Establishing customer need in Virgin Trains

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E2 - Establishing customer need

A consumer requires goods and services of all types for personal as well as household usage. Sometimes referred to as customers, each consumer is something of an enigma to marketers. How does he or she perceive products, brands, stores or even entire organisations? How are individuals product choice made? Is customer loyalty attainable? A trend of consumer behaviour has emerged in recent years to help Virgin Trains better understand critically important issues such as these.

Targeting

Virgin Train 1st Class traveller can be divided into two different segments. These segments are made up of business clients and consumers from social classes A, B and C1. Keynotes (2002), state that the average number of trips per week on national rail for social class A-C1 is considerably higher than that of social classes D & E. Also, the age groups that use the national rail most frequently are 20-34, which are those from an employed status.

However, Virgin Trains have decided to target the first class business traveller. Tapp (2000, p16) states that most airlines are driven by the 80/20 rule which could also be applied to the rail sector. The