Relationship Marketing and Research Methodology of British Airways

This article discusses the relationship marketing strategies and research methodology of British Airways. It covers the impact of COVID-19 on the airline industry and customer feedback on British Airways. The article provides insights into the advantages and disadvantages of primary and secondary research methods.

British Airways

Table of Contents
Relationship Marketing....................................................................................................................3
Background information about Brand image.........................................................................3
Impact of COVID-19 of British Airways...............................................................................3
General information about Relationship Marketing...............................................................4
Differentiation of British Airways with other airline.............................................................4
How British Airways creates its own community..................................................................4
Customer feedback on British Airways..................................................................................5
Research Methodology....................................................................................................................6
Definition of research methodology.......................................................................................6
Positivism Research Philosophy to British Airways..............................................................6
Advantages and disadvantage of SURVEY...........................................................................6
Primary research and its relation with British Airways..........................................................7
Advantages and disadvantages of primary research...............................................................8
Secondary research and its relation with British Airways......................................................9
Advantages and disadvantages of secondary research...........................................................9
Advantages and disadvantage of using quantitative research..............................................10
Positive and negative aspect of sampling methods in British Airways................................11
Negative aspect of sampling method....................................................................................11
Definition of Research ethics...............................................................................................11
References......................................................................................................................................12

Relationship Marketing
Background information about Brand image
British Airways is an airline company whose parent company is International Airlines
Group. It was founded on 31st march 1974 having headquartered in London, England, United
Kingdom. The CEO of company is Sean Doyle (Taylor, Moore and Byford, 2019). It is a global
airline company whose major operations to flying customer from their present location to their
destination. Mentioned company connects Britain to the world and world to Britain by providing
excellent service to their customers. Currently it has served 95 million customers by using 441
airports in 86 countries with more than 1000 planes (O’Neill, 2018). In 1919, British airways
management had decided to proposed plan for establishing a world airline network to linking
Britain with Canada, India, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The purpose behind doing
this is to make air planes capable to cross wide stretches of water easily. Earlier this company
was only considered as British Airways but on 24th November 1939, British Overseas Airways
Corporation was formed with the merger of two companies namely Imperial and British
Airways.
Impact of COVID-19 of British Airways
COVID-19 has made negative impact of business of airline companies especially British
Airways. International Airline Group who is the owner of British Airways has reported a loss of
7.4 billion pounds in last year. To cope up with that loss management of company is planning to
launch digital health passes for passengers to enable mentioned company to get back to the
situation pre COVID-19 (Oxford Analytica, 2019). The total loss of company which was 7.4
billion pounds included expensive fuel and currency hedges, retiring its plane early and the cost
of 10,000 staff redundancies. After this pandemic, management of company has decided that
they will not fly more than 30% of its usual flights compared to last year. IAG(International
Airline Group) had also reported that their profit in the quarter get down by 83% to 1.2 billion
pound compared to 7.3 billion pound in last year.

General information about Relationship Marketing
It is considered as a form of relationship which is made by businesses to customers with
the the help of CRM(Customer Relationship Management) to enable customer loyalty and long
term customer engagement rather than short term of goals like customer acquisition and
individual sales. The main purpose behind relationship marketing is to create strong relationship
with customers towards brand so that it can led to ongoing business. Instead of generating sales
this form of marketing also focuses on customer satisfaction and retention because maintaining
of old customer is much more beneficial for business rather than generating new customer from
market (Hendricks and et.al 2019). There are several ways through which businesses can make
strong relationship with customers such as by giving after sales to customer, by listening to their
queries properly and provide suitable suggestion, by taking feedback of the products which they
are using and many more.
Differentiation of British Airways with other airline.
There are different ways through which British Airways is different from other airlines
are as follows:
 Cabin of British airways aeroplanes are very spacious and comfortable. It is also
equipped with new high tech technologies such as movie screens and USB charging
outlets which give passengers very delightful and luxurious feeling (Parry, 2020).
 Aircraft of British Airways travel to different locations. Till now its has travel almost 200
locations in 75 countries which is highest in the terms of airline industry. No other
company aircraft has travelled to different locations till now.
 Given company customer service is very good. Staff of British Airways treat customer
with proper care and respect.
 Management of given airline company has launched several membership and discount
programmer for their regular customer so that they can pay less price as comparison to
those customer who travel frequently.
How British Airways creates its own community
There are several ways through which British Airways creates value for society are as
follows:
 The management of given company has started their flagship charity programme by the
name Flying start making partnership with Comic relief since 2010. By this programmer

