Delta Air Lines
Myself, Miraj Jivani and Kristin Harripaul formed the Apex Consulting Group. Our first client was Delta Airlines, which suffered major losses in revenue at the start of the pandemic. We were hired to audit the company’s messaging, offer recommendations on how to improve and form a plan to implement those changes. My contributions were the most significant, as the first point of contact, and included design of the presentation, summaries, statistical support and analysis.
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Our first step was to critique the company’s external messages and rate their effectiveness in terms of customer satisfaction, company goals, persuasiveness and timeliness.
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A grading scale was used to rate the effectiveness of each message. The results were accumulated and detailed for our client.
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We formed recommendations on how to improve messaging based on our grading system. All potential benefits or disadvantages of these recommendations were also discussed.
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Once benefits were discussed, we presented a strategy to begin implementation of our recommendations. We also measured the effectiveness of our recommendations, to ensure client/customer satisfaction and hone our processes for future clients.
How we performed.
To execute the audit, APEX Consulting gathered a sample of forty internal and external communications generated by Delta within the past six months. In selecting the sample, the team made a calculated decision to narrowly focus on the subject of social responsibility to avoid the unhelpful, surface-level findings often precipitated by an overly broad scope. Our decision to focus on social responsibility was largely influenced by Delta’s immediate need to provide a steady flow of communications on issues stemming from the coronavirus, which is currently making a profound impact on Delta revenues and operations and completely reshaping the very way it does business.
To evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the sample, the team designed a checklist of seven ranking-type questions. The checklist gauged the effectiveness of five key categories: Communicator, Audience Analysis, Channel, Timeliness, Persuasiveness. A complete list of the eleven questions were available in our Appendix. Our consultants used this checklist to rank all forty communications on a scale of 0-5, with zero being least effective and five being most effective. The highest that a single communication could receive was a maximum of 200 out of 200 points and a minimum point of 0 out of 200 points.
While our analyses, recommendations, benefits and disadvantages are all confidential, we can confirm that Delta’s communications and messaging greatly improved over the course of pandemic. Our implementation strategy helped Delta secure its place among the most profitable airlines of 2020 and mitigate its losses for years to come.
Brokerage Certification Program
Customs brokerage is an intense, time consuming and deeply involved profession. It requires a particular depth of knowledge to be done effectively—a depth that is increasingly difficult to come across, especially considering today's occupational climate. It is often said that Expeditors' most valuable asset is its people—a fact that cannot be denied. This begs the question, why are we not capitalizing from the invaluable knowledge our people possess?
My recommendation is the immediate implementation of a brokerage certification class, housed and conducted at the new facility, for people unaffiliated with Expeditors who hope to become customs brokers. Not unlike the customs brokerage licensing training offered by Bettina, this class would take the form of a typical academic course, with an existing broker acting as professor, weekly meetings, textbook materials to cover the training and a series of assessments to gage the acumen of those enlisted.
The benefit of such a course is twofold:
Employee retention is one of the biggest challenges affecting Expeditors today. Offering a brokerage certification course gives the company immediate and direct access to an unending pool of applicants who are actively seeking a career in brokerage, with no obligation to hire if the company need does not exist.
The cyber-attack we experienced undoubtedly dealt a major blow to our revenue. The certification course offers an opportunity to redirect our focus and adapt in a way that maintains Expeditors' place as a reputable customs brokerage company, without the possibility of impacting our existing or future clients.
Certifications are typically as valuable as the market they are issued for, as well as the institution to which they are attached. Expeditors International has the luxury of being among the most renowned customs brokerage firms on the planet—this fact alone would lend credence to both the certification and the class itself. As for the market, customs brokerage is forecast to grow by 3.5% by the year 2027.¹ While this certainly means more business for Expeditors, it could also place the company in a prime position to profit from that growth in ways our competitors will not.
The suggested starting salary for a full-time instructor in the state of Georgia is $40,000²; however, Expeditors can simply hire an existing employee, though with a moderate increase, to perform most of the duties necessary. As a brief example, with a rate of only an additional $5,000 for your instructor and a price point of $120.00 per student, Expeditors could see profit from this program in as few as forty-two enrollments per calendar year.
I am available to assist in the marketing strategy for this program, should you accept my proposal. The development of the curriculum would be best suited for one of your established customs brokerage agents—Bettina Clark and Jonell Bennett are two of my personal recommendations, as both have performed exceptionally in their training of new hires thus far.
Thank you for your time and attention.