Assessing the Issue of Offering Services to Passengers at the Afrasian Airport - Research Paper Example

Name: Course: Institution: Professor: Date: Design thinking Introduction Customer service forms quite an integral part within any give airline company. This is an area that greatly impacts different aspects of passenger expectations in line with the levels of satisfaction that they expect from the customer service agents in the airports. This research paper tries to give a deep analysis and evaluation of how one may manage time trying to strike a balance between work and schooling in the university. Specifically the work under question relates to offering services to passengers at the airport. Most importantly focus is put upon how best the different market segments that are in existence within the sphere of customer services in the airport may be satisfied(Dall, Michael and Ada, p.36).To begin with customer service may be understood to imply to giving the customers what they want and ensuring that they are satisfied. There are certain aspects that are quite interesting in regards to offering services to customers. This is an area that gives one the opportunity to take the place of another to be specific a customer in order to know their preferences and tastes and how best to treat them. This shows that a certain degree of worth should be placed on customers and their needs should come first. Customer services aid one to develop their communication skills and know what are the best modes and methods of communication to apply in different situations(Turban and Efraim, p.90). A key perspective that is demonstrated regards to how passenger customer services within the airline company may be improved. Being a student who is working is quite challenging. This lifestyle necessitates that I plan well my time in order to ensure none of the two activities that I engage in becomes subordinate to the other. Over the years customer services for airline passengers has proved to be quite a sensitive are considering the fact that passengers anticipate quality services commensurate to their flight fees. There are a lot of benefits that are seen to accrue from a customer service agent apart from understanding the behavior of passengers and how bets they may be satisfied. These include the development of an individuals social aspects and how one can relate well with others who are entirely from different cultures and backgrounds. In this case this aspect is facilitated through having a direct as well as an indirect contact with customer passengers and in the process of offering them the airlines products and services (Dall, Michael and Ada, p.40). Another benefit relates to knowing how one can best work following policies and procedures of an organization and ensuring that the systems and processes in place work in an effective and efficient. Essentially there is creation of the path towards fostering the achievement of airline’s goals with the most basic one operating in line with looking forward for provision of quality services to retain passengers as customers. This study aims at assessing the issue of offering services to passengers at the Afrasian airport and the impact that the work has on personal life more specifically academic life. Need arises to identify service dimensions in the sector of airline passengers which is basically the root cause of the issue of balancing the process of offering services to passengers and learning in the university. The research looks at passenger expectations that form the basis of forcing one to rise up very early in the morning in order to create enough time to partly study as well as work in the course of the day. Research methods This research applies a number of techniques to obtain information regarding the situation. These techniques or rather methods include personal interviews and telephone surveys. Personal interviews basically are understood to a way through which comprehensive and in depth information may be obtained. In this case different individuals being interviewed have responded differently to questions on a questionnaire. They include both family members and friends. Telephone surveys have indicated to be quite first and reliable method of carrying out the research. It has made it possible to gather information from many respondents from different parts and regions. It involved the use of script written in the same way as a questionnaire. This technique has aided in obtaining information from people who take flights to places more often and live at far distances. This resulted to obtaining quite viable and reliable information due to the fact that it came from people who have had experiences with how services are offered at the airports. From the research methods applied they showed that there is a wide range of passenger expectations as far as their services are concerned. This is regardless of whether the services are being offered by a part time customer service agent or a full time customer service agent. The quality of services expected relates t6o the dimensions of assurance, reliability, flight patterns, responsiveness as well as customization. Primarily data was collected from individual who have had experiences in their life time studying and working at the same time. Different analysis indicate that an individual’s perception of their set goals and objectives in life is what drives one do what they do in a committed manner. Customer services for passengers in the airport have been reflected to be an area that necessitates individuals offering services to have full connection with their work. This means that they have to own their work and do it well as if it were their own. They need not do it inappropriately due to the fact that they are attending to people from different backgrounds and cultures and people who uphold different values (Dall, Michael and Ada, p.44). It has been demonstrated that as customer’s service provider to flight passenger they should keep into consideration certain social aspects and understand that they are prone to meet people from different backgrounds characterized with diversity in their values, languages, customs and behaviors which ultimately impact their behavior. Therefore the findings from the research shows that providing services to passengers is an area that needs one to be prepared to handle individuals from all backgrounds and be ready to anticipate different reactions from passengers. Problem