Listening To Win

Continental Airlines turned listening into a powerful force for change. See how it went from worst to first.

Continental Airlines has a storied past as a comeback company. There are lessons to be learned from their earlier success built on empowering company employees to improve the airline and ultimately its customer service.

Continental Airlines struggled through two bankruptcies in the 1980s and was about to undergo a third when Gordon Bethune took over as CEO in 1994. The airline was at the bottom of all lists of the nation's 10 largest airlines. It dubiously led the industry in lost baggage, late departures, and customer complaints.

Two years later, passengers were voting Continental the nation's best airline in annual surveys conducted by J. D. Power & Associates. The company turned itself inside out by turning its attention to customers rather than focusing on the operations.

Here are some highlights of the turnaround:

• The company trained its 56,000 employees to think about customers first. It did this through daily news updates by e-mail and fax as well as regular visits from top company executives.
• The company focused on its most important customers. A party thrown at Bethune's Houston home for one hundred elite-level frequent flyers was a symbolic gesture that sent a message both to customers and employees: the new focus was doing what the customers wanted. It was also a great setting to announce to important customers that the company was reinstating key benefits that these customers valued.
• Senior executives took ownership of relationships with important travel agencies and corporations in assigned territories, joining marketing staff on sales calls and at customer meetings twice a year.
• The company apologized to the key customers it had chased away. Berthune and other executives made personal visits to each and took accountability for the company's past mistakes.
• Executives asked customers what it would take to earn back the business and what would work best for their customers. More importantly, the company followed up on this feedback with new products, policies, and plans.
• The company streamlined and simplified customer feedback. Postage-paid cards in the in-flight magazines solicited response and opinions as did a toll-free number for immediate help.