Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty in Airline Industry - Example

Name: Tutor: Course: Date: An Empirical Investigation of the Determinants of Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty in Airline Industry Customer satisfaction and loyalty are important aspects for any business to succeed. The most important competitive advantages for airline industry include service value, trust, loyalty, and the passengers’ satisfaction. In today’s competitive world creating a superior customer loyalty is necessary in protecting a company’s market niche (McKean 239). When customers are able to have loyal relationship with an airline’s products and service is quite beneficial to any airline industry. One of the main challenges facing airline industry today is the increased competition and the continuous increase in customer expectation (Hayes & Miller 179). As service improves customers’ demands are more to an extent that requires organizations to apply new strategies for customer satisfaction that would make them to be market leaders. One of the strategies used by airlines is quality management. Service quality is a major differentiation tool that is used by many organizations with an aim of enjoying competitive advantage over other organizations. Service industries such as airlines are associated with their ability to offer superior service to passengers (Carman 34). To offer superior service by establishing high quality is a recipe for business growth and success. Leading airlines enhance superior quality service so as to gain customer loyalty since the success of any service organization is determined by the ability to acquire and maintain a large and loyal customer base. Loyal customers will always come back after they are offered exceptional service. Passengers in the airline industry look forward to the airline’s commitment to provide superior service consistently. Airlines should strive to satisfy their customers’ present needs and anticipate future needs so as to enhance a strong relationship (Gilmore 278). Customer’s loyalty to an organization is never permanent and may fade away with time or may be shifted to another airline that tends to offer better services. Airlines, being service oriented should focus to satisfy customer needs in order to ensure their economic survival in the competitive airline industry. To achieve the objective of quality service delivery service providers should understand in details how their customers evaluate and value the services offered to them. It is also important to know the reasons why passengers would prefer one airline over another. Generally, when customers are exposed to a certain product, they tend to compare the quality of the services received to the expectations they had (Abdelghany & Abdelghany 4). Through extensive research based on service quality model it has been noted that customers evaluate the quality of the services received by comparing by an organization’s actual performance with their actual expectations. Service quality measures the extent to which the service offered meets the customer expectations. Some studies on service quality performed by Berry and Zeithaml suggest that service quality can be measured by use of a service quality model referred to as SERVQUAL instrument and managed using the performance gap model (Carman 35). The SERVQUAL instrument has been widely accepted as a valid method for the measurement of service quality. Servequal model showing the interdependence of service quality, trust, value, customer satisfaction, and loyalty in airline industry By offering superior quality service an airline is able to stand out from other organizations offering similar services. Further researches have indicated the relationship between delivery of quality service and its contribution to increased profits and market share. How customer perceives the quality of service offered depends on how close the real experience to the expectations that were there before the services were offered (Gilmore 286). Where the comparison is close, the customer may be deemed to be satisfied nut this may not be enough to capture customers’ confidence in an organization. Many airlines that are willing to stand the market completion work towards giving superior quality service that exceeds customer expectations by making the customer happy other than just satisfying their needs. Customers remain loyal to an airline if the quality of the service they receive is relatively higher than what is offered by other competing airlines (Doganis 197). Whereas service quality has proved to be an important aspect in convincing customers to choose one service organization over another, many organizations see the need to provide service quality consistently in order to gain meaningful customer loyalty. For an organization to survive in the competitive world, a lot of attention should be directed towards customer retention strategies. Customers look forward to personalized relationship with service providers as they also value the benefits that may arise as a result of such relationships. It has become imperative for service organizations to view the issue of quality service delivery in a long-term basis. The concept of loyalty and interdependence has become notable in many airlines that have embraced quality service delivery. Loyalty may be in form of customer loyalty towards services provided by a certain organization or brand loyalty. Studies that address loyalty in the airline industry focus more on the means of acquiring loyalty (Gilmore 283). Studies have also indicated that customer’s loyalty to a service organization can be measured with accuracy. Gremler and Brown (1996) noted that the loyalty of a customer towards the service industry such as airlines consists of three dimensions namely; behavioural loyalty, cognitive loyalty, and attitudinal loyalty. The commitment demonstrated by a service organization such as an airline could be referred to as service loyalty and includes all the activities done by an airline for the sake of developing a long- term relationship with a customer. What matters in the airline industry is not