![\"Ryanair\"](\"https:\/\/farm4.staticflickr.com\/3668\/13272983145_b538c959ed_d.jpg\")
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One of Europe\u2019s leading low-cost airlines, Ryanair, has in recent years received more than it\u2019s fair share of press coverage and attention. Much of this has come as a result of a number of controversial statements from their famously outspoken CEO Michael O\u2019Leary. In the past, he has been known to call customers \u2018stupid\u2019 and has mused publicly about whether they should \u2018charge customers to go to the toilet\u2019 amongst other things<\/a> as relentlessly pursued a cost leadership strategy.<\/p>\n However, back in 2013 they issued a series of profit warnings after they found themselves being consistently outmanoeuvred by one of their main low-cost and European rivals, EasyJet. Following these profit warnings, Ryanair and Mr. O\u2019Leary started to change their tune. They started to talk differently about customers and publicly resolved to not to do things that \u201cunnecessarily p*** people off\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n This strategy is starting to really pay off as Ryanair has recently announced that:<\/p>\n Ryanair is being lauded in many parts for it\u2019s new \u2018be nice to customers\u2019 strategy and the positive business results it is delivering. Some are going so far as to call this change in strategy: transformational or a \u2018road to Damascus\u2019<\/a> moment.<\/p>\n Call me a skeptic but I\u2019m not sure I would go as far as that.<\/p>\n If you look at some of the major changes that they have introduced such as:<\/p>\n These aren\u2019t transformational changes. These are pragmatic changes.<\/p>\n Ryanair isn\u2019t turning itself into a \u2018paean\u2019 of customer service or customer experience.<\/p>\n Not yet, anyway.<\/p>\n Mr O\u2019Leary and Ryanair seem to be taking a very pragmatic approach, where they have realised the pursuit of a cost leadership strategy and making the lives of your customers a bit easier are not mutually exclusive. In fact, you could argue that all they have done is eliminate some of the \u2018grit\u2019<\/a> or the little things that have been destroying their customer\u2019s experience<\/a>.<\/p>\n But, despite a series of great results, Ryanair may still have some work to do to convince it\u2019s customers that it\u2019s new \u2018be nice to customers\u2019 strategy is for real and is here to stay.<\/p>\n In a recent Which? customer service survey of \u2018The 100 best and worst companies for customer service\u2019<\/a> in the UK, Ryanair ranked number 97 out of 100. Although, this is an improvement on it\u2019s 2013 ranking where it ranked 100, they still rank much lower than firms such as Aldi, Lidl, Primark, Poundland, Poundstretcher, Flybe, EasyJet and Shoe Zone all of which are pursuing their own cost-leadership strategy.<\/p>\n So, all of that leaves me with a question: Does Michael O\u2019Leary really care about Ryanair\u2019s customers or is he just being pragmatic?<\/p>\n Only time will tell.<\/p>\n This post was originally published on my Forbes.com column.<\/a> One of Europe\u2019s leading low-cost airlines, Ryanair, has in recent years received more than it\u2019s fair share of press coverage and attention. Much of this has [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,27,14,21],"tags":[2134,2132,1886,2136,2133,2135,1623],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7752"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7752\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adrianswinscoe.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nPhoto Credit: markyharky<\/a> via Compfight<\/a> cc<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"