Marketing for Jetstar Airways - Seeking What Their Customers Want - Research Proposal Example

Marketing Research for Jetstar Airways Introduction Jetstar is a low-cost airline with its headquarters in Australia. This airline company was formed as a Qantas subsidiary in reaction to the threat created by another low-cost airline Virgin Blue. The airline serves wide-ranging domestic, regional and international markets. The airline company has a code of practices based on instructive and effective customer service as a way of enhancing customer relationship. One of the strategies Jetstar Airways has been using to compete is to offer high quality product at a lower cost to promote the company as a low cost leaders in the airline industry. The strategy rewarded the company by being voted by 18.8 million consumers from 100 countries as the best airline in terms of quality during World Airline Awards in 2011 (Worldairlineawards, 2011). The company however dropped to third position during the similar awards in 2012. This has left Jetstar with a lot of questions than answers in terms of competition and market strategies. The company has then embarked on research to find out new strategies to boost its performance. Type of research is needed Kotler & Gary (2010) argue that if a brand is not doing well or actually has failed, it either requires reinforcing or revitalizing. Therefore, market research has to be carried out to find the cause of failure. In the airline sector, marketing research works to attest that the research is employed effectively in line with the goal of the business. Kotler & Gary, (2010) describe marketing research as the logical design, assessment and information reporting and finding pertinent to a particular marketing condition experienced by the company. Since this research involve both collecting data and also finding ideas and attitude of the consumers towards the company products and services, the analysis will involve both qualitative and quantitative approach. Connecting both quantitative and qualitative approach, these methodologies are an important aspect in the airline sector in relation to marketing decision making. Hague (2002) stated that quantitative methods are applied in giving some basic signs of motivations while qualitative are frequently reflecting on motivations and attitudes in which responses cannot be forecasted. Taking into consideration the divergence between two approaches, quantitative research is mostly employed for data collection. It will facilitate in collecting numerical information about competitors’ sales and profits and compares it with Jetstar’s. The reason is to determine the reasons and effect of their sales, profits and customer relationships. The benefit of using quantitative is that, it enables us reach several consumers by oversimplifying truth, while the qualitative approach is about the complexities of little things affecting the Jetstar performance. Additionally, we will use qualitative approach to build ideas and quantitative approach to prioritize plans corresponding to the current budget. Qualitative research can also be used to establish the degree of comfort that the consumer desires and the unique treatment that they would prefer to get from company (Hague, 2002). Target respondents Our company serves a low cost market with aim to make sure that everyone who wishes to travel on the plane gets a chance of their lifetime. Low cost market which happens to be our target respondents will mainly include leisure travelers, children and students with the age of 5 to 60 years. This is because most children normally want to travel on a plane just to feel the comfort for the first time. This 5-60years age bracket include students who travel for educational trip or for exchange programs. Our research will require a large sample size because our company serves different countries. A larger sample size results to parameter of assessment and results to finding greater picture of how competition looks like in the industry (Hague, 2002). In this situation, we are mainly researching consumer behavior and attitude towards Jetstar service in Australia and other markets. Our approach is a consumer driven marketing which identifies well with our target market. Our “market segmentation takes account of clientele who frequently travel on short trips and may not pay for standard international tickets” (Mickaiel, 2011). We believe after research our company can create profitable client relationships derived from subjects: leisure travelers, children and students. In understanding our customers, the company will create client relationship to meet their needs (Chadwick 1994, p.76). Outline a method for conducting this research. In our research, much attention in terms of funding has been taken into consideration bearing in mind that it is the same low cost strategy that has put the company in the limelight and made the company be voted the best in low cost category; the research is highly funded to achieve success. The research will also “extend to business class to make the Jetstar highly competitive in the industry” (Mickaiel, 2011). Therefore, this research is highly funded to make sure it covers a wide scope in terms of sampling and dig deep the information while resulting to a reliable outcome. In terms of research method, we will mostly rely on the telephone. We will refer to our