Johnson took hard data—such as on-time rankings, baggage
handling performance and cancellation rates—and in tandem came up with a way to
score airlines on more qualitative elements, such as how well airlines respond
to travelers during irregular operations, what sort of benefits their
frequent-flier programs offer and the quality of their sales teams. He factored
all of that into standard metrics to create a new one: quality cost per mile
and segment.
Scott Gillespie, co-founder and managing partner of tClara
and one of the consultants Johnson worked with in developing the metrics, this
summer said the LDS Church program was the only one that "has really made
substantial improvements to" standard airline metrics.
The new metrics enabled Johnson to identify which airline
partners were bringing value, allowing him to consolidate the travel program's
list of partners. In turn, he's seen an uptick in satisfaction from his
travelers. And airlines, knowing they are being measured beyond costs, have
been more motivated to improve their product and service offerings for the
church, he said.
Of course, some airlines have been pushing to get quality
recognized within travel programs for several years now. Delta, for example,
led the U.S. industry in introducing its Edge reporting tool, as well as an
operational guarantee that provides reimbursement should its performance drop
below that of both of its key competitors, and other carriers have followed
suit.
Johnson, meanwhile, said his travel manager counterparts
often are unsure how to start determining "quality" or how to get
buy-in from internal stakeholders. "It has been helpful for us to be able
to describe our journey and share ideas about how to overcome some of these
challenges and concerns, and we have also learned a great deal from speaking to
other organizations about how they might define quality, which has provided a
platform to continually improve the effectiveness of our measures,"
Johnson said. "The typical response from most organizations, once they see
the details of what we are doing and how we are doing it, is that they are
surprised at the rigor of our measure and just how defensible and thorough it
is. Hopefully, those we have met with have felt more empowered and equipped to
start the process of tackling this initiative for themselves."
Additionally, Johnson is looking to bring
quality-measuring metrics to other parts of his travel program, such as "quality
cost per average daily rate" for rental cars or "quality cost per
night's stay" for hotels. "Those may not end up being exactly the
measures that we will use moving forward, but we are moving in that direction,"
Johnson said.