The Jetstar Group and Customer Service Issues - Research Proposal Example

The Jetstar Group and service issues Table of Content Phase Business problem and research objectives 4 Background information 4 Business problem 5 Research questions 5 Research Objectives 6 Research problems 6 Phase 2: Literature search and review 6 Literature review 6 Key findings 8 Conclusion 9 Phase 3: Primary research proposal 9 Research Objectives (Revised) 9 Approach to the problem 10 Research methodology 10 Reference 12 Bibliography 14 Phase 1: Business problem and research objectives Background information Jetstar Group is the largest low cost airline companies in Asia Pacific in terms of revenue. More than 75 million passengers have been flown away by Jetster since its launch in 2004. During the fiscal year 2010-11, the company carried near about 19 million customers who have made the company the fastest growing airline company in Asia pacific in its 7th year of business operation. Jester Group has successful to generate huge manpower base of 7000 currently across Asia Pacific which was only 400 people in 2004 at the initial phase of its business operation. This airline group offers 3000 flights per week to near about 60 destinations in 16 countries and territories across Asia Pacific by its core assets of 60 aircrafts. This airline group is recognised for value based and low fare airlines in Asia pacific and it is highly successful in a different customers segment who desire for lowest fare. Mission of the company shows its core focus on the low fares which has successfully its core competency (Jetstar, 2012). Airline industry is part of hospitality industry which is a service based industry. So, for a service company, quality is the most important factor and the company needs to have best focus on quality of the services which only results customer satisfaction. Satisfaction is the parameter to measure the quality and broadly worth of an airline service provided by a service company like Jetstar. Gerally low fare airlines provide comparably lower quality of services to the customers. It is a very common customer psyche is that low price means low quality. Therefore, despite of tremendous growth of Jetstar airlines, it low fare service recognition might have decreased its brand value with respect to quality of service which results number of service issues from the customers. Business problem Different service issues are common for the service industries especially for airlines industry as it is a part of hospitality industry. Service provided by the airlines companies need to be of high quality as in hospitality industry quality of service with respect to customer satisfaction needs to be the core value of business. Jetstar group has been receiving frequent customer service issues and this might be for its low fare focus where quality is automatically neglected by the staffs and employees to provide service in lowest cost. It is a common perception that airlines companies that only focus low fare service do not review the customers’ feedback or even do not bother to get customers’ response with service related issues or complaints (Steven, Dong, & Smith, n.d., p.37). Therefore, this might be a major problem for Jetstar airlines as it also focus on low fare service and many customers might have unsatisfied with the service provide by the Jetstar. Different issues regarding service offered by the airlines leads to decline in existing customer base. Customer satisfaction positively influence potential customers and helps to generate new customers and this will only be possible if there is no service related issues an airline company gets. Frequent service issues or service complaints are indication of decline of quality of service. Research questions This study presents a detailed research and analysis of critical business problems of an airline company. The motivation of this study can summarized through a specific research question. What are the service issues Jetstar Group? No company disclose service issues or customers’ complaints in their official websites or annual business reports as it is negative side of a business. But, service companies try to focus on it weak areas and develop new strategies and business values. So, recent change in strategies of Jetstar group will indicate the weak areas of its business. Is low fare strategy of Jetstar Airways results several service issues? If cost of service is low then quality of service is expected to be not standard. So, from the core competency of Jetstar group i.e. low fare service might results its several service related issues. Research Objectives Main objective of this paper is to conduit a detailed research and analyse customer satisfaction level on services provided by multiple airways of Jetstar Group to assess different service issues or complaints shared by the customers of Jetstar Group. Research problems This paper presents very sensitive areas of business of Jetstar. The company does not disclose any kind of service issues or complaints from the customers. So, it is tough to get accurate and reliable information from a secondary research. Therefore, this study needs primary as well as secondary research. Primary research means the feedback from