Presentation and how the solutions emerged Having worked in the airline industry for some time now, it has become a major problem to manage between my studies and work. However, as the world is dynamic and every now and then new technology keeps cropping up and to cope with the ever increasing competition in the job industry it become imperative for me to go back to school to further my studies and enhance my knowledge. However it has not been a smooth progress for me in my endeavors to pursue knowledge. It has been faced with a lot of challenges especially in the airline industry where I work. In the recent past there has been a lot of competition between the different players in the airline industry. Due to this, major managerial changes have occurred in the company making it difficult to study. Different strategic policy measures have been put in place to address this so called legendry poor customer service menace. The managementargues that the work of any business happens at the point of customer service. As my boss expressively asserts, “The work of any business happens at the point of customer contact. It does not happen in executive offices or board rooms.” This has led to my boss being all over the place and therefore making it almost impossible for me even to look at my books. The company argues that the employees and their customers are the two groups of people who know exactly how your company does business. To this extend its eventually argued that as a company leader you will never know this by reading reports but by getting this information through experiencing it(Turban and Efraim, p.89). There is no substitute for direct customer contact. Due to this, the manager is always in the passenger waiting bay which is my direct working space and hence keeps checking on what am doing thus cannot even be engaged in my business. Another policy that has directly affected my daily work-class interrelation is the policy of getting customers involved in creation of customer service standards. This is one of the factors that has consumed much of my time. Since it is believed that no one knows more about the customer than the customer himself, we are pushed to get them involved.This does not entail lengthy surveys or phone calls by consultants but by talking to them like real people. I under take field assignments’ whereby I get in touch with customers and buy them coffee or lunch and engage them in a conversation. If you want your customers to be honest with you, start by being authentic with them. Too many companies disregard and disrespect their customers. They think all the answers reside at the corporate headquarters. That arrogance will ruin a company. Therefore we talk to the people who know if which it’s the customer. Because of this I spent so much time in the field talking to our clients. By the time am back from work am very tired and can’t even have some time to engage in my course work. Fortunately or unfortunately as company policy of involving employees in planning and implementing customer service standards am therefore involved this move. Since as the employee of the company day after day I see, hear and feel how things work. I know what works and what does not. I see how the business is changing at the point of service, which is where the company produces its revenue. Everything in the company should support what happens at the point of service. Anything that does not support a successful point of service needs to be questioned (and, probably, eliminated). Eventually as I went on with my work I had to really find a solution to this blow that I was facing. One day as I underwent on with my normal business in the customer care desk, what I had been really looking for it eventually clicked on me. This was the one time solution I was looking for. The system of my normal operations in the company had to change for me to manage my work and the same time my eventual course work at the university. This didn’t mean abandoning my work at the airport or even resigning. It simply meant I get a third party who would be groomed so well to meet the criteria of kind of work I engage in. Firstly, I had to deal with the menace of field work duties. The magic was easy. I would send this person to engage in lengthy conversations with the customers in the name of accompany employee. However, this person had to be able to be trusted, intelligent, fluent and a person of charisma. I went on to draft a working schedule for this person which he would follow in undertaking my duties for him. Also to ensure objectivity, I had to define very clearly what answers I expected, therefore drafted a number of questionnaires templates which would guide him in the field when collecting data. This gave him an idea on what type of conversations he should engage in with the customers’ ensure ring he does not go overboard or engage in an necessary conversations. At the same time, personally I would rush to the library and engage in my course work. This meant that sign in more fieldwork assignments in order for me to have adequate time to engage in my course work. Another solution I took was to influence my fellow employees to put pressure on the company management to be involvement in the companies’ customer relation affairs. Our argument was that all levels of management should be exposed to customers. And here I’m not just talking about focus groups or round-tables. Members of management need to take the initiative and do the work of their employees once in a while. This was our argument. This would eventually ease the work of the employees and in the process would tactfully find some time to engage in my class work. In conclusion assessing the success of my strategies rationally amounted to great success. My plan just worked well. It was a win- win situation for me and for the company itself. Here is a situation whereby the company benefitted by increased customer loyalty due to increased customer engagement through the massive campaigns we engaged in and ultimately the involvement of the management in running the affairs of the company. I can now conclusively expressively argue that my solution worked for me although I had to incur some financial expenditure but it worked for me. Work cited Dall, Michael and Ada B. Service this: Winning the war against customer disservice. New York: Macmillan, 2004, print. Turban, K. and Efraim. A. Managerial Perspective. London: Prentice Hall, 2002, Print. Read More