MOST INNOVATIVE
COMPANIES 2015
8.
Virgin
America
FOR
PERFECTING CUSTOMER SERVICE FOR AN INNOVATIVE CLIENTELE.
Virgin America is the only airline based in Silicon Valley, and
it has learned to think like its disruptive clientele: "We see ourselves
as more of an incubator," says chief marketing officer Luanne Calvert. It has experimented with
everything from in-flight social networks to rethinking how to buy tickets, and
the rewards are Valley-like: revenue of $6 million and a $306 million IPO.
The feat is all the more impressive because, since airline
deregulation in 1978, about 250 new airlines have opened shop and failed. At
first, Virgin America didn’t appear to be any different: It lost money from its
2007 launch until 2013. But it turns out that the airline was acting like a
Valley company—evolving the service, and trusting that a business model would
follow.
Its successes are many. Virgin put together a group of about 30
entrepreneur frequent flyers called VX Next, who act as a brain trust,
generating ideas for the airline—for free. They wanted an in-flight social
network, so Virgin collaborated with Here on Biz for an app that connects
flyers with fellow travellers on their plane, on other in-air flights, and even
at the destination. It’s created "almost a tribe," Calvert says, of
connected travellers who build together before ever landing at a conference.
In 2014 it unveiled a sleek, headline-grabbing website redesign
that’s set the benchmark for all ticket-buying sites, and expanded to include
more cost-effective flights (instead of its initial sole routes cross-country,
and to LA and Vegas). The airline was helped out by its own rabid fan base:
30,000 people signed a Change.org petition to give the airline two gates at
Dallas Love Field (which it received). Virgin returned the love—and cash—to its
believers: It offered stock options to frequent flyers before the company went
public. And it even made an in-flight safety video good enough to go viral: It
was watched 1.5 million times its first week.
BY LAUREN SCHWARTZBERGhttp://www.fastcompany.com/3039614/most-innovative-companies-2015/
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