the customers of Jetrstar. But limitation of this primary research is that the sample audiences might not provide accurate information. Phase 2: Literature search and review Literature review There are empirical researches have been developed on the service quality of airline of different airline companies which has substantial effects on performance of those companies. The following review represents an overview of different proposed conceptual framework developed by many researchers. Main component of this conceptual framework is service quality (Sultan, & Simpson, 2000, p.197). Service quality of organizations in the hospitality industry is measured by the customers’ overall impression or relative superiority or inferiority of the service provided by the organizations (Bitner & Hubbert, 1994). The effectiveness and impact of service quality on company’s brand image or growth is widely discussed by the empirical researchers (Bitner & Hubbert, 1994, p.77). Parasuraman, Beryy and Zeithaml (1988) developed a model of 22 item instrument called SERVQUAL. This model can be used to assess customer perception of service quality of service companies. Service quality can be evaluated by comparing perception before getting service and feedback after enjoying the service offered by services companies. Parasuraman, Beryy and Zeithaml (1991) stated that quality of services delivered in the service companies has been recognised as the most important way of ensuring that an organization’s offerings have well positioned in target segment of customers with a distinguishable competitive offerings (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1988, p.30). Cronin and Teylor (1992) found out limitation of this model and they stated that disconfirmation paradigm cannot be evaluated statistically and they developed an alternative method SERVEPERF. As a part of hospitality industry, quality of service is very important airline industry or airlines companies. There are also several researches and findings on service quality related method and theories applied in airline industry. (Alotabi, 1992; Gordon & O’Brien, 1993; Kayabak, Kara & kacukemiroglu, 1994; Chen, 1997; Simpson & Sultan, 2000; Yeh & Chang, 2002). Most of the previous studies and researches on service quality of airline industry used SERVQUAL method to analyse service issues of airlines companies and impact of that on brand value of airline companies (Alotaibi, 1992). However, many these researchers have found that 22 parameters of this method are not appropriate to assess accurate service issues regarding quality aspect of services provided by the airlines. Service quality of airline industry is different from other service companies because risk factor is highly associated with the services they provide (Chen, 1997, p.105). There different attributes of service quality of airlines that consist of tangible and intangible attributes. These are like time management, in flight services, service frequency and risk control factors etc. Shastack (1977) argued that airline service is intangible dominant. It is totally different from a physical ownership of a tangible good or any specific services. Airlines provide a complete package of different value added services to its customers. Key findings From the empirical studies on service quality of airline industry, it can be said that perceptions of customer about airline service quality are diverse and researchers have found that a single model or theories do not fit to evaluate the service quality or service issues of a particular airline company. Therefore, if stability of different dimension services provided by the airline companies becomes weak then some modifications in service design are required. These required modifications can be evaluated only by primary research by taking random samples out of the customers. As many parameters of services are mix of both tangible and intangible, so, an application of theories or model will be less relevant than analysing primary research. Therefore, modification and adaptation of changes are required for airline companies to ret5ain the existing client base. Most of the previous studies on airline industries were concentrated on the application of theories and model but due to the intangible characteristics of most of the dimension of the airline services, those theories and models are not much effective to evaluate the service qualities and service issues in airline services. Conclusion Though the theories and models are not much effective to assess service issues of airline companies but managers of different airline companies uses these theories and models and they have found these potentially great utility for evaluation of service quality to assess service issues. They examine the effect of individual dimension on different service attributes with respect to their level of satisfaction on services offered by the airline companies. The effect of individual dimension of different service attributes of airline service quality have not fully investigated. Hence, a mix of primary as well as secondary research is required to assess the quality of service and service issues of the customers. It tough to find out any previous study on airline industry where both