The Azul review; Part 1: Introduction
Have you ever been a wimp? No, I mean like put something off for ten years kind of a wimp??? That was me, until just recently. Over 10 years ago some great friends and colleagues ran off to Brazil with the crazy idea to start an airline. Who does that? Who even thinks of that? Oh yes, David Neeleman does!
In fact, Azul (“Blue” in Portuguese) based in Barueri, a suburb of São Paulo, was the fourth airline launched by JetBlue founder David Neeleman (after Morris Air, WestJet, and JetBlue). Azul inaugurated services in the Brazilian domestic market on December 15, 2008, between three cities: Campinas, Salvador, and Porto Alegre. It launched operations with 5 aircraft from a Brazilian company, Embraer.
Azul’s business model is to stimulate demand by providing frequent and affordable air service to underserved markets throughout Brazil. Bus service is the primary competition on many of the routes they fly to this day. According to Brazilian Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC), between January and
Quite the climb and accomplishment in just 10 years! In mid-2017, Neeleman handed over the reins of President to fellow founder, CFO and long-time associate John Rodgerson, while he remains as chairman, and the plan continues seamlessly.
Like many of this leadership’s plans, Azul’s plan for success was very customer and employee focused. Serve an underserved customer based, with a premier product and experience at an affordable price; all delivered by an extremely engaged and invested workforce. The results are happy, loyal customers and satisfied shareholders.
After 10 years of being a wimp and turning down many professional and personal invitations to visit Brazil and Azul, I recently made the trip. I’m so glad I did and a little embarrassed that it took me so long to do it. In addition to Rodgerson and his whole leadership team showing a great time around Brazil, what a county and what great people, they were also very open and welcoming in allowing me access to many parts of the customer journey and experience.
Their kindness and hospitality to me as a person during the trip will never be forgotten. But that’s not what has left the most lasting impression. The humility and confidence with which they asked the customer probing questions they do of me and of themselves are inspiring. The total transparency of their processes was offered in a truly “help us know if you see any ways that we can do this better?”, seeking to learn manner. I’ve had the same questions asked before, but never asked in away of such a desire to learn or from such a point of strength. By all accounts, Azul’s customers are some of the most satisfied customers I have seen based on their internally tracked NPS and satisfaction measures. In my experience, generally, companies don’t start to ask the type of questions that Azul is asking about the customer and employee experience until something bad has happened and they are in a recovery mode.
Azul’s seeking for an outsiders view of their customer experience while they are at the lead of the pack is a powerful insight into how companies that win in this area keep winning. Over the course of the next several weeks, I’ll highlight my positive experiences and findings from each of the areas of the Azul customer experience that I assess and reviewed with there leadership. The four areas of my focus were the Airport, Call Center, Inflight and leadership experience with regard to the overall Azul customer experience. While I shared my findings of both strengthens and opportunities with Mr. Rodgerson and his leadership team when I ended my engagement, I’ll focus primarily on the strengthens of each area and try to do it in a way that we can all learn from and apply to our businesses.
In the meantime, enjoy some of my favorite pics of the wonderful Brazil experience.
What is being talked about…