Etihad Airways Assessment - Case Study Example

Executive Summary Etihad Airways which performs in the airline industry has been able to ensure that they look towards customer satisfaction as it is the core constituent in service industry. The ability of the airlines to identify the guest and have strategies and plans that will help Etihad Airways to ensure maximum customer satisfaction has helped to ensure maximum satisfaction. Etihad Airways has also looked towards devising a mechanism which will help to measure customer satisfactions so that appropriate steps can be taken at the correct time which will help to ensure changes in the way customers are provided services. Etihad Airways has also looked towards ensuring that they work on the different aspect of customer satisfaction which has helped the business to grow. Etihad Airways has thereby been able to ensure that they are able to grow by providing quality service which has helped to improve the brand image and develop their business which helps to ensure maximum customer satisfaction. Table of Contents Introduction 3 Customer Service 3 Reasons for having guest 4 Ways to identify customers 5 Rights of Guest 6 Commitment towards Guest 7 Responsibility to ensure customer satisfaction 7 Customer Services at Etihad Airways 9 Standards to measure customer service standards 10 Monitoring of services at Etihad Airways 11 Conclusion 12 References 14 Introduction Customer Service is an important aspect for every business especially due to growing competition, the onus is on organization to ensure that they provide quality service to be able to keep customers loyal towards the organization. Organization all around the world look to ensure effective services and the importance multiples for organization working in the service industry like the Etihad Airways. Etihad Airways which looks towards providing transport facility has to ensure that they provide quality services to its customers so that they remain loyal. This report looks into the customer service at Etihad Airways by presenting the commitment, right and importance of guest. The report also presents the manner in which Etihad Airways looks towards having a standard to measure the performance of customer satisfaction and looking towards having a proper monitoring mechanism which will help Etihad Airways to improve its services towards the customers. Customer Service Customer Service is a strategy which businesses adopt to build long term relationship with their customers and guest so that they can ensure loyalty and trust from the guest and customers towards purchasing the same product or services again and again. Loyalty here refers to identifying a mechanism which will make the customer purchase the same product or services thereby increasing the switching cost towards other products or services. This is depicted through the following chart In this process businesses look towards finding customers and retaining them for long term business relations. Etihad Airways on this front has looked towards identifying the mechanism which will help them to identify their guest or customers and ensure that a model is in place which will help them retain customers for future purchases. Reasons for having guest Etihad Airways has looked towards having guest because it has helped them to grow the volume of business and ensure that they have a system in place which maximizes the efficiency that the airlines receive through it. The various reasons which has led Etihad Airways to have guest are as follows It helps the business to ensure that they have a regular supply of customers whom the business can cater to so that they are able to ensure a source of revenue for the business (Advantages, 2011) It helps to improve the control as businesses are able to ensure a mechanism which will help them to understand the forecast for the future and based on it estimate the resources that will help them to fulfill the requirements (Advantages, 2011) It helps to build long term relationship with the customers based on which Etihad Airways can look towards finding out the prospective customer based on the data base and then directing their efforts in that direction (Advantages, 2011). This will ensure better relationship and developing services according to the market requirements Thus, businesses look towards having customers or guest so that they are able to direct their efforts in that direction. This will ensure better coordination between the different departments and ensures that Etihad Airways is able to provide quality service to its customers. Ways to identify guest Etihad Airways looks to tap all segments of customers. Etihad Airways has always looked towards providing quality services to all its customers and has ensured that they have different rates and packages based on the need of individuals. Etihad Airways has looked towards developing their network over the entire country so that people looking towards communicating with others can avail their services (Fletcher & Crawford, 2011) Etihad Airways thus looks to aim people in the business community as they have special offers and rates considering the business class. Similarly they have various options available for households and younger generations. Also looking at different factors likes geographic, demographic, social economic status and psychographic has helped the airlines to ensure that they are able to identify their guest correctly. Rights of Guest The guest or customers approaching the organizations has various rights and looks towards ensuring that his rights are achieved. This helps to ensure customer loyalty and meeting the right of the guest ensures better opportunity of retaining the customer and enhancing his experience. Some of the rights of the guest or customer are as follows Getting proper service from the customer which the organization promises the guest when they enter into a contract. A guest engaging into a business with the business enters into a legal