database to get our regular customers’ phone numbers for telephone interviews. Telephone interviews are quick, cheap and effective as compared to focus group where not everyone will turn up for the interview. On the other hand, our customers are travelers who are from different countries therefore getting them in the same place for one on one interview cannot be guaranteed. Using telephone ensures that one covers a wide scope in terms of sampling within a shorter time (Alan & Emma, 2007). Furthermore, the telephone interview is better than other processes due to that fact that it elicits personal opinions towards our product. Website is a good idea since the airline industry is now embracing technology to target a wide range of customers across the globe (Chadwick 1994, p.71). However, we are not going to use the method because we have a lot of reservations for process. It mostly involves emailing our customers with email addresses in our database. Emailing a customer is not reliable because of a lot of non-responses associated with it. Customers more so leisure travelers may not be familiar with email and this will lead to no responses. Others may not have time to reply emails to the interview questions or may choose to ignore. Alan & Emma (2007) contends that online survey could have a problem both internet access and connection in the customer’s computer. We will also employ one on one interview in our offices and airports in our data collection to ensure that personal opinions are obtained. Using interview in data collection allows us to establish the actual behavior patterns towards our services and ensure they are taken into consideration. The whole process will help us examine the most popular service with the need to make most effective decision in regard to marketing, competition and profit maximization. Appropriate sample size and selection method A suitable sample size is determined by the cost and method we intend to use. In our research, we intend to cover wider area; Australian market and different countries which we serve. With adequate budget, we will interview 200 respondents in our domestic market of Australia while interview 150 customers in other different countries in which we operate. This interview will be conducted through phone because of its effectiveness. However, we have selected a large sample size because researches are always prone to errors. Some people may not pick the calls while others may be interrupted during the interview due to network problems. With our large size, even if the few are not able to answer our phone calls we will still remain with a good number to enable us achieve the object of the research. Generally a large sample size will have an accurate data which projects what the big numbers of customers are thinking about company services (Hague, 2002). In terms of sampling selection, we have decided to use stratified random sampling during the interview which will enable us to divide our customers into strata. This stratum will entail age of the customers or occupation like students and businessmen amongst others who will be interviewed in different days. Alan & Emma (2007) claim that this method is more effective in research and time-saving. We will not use non-probability sampling because it tends to choose friendly customers who can influence the outcome of the research. Industry information or secondary data that may assist in designing, implementing or interpreting this research Common secondary data that we intend to use are mainly records from our organization and other organizations touching on our competitors. Other sources of industry information will come from collected data through qualitative and qualitative methods. Since we combine both qualitative and qualitative methods in our research, information will be obtained by use of existing database and interview. We will obtain customer details (phone numbers) from existing databases of which we will use to contact them for an interview. We will also carry out statistical analysis of competitors’ sales and come up with appropriate strategy to counter them. Conclusion Our company is focused on seeking what our customers want. Therefore, we believe combining both qualitative and qualitative methods will not only be accurate but also effective in achieving our expectations which are new strategies. Quantitative and qualitative methods will create a suitable research in that they offer better analysis and understanding of the business ideas so as to enhance our markets. Consumers have higher expectations with fragmented and more market environment which implies that this research is necessary for our business success. References Alan, B & Emma, B 2007, Business research methods, Oxford University Press Chadwick, RA 1994, Concepts, definitions, and measures used in travel and tourism research. In J.R.B. Ritchie and CR. Goeldner (eds) Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Research, 2nd edn. New York: John Wiley, 65-80 Hague, P 2002, Market research: a guide to planning, methodology & evaluation, London, Kogan Page Kotler, P & Gary, A 2010, Principles of Marketing, Pearson Education, Punch. Mickaiel, I 2011, Dreamliner landing with Jetstar in 2013, ZDNet Australia. Worldairlineawards 2011, World Airline Awards, Viiewed 24th May 2013 from http://www.worldairlineawards.com/awards_2011/lowcost2011.htm Read More