company focuses on disadvantaged youth in UK and other countries around the world to
provide better life to them by providing them good education (Chun and Park, 2019). For
this program currently company is investing over 2 billion pound to successfully
completion of this project in UK and other countries such as India, Ghana and South
Africa.
 At the time of coronavirus pandemic, management of given company has made
partnership with Disaster Emergency Committee(DEC) and British Red Cross to provide
relief and medical assistance to corona virus patients.
 Apart from above partnership, management of British Airways provide several facilities
to their staff members in the terms of medical insurance by giving health security to them
and their family members till the time they work in British Airways.
Customer feedback on British Airways
Customer of British Airways has a horrible experience after getting service of given
airline. Several steps shows the feedback of given company are as follows:
 One of the customer has reported that they had spend $300 on purchasing ticket. Due to
some reasons they had change their travelling schedule. But British Airways staff has
refused to pay amount of their cancelled tickets (Wiboonrat, 2020).
 Several Customer has also reported that they have lost some of their luggage while
travelling through British Airways. Moreover during COVID-19 it has made certain strict
rule for customer but instead of this so many customers were noticed without wearing
masks.
 One of the customer has also reported that when they booked their ticket from London to
Boston it showed five hours journey but it actual manner it took eleven hours journey,
This has led to loss of work of customer and frustrated them very much.
Hence these above feedbacks of customer shows that they are not happy with the service of
British airways. Therefore management of mentioned company need to focus on such things very
carefully and make changes in their service accordingly.

Research Methodology
Definition of research methodology
This is considered as a systematic set of procedure or techniques which company uses to
identify, select and analyse information about particular topic.
Positivism Research Philosophy to British Airways
This is referred to as factual knowledge which is gained by researcher though observation
of data which including measurement. In this philosophy the role of researcher is only limited to
data collection and interpretation. This study majorly focuses on finding data by observable and
quantifiable manner.
Positivism research philosophy work on two principles such as:
 The research should be made to explain current problem and prediction about future
outcomes.
 Conducted research must be observable via human senses.
In the terms of British Airways, it has recently launched system by the name Know me by which
they can see single view of customer and their past history with airline (Fielding, 2020). Under
this system, all the senior staff members of given company has given iPads which they can be
use to know what kind of food customer have ordered, Whether they are loyalty scheme
members or not. This system also helps management of given company to get data from
websites, call centres, email and many more which they can be use for making improvement or
changes in their service.
Advantages and disadvantage of SURVEY
Survey is considered as a research method which is used by researcher to collect data
from predefined group to get information about different topics of interest.
Advantages Disadvantages
 Cost effective method- Survey is
considered as a cost effective method
comparison to other methods. In the
terms of British Airways, management
of company can easily use it easily at
low cost to know response of their
 Irrelevant data or wrong
information- Sometimes customer do
not give proper or adequate data to
business because they are in hurry
which creates problem for management
of business in order to know the areas

