Promotional Activity and Pricing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Promotional Activity and Pricing - Essay Example The firm also offers amenities to its customers in order to meet their entertainment needs. In addition, Southwest Airlines serves their customers by providing Business Select, Wifi, Mobile Access, and EarlyBird Check-In facilities. The South west Airlines has designed special provision for the customers who are aged 65 and older; and extreme facilities are also offered to kids and disabled persons (Seniors: Southwest.com). The company has also arranged high tech facilities for providing boarding passes. The customers can receive boarding passes from the Skycap Counter (situated in selected locations) and check luggage four hours prior to the scheduled departure. The competitive promotional packages include low costs and customers’ loyalty. Since the Southwest Airlines avoids too much luxury facilities, it can cut down the passenger charges which in turn assist the company to achieve customers’ loyalty. The efficient managerial strategies of the company have assisted it to design a competitive promotional mix that effectively meets customer interests. II Wilbur L. Schramm proposed an original model of communication process in 1954 which clearly depicts the information flow in a system. The Schramm’s model is just an extension of Shannon-Weaver transmission model of communication that proposes six elements of communication such as source, encoder, message, channel, decoder, and receiver. In addition to these elements, the Schramm’s model suggests other two concepts such as feedback and field of experience. According to Schramm’s model (as cited in Scannell, 2007, p.210), encoding plays a crucial role in the communication process as it the first step that converts the thought into content. This model says that the information is of no use if the recipient is not able to decode what the speaker actually intents to convey. Hence, Schramm’s model stands on the strength of the principle that encoding and decoding are the two basic elements of a communications system since effective flow of information between two individuals is not possible without these two. On the basis of this model, one can explicitly say that the Southwest Airlines has effectively established a communication system in its promotional mix. For instance, as the company deals with segment focused operations, it can identify domestic needs and serve local population well (Europe Lowcost). The domestic operations aid the company to avoid cultural barriers in communication process; it enables the company to effectively practice its promotional mix by ensuring effective flow of communication between customers and airlines management. In addition, the customer feedback collection process also contributes to effective information flow. III Like Southwest Airlines, many other air travel companies also offer additional services to its customers. It is necessary to take ranges of things into account while setting prices for the various service s provided by the airlines. It would be better to classify the product/service offers into two such as ordinary and luxury in order to effectively set prices for them. Ordinary products include snacks and other food items while satellite radio and TV facilities constitute luxury products. It is evident that aircraft passengers include low, middle, and upper class individuals; therefore, airlines companies must meet the interests of every class of people while setting pri