the primary and secondary research processes is used to assess the service issues. The previous researchers only focused on the five dimensions of the SERVQUAL theory namely, responsiveness, tangible, assurance, reliability and empathy. Phase 3: Primary research proposal Research Objectives (Revised) After doing a thorough review of previous literature and studies on airline industry the objective this research needs to be revised. Now, the research objective is to find the gap between previous researches and the current applicable ways to find out service issues in airline industry. So, objective of this study is to assess quality of service with respect to service issues of Jetstar airline group through mainly primary research and also secondary research. Approach to the problem So, this study will focus on the approach i.e. most common business issues of airline companies specifically service issues of Jetstar Airways Group. The research methodology for this study on Jretstar airline should be a combination of exploratory and causal. Primary research objective is to gather information about the customers’ experience on service quality of Jetstar group. Secondary research would be the quality of service decrypted and disclosed in the company website of Jetstar group will be compared with the other low cost and premium service airline companies. Research methodology Research methodology of this research will be mix of exploratory and causal. Primary research will be conducted through questionnaire method. Stratified sample selection will be most appropriate for this primary research. For this reason, both the customers and the managers will be asked few causal and exploratory questions. Two different questionnaires will be made for mangers and customers. The managers will be asked for the quality of services they provide and expectance from the customers. The customers will be asked about their level of satisfaction from the services provided by the Jetstar airline group. By stratified sample selection, errors can be minimized. Findings of primary research will be evaluated through quantitative method followed by qualitative method. As different customers have different views of their won expectation from the service, so, their feedbacks about quality of services might not be similar. So, quality of services needs to be evaluated by comparing the customers’ expectation and before getting service and experience after enjoying the services. The gap become negative then issues on services can be assessed. Reference Alotaibi, K.F. (1992). An empirical investigation of passenger diversity, airline service quality, and passenger satisfaction. Arizona State University, AZ. Andreassen, T.W., & Lindestad, B. (1998). Customer loyalty and complex services: The impact of corporate image on quality, customer satisfaction and loyalty for customers with varying degrees of service expertise. International Journal of Service Industry Management, 9(1), 7-23. Bitner, M.J., & Hubbert, A.R. (1994). Service quality: New directions in theory and practice. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. Chen, K.J. (1997). Consumer tolerance zone: Implications on Philippine Airlines domestic service delivery. Journal of Global Marketing, 11(2), 93-105. Jetstar. (2012). Facts & Stats. [Online]. Available at: http://www.jetstar.com/mediacentre/facts-and-stats/jetstar-group. [Accessed on 22 August, 2012]. Kaynak, E., Kucukemiroglu, O., & Kara. A. (1994). Consumers’ perceptions of airlines: A correspondence analysis approach in a global airline industry. Management International Review, 34, 235-254 Ostrowski, P.L., O’Brien T.V., & Gordon G.L. (1993). Service quality and customer loyalty in the commercial airline industry. Journal of Travel Research, 32(2), 16-24. Parasuraman, A., Zeithaml, V.A., & Berry, L.L. (1988). SERVQUAL: A multiple-item scale for measuring customer perceptions of service quality. Journal of Retailing, 64(1), 12-40. Steven, A.B., Dong, Y. & Smith, R.H. (No date). Linkages between customer service, customer satisfaction and performance in the airline industry: Investigation of non-linearities and moderating effects. [Pdf]. Available at: http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/faculty/phd/asteven/Projectpage/Linkages%20between%20customer%20service%20satisfaction%20performance%20in%20airline%20industry.pdf. [Accessed on 22 August, 2012]. Sultan, F., & Simpson, M.C. (2000). International service variants: Airline passenger expectations and perceptions of service quality. Journal of Services Marketing, 14(3), 188-216. Bibliography Cronin, J.J., & Taylor, S.A. (1992). Measuring service quality: A reexamination and extension. Journal of Marketing, 56(3), 55-68. DontFlyJetstar. (2012). Latest Jetstar complaints. [Online]. Available at: http://www.dontflyjetstar.com/. [Accessed on 22 August, 2012]. Hoyle, R.H. (1995). Structural Equation Modelling: Concepts, issues, and applicat ions. Thousand Oaks, Cal ifornia: Sage Publications. Keller, K. (1993). Conceptualizing, measuring, and managing customer based equity. Journal of Marketing, 1(1), 1-22. Tsaur, S.H., Chang T.Y., & Yen, C.H. (2002). The evaluation of airline service quality by fuzzy MCDM. Tourism Management, 23, 107-115. Read More