may also go through a
behavioral interview.
For posts of cabin crew, pilots, engineering and
airport staff they have a security interview.
The candidate needs to be able to fit in the
culture of VA.

Training
Virgin Atlantic's training team supply the
highest levels of training to all employees,
ensuring they are best equipped to meet and
exceed our customer's expectations.
The Base- Team training facilities Virgin Atlantic
style.

The Base- Team training facilities Virgin Atlantic style.

Opened in 2007 and located just ten minutes
from Gatwick International Airport, The Base is
the state of the art Virgin Atlantic airline
training facility.
From conferences and aviation training to
intimate workshops and receptions, it has a
whole host of perfect spaces ideal for any kind
of event

 The Base is the venue for all Virgin Atlantic

training, which means we have some really
fantastic, light, bright classrooms.
If VA need to deliver professional safety,
security, aviation medical, customer service or
cabin service training, the Rigs Hall is perfect.
Rigs Hall offers state of the art technology, and
a unique, contemporary learning space.

 Facilities include cabin service, safety, medical

and aviation training rigs, aircraft door trainers,
a slide and a life raft.
Rigs Hall is the most realistic airline training
environment in the UK, and a great location for
all teambuilding, airline and customer service
training.

Motivation
Employee motivation tools exercised by Virgin
Atlantic include offering various charitable
perks. For example, 60 members of the
company employees have climbed Mount
Kenya in order to raise 35,000 for a village in
Kenya.

 Moreover, communication and employee

involvement is another powerful motivational
tools exercised in Virgin Atlantics.
Namely, Richard Branson, founder of the brand
is engaged in writing his staff what he
describes as chatty letters and emails to let
them know what is going on, and encouraging
them to write back with comments and ideas

 He regularly takes out entire flight crews for

dinner and parties when he arrives on a Virgin
Atlantic flight.
He even stays at the crew's hotel rather than in
expensive digs downtown.
He gives every Virgin employee a Virgin card,
which provides big discounts on the airline as
well as at Virgin Megastores and other Virgin
businesses.

 Mr. Branson is known for his ever-present

notebook and pen, which he pulls out whenever
he chats with employees or customers.
He insists that this is a crucial element in his
role as chairman and that by writing things
down, he creates a regular list of items for
immediate action.
Most chief executives, he notes, will chat with
employees in the course of their travels but by
the next day will remember little of what they
were told.

 All these methods adopted by the founder

gives the employee the feeling of belonging.
This motivates them to work more efficiently
and makes them feel like a family.
The employees work with passion and are
constantly working toward making the service
experience better for the employees.

Leadership
Leadership style at Virgin Atlantic stems from the organisational
culture of the company that has been set by its founder Sir
Richard Branson, who successfully exercises charismatic and
transformational leadership styles.
It has been specified that his leadership style is often
described as transformational, because of his informal style
and lack of emphasis on hierarchy within his companies, and
charismatic because Branson and Virgin are so inextricably
linked.

Rewards/Benefits
Full-time employees receive up to seven concessionary
standby flights a year to any of Virgin Atlantics glamorous
global destinations.
Employees are given the flexible pension plan where they
can plan for their financially secure future.
Income protection: Provides long-term income protection
benefit in the event that you are unable to work due to
illness or injury.
They provide childcare benefit to all employees wit children
under the age of 16.

 Airshare is a scheme where the employees

have the opportunity to share the success of
the business.

INTERACTIVE MARKETING

VIRGIN ATLANTIC

SERVICE MARKETING
The famous friendly crew of Virgin
Atlantic makes sure that the customers
have everything they need, a
memorable services by the most well
trained air hostesses/employees, a
choice of 3 complimentary meals, a free
amenity kit, an award winning
blockbuster entertainment, a free
newspaper from London and
Manchester, as well as extra legroom
options for a more roomy journey.

INTERACTIVE MARKETING
A Taste for the High life:VIRGIN ATLANTIC keeps the customers topped up with wide
choices of complimentary drinks and delicious meals. They also
cater to customers specific or special dietary requirement and
happily tailor the inflight menu.

Keeping the kids happy:If you are travelling with family especially with children one
need not worry as there are tasty child meals, a kid's channel
on the seat-back, K-iD backpacks bursting with goodies.

Interactive Social Media

They sponsored a contest where customers
took pictures of themselves Clubhousing and
shared it on Twitter or Instagram with a
Hashtag #Howlclubhouse.Fun
A Virgin Crew took a Social Media and found
customers at work who were having a grey
rainy day, since their colour are red and purple
they bought a pair of red rain boots and
delivered it to the customers office.

Conclusion
Overall, Virgin Atlantic have a very
comprehensive marketing strategy.
Their external, internal as well as interactive
marketing policies have led them through
years of success and acclaim.
They cater to the needs of the external as well
as internal customers, which is crucial for
corporate giants like themselves to maintain
their hold in the market.