customer regarding their service.
 Easily conduct via online ways-
Companies can easily conduct their
survey through their websites, mail and
many more to know what there
customers are saying about them. In the
terms of British Airways, management
of company has their own website by
which they get to know what their
customer feels about their service by
looking at feedback column. So that
they can make changes their service
accordingly (Mills and Helms
Mills,2018).
 Unlimited questions can be ask to
customers- By using surveys,
businesses can ask unlimited questions
to their customers in order to improve
their products or service in market. In
the terms of mentioned company, by
using survey management can ask
unlimited questions to their customer so
that they get to in which area they are
best and in which area they are lacking,
where they need improvement. In the
terms of British Airways, they
sometimes do not get accurate and
reliable data from customer so that they
can take relevant decision about the
areas where they need improvement.
 Close ended questions- In survey,
mostly questions which are ask by
management of business are close
ended whose answer is only in YES or
NO. In the terms of British
management, questions whose answer
is in YES or NO generally make it
difficult for management for taking
decision regarding welfare of an
organisation.
Primary research and its relation with British Airways
It is type of research which is conducted by business itself. Under this research
management of business collect data from existing customer in target market. There are various
ways through which primary research is conducted such as interviews via telephonic or face to
face, surveys conducted via online or mail and many more (Stone, 2018). In the terms of British
airways, it conducts its primary research by using several questionnaire, interviews,

questionnaire and focus groups. By conducting primary research, management of company get to
know how customers are feeling after using company's product. Are they satisfy with company's
products or service? If they are not satisfy what sort of actions they can take to solve those
problems. Management of given company distribute papers to customers with questions outside
airport to know feedback of customer that whether they enjoy the journey or not. Hence by this
way management of British Airways get to know whether customer are happy with their service
or not.
Advantages and disadvantages of primary research.
Advantages Disadvantages
 More relevant- Primary research is
considered as a reliable source of
information for companies. It provide
relevant and accurate information to
management of business on the basis of
which they can take accurate decision.
In the terms of British airways, by
conducting primary research
management of given company will get
fresh and relevant data, on the basis of
which they can take accurate decision.
 Confidential data- Information
collected through this research is highly
confidential or secret. In the terms of
mentioned company, management of
British airways can use that
confidential information to apply in
their business functionality. Hence this
would help them to increase their
 Expensive- Primary research is highly
expensive in nature, companies have to
spend lot of amount on conducting
primary research. In the terms of
British airways, management have to
spend to spend lot of amount while
conducting primary research which
sometimes affect the budget of
company.
 Time consuming- While conducting
primary research business have to
spend lot of time of research and
analysing market in order to know
customer feedback. In the terms of
mentioned company, management
spend lot of time in conducting primary
research due to which they sometimes
cannot focus on their operational
functionality which affect their

customer satisfaction and lead to rise in
sales.
profitability.
Secondary research and its relation with British Airways
It is type of research which included data that has already use and compiled by another
person. The purpose behind businesses conduct secondary research is to know how they are
doing their operations or what other alternative they can apply in their business on the basis of
studies which have been previously. Hence by this management of business can get to whether
they are doing better in market or not. There are several ways through which secondary research
can conducted such as website, journals and many more. In the terms of British airways, it has
conducted its secondary research by looking at the websites of another airlines companies in
order to know what they are doing to satisfy their customer in market. This would help
mentioned company to know what sort of actions they can take in their management to improve
functionality of business (Stanley-Price, 2018).
Advantages and disadvantages of secondary research
Advantages Disadvantages
 Easy to access- Information can easily
be collected by secondary research
using several websites of companies. In
the terms of British airways,
management of company can access the
websites of their competitors in market
in order to what they are doing to
improve their customer service in
market so that they can adopt changes
in their business accordingly.
 Time saving- In this research
management of business do not need to
spend so much time on research and
analysing of data. In the terms of
 Different as per business need- In
secondary research, sometimes data
which is collected by company does not
match with the business requirement
because every business has different
vision and goals. In the terms of
mentioned company, it can be seen that
their goals must not match with their
competitor which can create problem
for business while conducting
secondary research.