just appoint of satisfying the customer but making them happy by appreciating the exclusive services offered to them. For an organization to delight the customer throughout, a lot of service innovation is required. Service innovation includes the conversion of all the organization’s dormant assets into something that would be of value to a customer and the organization. How customers perceive exceptional service is often determined by personal interaction with the employees during service delivery. A lot of emphasis by most management literature is laid on the significance of human resource in the delivery of superior quality service in the airline industry. The human resource element in the delivery of superior service is enhanced by highly investing in service innovation. This could involve technological innovation that would result in change of service process to be more customer-oriented (Hayes & Miller 323). For any service to be considered superior quality must be observed. Many passengers in the airline industry will never want the quality of the service offered to them to be compromised since it is the core component in determining customer’s delight. To ensure that quality delivery is administered, the service mangers need to up their game to meet the clients’ expectations in the airline industry by redesigning their services. Service provision in the airline industry is designed to fulfill the customers’ personal needs where a service provider aims to establish a positive relationship with the clients. The customer’s desire to maintain a healthy relationship with the service provider is determined by the emotional connection between the two (Pride & Ferrell 441). Emotion is a vital element in the provision of service in an airline industry as it propels the customer’s perception towards quality service delivery. It is the emotional bond that is created between a customer and the service providers in an airline industry that makes a customer to repeatedly seek for services from a particular provider. Many airline companies have the capability to be at the top of the market so long as they offer quality service that would attract customers but the main challenge is to remain at the top. It therefore follows that airlines should not just focus on attracting customers but should go an extra mile to gain their loyalty as this would enhance a more stable relationship. Loyalty comes as a result of a continuous positive relationship between a client and the service provider. This is mainly determined by the organizations ability to maintain such a relationship for a long duration. Some researchers compare the relationship between a buyer and a seller to a marriage relationship as its success is determined by how both parties handle the relationship. Most relationships between organizations and their customers tend to be short-term (Belobaba, Odoni, & Barnhart 288). Being quiet aware of this, such organizations direct their efforts into attracting more new customers and hence forgetting to forge a meaningful relationship with the existing clients. This eventually leads to the dissatisfaction of the existing clients who leave in search of better services from different organizations. It is contrary to the clients’ expectations to receive mediocre service that is dissatisfying and fails to give them the real value of their money. The customers’ desire to forge a relationship with an airline industry is due to the hope that the service provided would cater for both their present and future needs. When this guaranteed, then customers become loyal to such an airline and will always be looking forward to their impeccable services. For customers to return to a specific airline, it means they trust the firm to offer quality service that would satisfy their needs and this is mostly based on prior experiences (Belobaba, Odoni, & Barnhart 302). Customers rarely want to gamble with their money and hence always prefer to seek services from organizations that they trust to provide superior quality service to cater for their needs. The human interaction between the airline’s employees and the customers reinforces the customers’ trust towards an organization. Customers also tend to be loyal to organizations that trust them. The end result of such trust is that the customer continues to seek for services from such an organization and can even recommend it to other people (Doganis 124). In essence no loyalty can exist without trust from the service provider and the customers. Some studies have identified two types of relationships that exist between customers and service providers. They are defined as professional relationships and social relationships. The professional relationship depends on the ability of the service provider to demonstrate competence in service provision (Hochman 169). However, the social relationship is determined by the efficiency of the service provider in having social interactions with the customer. Many firms, especially in the airline industry, get into the business with the promise of offering quality and attractive service for the purpose of attracting and satisfying customers. Very few of them strive to maintain their promise as they shift their focus into attracting new customers other than retaining the old ones. By doing so the management of such airlines fails to acknowledge the fact that the main reason for marketing is to establish strong relationships between customers and the service providers. The ability of an organization to keep its service promise is crucial in inspiring a strong relationship between a customer and the organization (Gilmore 279). This is bound to lead to customer retention and also builds customer’s trust and loyalty towards an airline. Relationship marketing pays more attention in forming strong relationships between the clients and the service provider. It is also argued that attraction marketing focuses on attracting new customers and therefore should come second to relationship marketing. Airlines that focus too much in attracting new customers tends to forget the change in the needs and expectations of their existing customers and hence