Effective information enables transport to provide individualised activity

When Andrew Studdert, chief information officer at United Airlines, talks about a seamless interface, he's not referring to a new system for running jet engines. He's talking about future competitive advantage in his industry. To Mr Studdert, seamless interface means taking the airline to a new level of customer service.

'What I want is for a customer to check out of a hotel, get on a shuttle bus, and have his bags packed up and sent on to a final destination without him needing to tell anybody or wait in line,' Mr Studdert says.

'And then, at his next stop his bags are automatically sent to his new hotel and the keys to his rental car are waiting for him at the gate. There's no reason airlines cannot do this.' Like Mr Studdert, airline executives these days are spending a lot of time thinking about customer service. The days of 'fare wars' are giving way to a new, equally intense era where competition is based not only on price but also on the ability to develop intimate relationships with customers and provide specialised, home-to-destination customer service.

Throughout the transportation industry - whether airlines, trucking, trains or buses - executives say the biggest concern that keeps them up at night is how to give their service a personal touch. The challenge is to convince customers that the seat they are buying is not the same as a bag of grain, but a valuable relationship that is worth more than the difference in ticket price offered by a rival.

'Going forward, customer service is probably the most important way companies are going to differentiate themselves in the brutally competitive world of passenger and freight transport,' says Dennis Christ, group vice-president of Unisys Worldwide Transportation Market Sector Group.

'In a world with millions of customers, when a company starts treating you specially, you are going to respond.' At leading airlines, railways, and freight companies, finding new ways to use information to improve customer relationships has become the primary driver for insuring profitability in the future.

To do so, these leaders are concentrating on two main areas: developing a pro-customer corporate information asset to build stronger customer relationships.