binding where the business looks to satisfy the customer and enhances his experience by providing quality services so that the customer is able to able to ensure that he has been with an experience he is looking for Guest or customer has the right to raise their voice when they find that the promise made by the organization hasn’t been met. This creates circumstances where the rights of the customer has been breached and provides a right to the customer to raise his voice against it so that proper justice can be provided to the customers. Commitment towards Guest Businesses that look towards ensuring maximum customer satisfaction and look towards having customers for longer period of time has to ensure that they commit towards the customers and look to satisfy the customer by having services that matches the requirements of the customers. Some of the commitments that businesses have towards their customer or guest are as follows Etihad Airways has to ensure that they are able to provide quality service so that the perception of customer satisfaction matches with actually what they receive. The airlines has to ensure that they provide quality service so that customers are satisfied and ensuring that the service matches to the desired level will make the customer satisfied and will thereby ensure effectiveness in service. Etihad Airways needs to ensure that they listen to the problems faced by the customer and based on it draft a strategy which will help to reduce the problems faced by them. While looking to draft a strategy which helps to deal with these matter businesses need to ensure that they are able to identify a strategy which helps to solve the problem in the most effective way and provides the required solution in the quickest possible way. Responsibility to ensure customer satisfaction Etihad Airways looking to provide quality service has certain responsibility towards the customer and need to take steps so that they are able to justify the services provided to them. Etihad Airways has to look towards ensuring that they deliver services in a manner that helps to enhance customer satisfaction and helps the business to ensure maximum efficiency. Some of the responsibility of Etihad Airways to ensure customer satisfaction is as follows To ensure quality service by reducing the harassment and time taken for passengers to board the flight and ensuring maximum customer satisfaction by having proper services delivered to the customers. To have proper feedback procedure and development of customer service centre so that the customer feedback response time reduces and the customer is provided with the correct information. It has also been identified that businesses in this direction have taken steps and reduced the response time to 24 hours as seen from the drastic changes which has come down to 33% in 2008 as compared to 63% in 2002 (David, 2008). To have the best manpower and look towards having the best in house staff so that Etihad Airways is able to ensure maximum customer satisfaction and developing a mechanism which will help to ensure maximum efficiency in delivering services to its customers. To collect, organize and analyze the data pertaining to customers so that a system can be developed which will help to find loyal customers so that special package and incentives can be decided for the frequent fliers (Krishna, 2010). This will help to ensure better efficiency as it will help to monitor the sales, human resource, production and other functions towards the development of the business. Customer Services at Etihad Airways Etihad Airways has looked towards developing mechanism which will help to provide customers with the required services so that their satisfaction can be enhanced. Etihad Airways looks towards having a model where they look towards providing the customers a method which will ensure maximum customer satisfaction. Etihad Airways looks towards enhancing the customer services through the following ways Etihad Airways has looked towards developing its services by having better coverage at different destinations, developing the infrastructure, improving the delivery time for freights, cost effective package and overall development of the business towards customer satisfaction (Gamble & Stone, 2006) Improving the coverage by having more fleet of aircrafts that looks to connect the different destinations where the flight is presently inoperative which will thereby help to get a new market to cater to Improving the in house facilities by having more employees that look towards providing quality services that will help to develop the business and ensure maximum customer satisfaction. On the promotional aspect the airlines need to develop more cost effective packages which are comfortable at the same time within the budget of the individual. For this Etihad Airways has looked towards differentiating between the customers and design packages which is more lucrative. On this front Etihad Airways can look towards entering into contracts with fuel companies so that the fluctuations in the prices of oil are checked and the airline is able to provide quality service at the same price. This will ensure maximum efficiency and will ensure that Etihad Airways is able to achieve its objectives (Medalla, 2005) Standards to measure customer service standards Etihad Airways need to identify the appropriate standards that the organization will use towards the measurement of customer satisfaction (Anderson & Narasimhan, 2009). Identifying the correct strategy will help the airlines to ensure that they are able to provide correct guidance and information to the marketing team. This will help the airlines to ensure correctness and efficiency towards the accomplishment of customer satisfaction. Organizations need to identify different methods which can be used to evaluate the performance of an organization. Performance evaluation is done as it helps to improve the efficiency of the organization. Etihad Airways has