prompting their departure to other airlines. A strong relationship that is strengthened by an emotional bond with an airline staff increases the customers’ trust, that in an event that anything goes wrong, then the service provider will be there to give assistance and guidance (Beisikie 11). In many airlines a strong emotional bond is created through the interaction of the employees with the customers which also offers an effective marketing platform for an organization. In many airlines the customers exhibit more loyalty and trust to the employees who provide service than even to the airline itself (Doganis 142). Other studies have also shown that most employees in the airline are more loyal to their customers more than to their managers. According to these studies loyalty is mostly developed between employees, who are the service providers and the customers or passengers. Airline industry normally has opportunities to be creative in developing the relationships between employees and the customers. However, many airlines continue to use the traditional management methods that pay little attention to personal interaction with customers. An example is a non-personal marketing technique used in the airline industry is the ‘frequent flier’ program. In this technique customers are often not loyal to the airline but are just attracted to the material benefits that are associated with this program (Gilmore 277). This kind of relationship is somehow forced and does not guarantee a strong long-term relationship between the service provider and the customer. A customer loyalty results in a repeat purchase behavior and the willingness of a customer to air any dissatisfaction experience during the service provision. A loyal customer gives an organization time to rectify any shortcomings other than rushing to exit. Once a strong bond is created between the customer and an airline, any marketing strategies by the competing airlines are deemed less attractive by the customer due to their established loyalty to the firm. A customer who is emotionally attached to an organization may tend to be influential especially when an organization deviates in its promises or objectives. This is the importance of having efficient customers’ feedback systems as well as workable market communication channels. The service quality of an airline organization can also be determined other independent variables such as reliability, assurance, responsiveness, tangibility, and empathy. Customers will trust an airline that is reliable in the offering of services (Hochman 172). (Carman 33). For instance a reliable airline should be very strict in keeping time and should always avoid unnecessary delays that lead to passengers getting late to their destinations. Any airline that has reputation of delaying customers loses its clientele to the competitors who keep time and results in loss of business and decreased income. Responsiveness of an airline to customers’ expectations is also a major determinant of the quality of service offered by such organizations (Carman 35). Organizations that prioritize the customers’ needs and respondent immediately to customer’s request are more likely to influence customers to develop trust in such airlines. It is important for the customers to be assured that quality service will be provided by an airline. Assurance comes as a result of consistency in service delivery or by the number of return customers. The management should ensure that customers are confident that they would get real value of their money once they use their airline (Carman 36). Passengers may also be assured of their safety by social interactions with the employees. Safety assurance may also arise from the past proof of accident free airlines. The assurance of the safety culminates to customer satisfaction in travelling with a specific airline All the promises made by the airline’s marketing team should be fulfilled. The delivery of such promises should be real and tangible and not just some deceptive marketing strategies. Another dimension that is contained in the SERVEQUAL model is empathy (Carman 34). The airline employees should show some emotional attachment to the passengers. This involves paying attention to the customers’ personal feelings that lead to customers making some personal request. When the client is able to interact emotionally with the employees, trust is developed and service value is also added leading to customers being satisfied. All the dimensions of a quality service in the airline industry play a significant role in improving the service value of an organization. When an airline is reliable, assuring, and empathetic, offers tangible promises, and responds promptly to customers’ needs, it builds customer’s trust to such an airline (Hochman 166). Trusting an organization leads to a customers being satisfied and being loyal. Customer’s loyalty is an assurance of satisfaction and that customers will always be willing to use the services of a certain airline for many more times and this is a major breakthrough by an organization in customers retention. Works Cited Abdelghany, A., & Abdelghany, K. Modeling Applications in the Airline Industry. New Delhi: Ashgate Publishing, 2010. Beisikie, B. Loyalty Management in the Airline Industry. Melbourne: GRIN Verlag, 2007. Belobaba, P., Odoni, A., & Barnhart, C. The Global Airline Industry. London: John Wiley and Sons, 2009. Carman, M. Consumer perceptions of service quality: an assessment of the SERVEQUAL dimensions . Journal of Retailing. Aug 2006, 66(3) pp.33-38. Doganis, R. The airline business. Boston: Routledge, 2006. Gilmore, R. Exploring the concept of loyalty in Services. New York: AMA, 2007. Hayes. D., & Miller, A. Revenue Management in the Hospitality Industry. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2010. Hochman, L. The Relationship Revolution: Closing the Customer Promise Gap. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2010. McKean, J. Managing Customers Through Economic Cycles. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 2010. Pride, W., & Ferrell, O. Foundations of marketing. New York: Cengage Learning, 2007. Read More