mentioned company, management can
easily get data from several websites or
google so that they can compare their
performance from another company in
order to know what changes they need
to make.
Advantages and disadvantage of using quantitative research
Advantages Disadvantage
 Easy to measure performance- With
the help of quantitate data it is easy for
British airways to evaluate and analyse
their business performance because
every data is in numeric forms, which
enable management to get clear view of
performance.
 Focus of facts and figures- This
research always focuses on facts and
figures of data due to which
management of British airways can
take accurate and reliable decision for
the welfare of company.
 Wrong presentation numbers-
Sometimes its can be seen that wrong
presentation of data in numbers can
affect performance of organisation in
long term. In the terms of British
airways, wrongful presentation of data
and numbers can affect the
performance of company in negative
manner.
 Difficult to set up in business- This
form of research is difficult for
business to set up in their operational
functionality. In the terms of British
airways, it has to conduct hypothesis
for collecting and analysing of data
which is very time consuming and
difficult to implement in business.

Positive and negative aspect of sampling methods in British Airways.
Positive aspect of sampling method
 Low cost- Generally sampling methods are low cost, companies have to spend very
minimum amount for conducting sampling. In the terms of British Airways, they have to
spend very little amount while conducting sampling. Hence it is very affordable for
company to apply in their operations (Jeng and Lo, 2019).
 Right accuracy of data- While conducting sampling method there are chances that
business always get reliable and accurate data. Therefore if management of British
airways will apply that method in the business operations there are chances that they get
accurate and relatable data due to which appropriate decision can be made.
Negative aspect of sampling method
 Cover small populations- Sampling methods taken into considerations cover small
group of data. Therefore British Airways also get small group of data due to which
appropriate feedback cannot get from customer which creates problem for making
appropriate decision.
Definition of Research ethics
Ethics in research refers to fundamental ethical principles which include design and
implementation of data. The aim of research ethics is to develop value for collaborative work and
principle for not doing harm of others.

References
Books and journals
Taylor, P., Moore, S. and Byford, R., 2019. Cabin Crew Conflict-The British Airways Dispute
2009-11.
O’Neill, B., 2018. Developing future leaders at British Airways. In The Photofit Manager (pp.
72-89). Routledge.
Oxford Analytica, 2019. UK British Airways fine sends strong policy signal. Emerald Expert
Briefings, (oxan-es).
Hendricks, K., Deal, N.M. and Helms Mills, J., 2019, July. Intersectionality as a Matter of Time:
The Case of British Airways (1924-1974). In Academy of Management
Proceedings (Vol. 2019, No. 1, p. 15846). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of
Management.
Parry, J., 2020. Wuhan: Britons to be evacuated as scientists estimate 44 000 cases of 2019-
nCOV in the city.
Chun, S.H. and Park, S.Y., 2019. Hybrid marketing channel strategies of a manufacturer in a
supply chain: game theoretical and numerical approaches. Information Technology and
Management, 20(4), pp.187-202.
Wiboonrat, M., 2020, March. Human Factors Psychology of Data Center Operations and
Maintenance. In 2020 6th International Conference on Information Management (ICIM)
(pp. 167-171). IEEE.
Fielding, J., 2020. The people problem: how cyber security's weakest link can become a
formidable asset. Computer Fraud & Security, 2020(1), pp.6-9.
Mills, A.J. and Helms Mills, J., 2018. Archival research. The Sage handbook of qualitative
research methods in business and management. London: SAGE.
Stone, E.K., 2018. A comparison of Mode‐S Enhanced Surveillance observations with other in
situ aircraft observations. Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological
Society, 144(712), pp.695-700.
Stanley-Price, N., 2018. Flying to the Emirates: The end of British Overseas Airways
Corporation’s service to Dubai and Sharjah in 1947. The Journal of Transport
History, 39(3), pp.333-354.
Jeng, S.P. and Lo, M.F., 2019. Lowest price guarantees on airline websites: Perceived
believability, perceived value, and purchase intentions. Journal of Air Transport
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