thereby looked towards using different tools so that the services being provided can be measured and steps taken to further improve those. Etihad Airways has looked to draft a process that looks to measure the performance and evaluate customer satisfaction based on certain parameters so that the business can look towards providing services by measuring the actual with the deviations. Etihad Airways has stated the standards that the employees need to address at. For this Etihad Airways has looked towards ensuring that they develop parameters which will help the business to ensure regular check and ability of the business to ensure proper changes so that they are able to provide the required services to the customer and enhance their experience. Monitoring of services at Etihad Airways Etihad Airways have to ensure that they use different tools and techniques to monitor and evaluate customer satisfaction so that the performance can be directed in a way that helps to achieve maximum efficiency (Dane, Gray & Woodworth, 2009). Etihad Airways has looked towards monitoring the services being provided to the customers through various ways so that customer satisfaction gets enhanced and the organization is able to get maximum benefit. One study presents the fact that using effective video surveillance helps to ensure that the performance of the employees and others are monitored (Karimaa, 2003). This method of monitoring the services being rendered to the customer will help to find the employees that have miscommunicated with the customers and didn’t fulfill the role and responsibility assigned to them. This method has its relevance as it helps to identify the error and the person making the error. This thereby helps to bring about a change in the way the organization will perform and helps to fix responsibility on the required person. The value of the above method increases if balance score card is used along. Balance Score Card helps to evaluate the performance based on certain criteria and helps to identify the deviations (Lupi, Verzola, Carandina, Salani, Antonioli & Gregorio, 2011). Having a balance score card ensures that the performance is evaluated based on different parameters. This helps the organization to ensure that the area which needs to be worked upon is brought forward. This provides the management with the required information that will help them to improve the performance and ensure that they are able to deliver better results. A finding in a similar direction brings forward the fact that organization using different methods of performance evaluation needs to ensure that that the method provides the organization transparency and accountability (Garcia, 2008). This is a core constituent of any monitoring evaluation method and if the organization is able to ensure that roles and accountability are fixed on individuals it ensures transparency. Accountability and transparency was realized to a large extent while using video surveillance in Etihad Airways as it ensured that the organization was able to identify individuals and that could help the organization in their future endeavors. Another finding in the direction of monitoring customer satisfaction stresses on the fact that having regulatory inspections, public surveys, third party assessment and using indicators which helps to gauge the performance ensures better results (Shaw, 2003). This is because of the fact that having different tools ensure that the organization is able to work on different aspect of performance. This thereby helps to ensure that the performance is evaluated through a wide variety of tools which helps to improve the efficiency of the system and ensures best results for the organizations. Conclusion Etihad Airways has thereby been able to understand the different aspect of customer satisfaction and has looked towards developing a model which will ensure maximum customer satisfaction. Etihad Airways has worked on different areas and has drawn a strategy to measure customer satisfaction so that they have a pool of loyal customers which will ensure that the airlines is able to perform effectively and ensure better growth opportunity for the business. References Anderson, J. & Narasimhan, R. 2009. Assessing Project Implementation Risk: A Methodological Approach, Management Science. 25 (6), 512-521 Advantages, 2010, “Advantages of CRM”, crmnext.com Dane, C., Gray, C. & Woodworth, B. 2009. Factors affecting the Successful Application of PERT/CPM Systems in a Government Organization. Interfaces, 9 (5), 94-98 David, S. 2008. The real life of CRM: politics, healthcare, email and airlines. Customer Interaction Solutions Etihad Airways. 2011. Etihad Airways. Retrieved on November 30, 2011 from http://www.etihadairways.com/sites/etihad/Pages/GatewayPage.aspx Fletcher, R. and Crawford, H. 2011, International Marketing: An Asia-Pacific Perspective, Pearson Australia. Garcia, R. 2008. Evaluating the organizational performance and social impact of third sector organizations: a new functional realm for nonprofit marketing. Conference Working Paper, Volume III Gamble, P. & Stone, M., 2006. Up close & personal?: customer relationship marketing @ work. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Karimaa, A. 2003. Efficient Video Surveillance: Performance Evaluation in Distributed Video Survillence Systems. Turku University, Finland Krishna, R. 2010. Role of CRM in customer interaction and services, ezine articles, retrieved on November 30, 2011 from http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Rama_Krishna Lupi, S., Verzola, A., Carandina, G., Salani, M., Antonioli, P. & Gregorio, P. 2011. Multidimensional evaluation of performance with experimental application of balanced scorecard: A Two Year Experience. Cost Effective & Resource Allocation. 9 (7), 12-32 Medalla, E. 2005. Competition policy in East Asia. New York: Routledge. Shaw, C. 2003. How can performance measured & monitored? Copenhagen, WHO Regional Office for Europe Read More