Delta CMO Tim Mapes: A Better Flying Experience By Design | Forbes

🎥 Oct 18, 2018 📺 Forbes ⏱ 3m

Delta's chief marketer, Tim Mapes, talks about the importance of all employees as brand ambassadors and data as core to optimal customer service. Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?s... Stay Connected Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: / forbesvideo Forbes Video on Instagram: / forbesvideo More From Forbes: http://forbes.com Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

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About Tim Mapes

In a 2018 Forbes interview, Tim Mapes, then senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Delta Air Lines, described the company’s approach to branding and customer service. Mapes stated that marketing at Delta is considered “everybody’s role,” with all 85,000 employees serving as brand ambassadors. He said that “everything communicates” in the customer experience, including factors such as flight attendant demeanor, coffee quality, lavatory cleanliness, and on-time performance, which together form a “net impression” of the airline. Mapes also discussed Delta’s use of customer data, noting that the airline carries 185 million passengers annually and collects information on travel patterns, loyalty program membership, and credit card usage. He said the company knits this data together “horizontally” to assess the quality of the experience being delivered, citing as an example knowing that a Diamond flyer prefers an aisle seat and gin and tonics, but also whether their bags have been mishandled on recent flights. Mapes highlighted Delta’s financial performance, stating that the company had experienced both the best and worst years in its history over the prior decade, including the aftermath of 9/11 and recent record profits, and that it had paid employees profit sharing in excess of a billion dollars per year for the previous four years.

Source: AI-verified profile updated from Tim Mapes's recent appearances. Browse all interviews →

Transcript (3 segments)

Tim Mapes0:10

Organization and values transcends time. I am Tim Mapes, I'm the Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Delta Air Lines. Marketing's role within Delta is really seen to be everybody's role. I have the opportunity to serve as chief marketing officer, but 85,000 people are all brand ambassadors. 85,000 members of the company are selling, they're promoting, they're providing a brand experience in what they do each day. And that's very much conscious on our part. We share that view with everybody that we're all having a net impression. I say often within the company, everything communicates: whether the flight attendant's happy, where the coffee works, whether the lavatory is clean on the plane, whether the flights operate on time. All of that in your customer going, whether you're a Sky Club member, whether you have the American Express co-branded credit card. So all of that data is resident in Delta. Taking that in, knitting it together horizontally, not just so that we in the loyalty program can know that you as a Diamond flyer prefer to sit on an aisle seat and like gin and tonics, but also that the last three flights you took had your bag misdirected. So we're able to say up or down what type of experience are we delivering.

I think one thing that's fascinating about Delta is you're talking about a 90 year old company that nonetheless in the last 10 years has experienced the best and the worst year in the history of the company. So 9/11, 2001, you've got time. You're seeing prosperity coming out of the roots of austerity and problems.

So I grew up watching really two programs that I can consciously recall. One was Mr. Rogers. People think about puppets and silliness and you know kind of milquetoast Mr. Rogers, bless his heart. But the transcendent qualities that he taught in terms of respect and that you're special just the way you are, from a hospitality perspective and a diversity and inclusion, he was way ahead of his time. And in a way, by the way, with kindness and grace that the company and all of our world would do well to have more of today. So that was one. But the other was Bewitched, because I got to watch Darrin and this as a kid, but he just looked like he was having fun.