Tiger Airways Complaint Handling - Case Study Example

COMPLAINT HANDLING NAME: TUTOR: COURSE: DATE: Tiger Airways is one of the leading airlines in Asia that was founded on late July 2013. It operates majorly in Australia and hence being well known throughout the country. It has made travelling easy such that customers connect flights easily without having to clear with immigration or move around with their luggage. The main competitors of Tiger Airways are: Australian Domestic Airlines, Virgin Australia, Jetstar and Rex. John complains that he boarded a flight from Sydney to Melbourne at Tiger Airways with all his luggage intact and confirmed only to lose it upon arrival to Melbourne. The airways officials on duty confirmed his possessions and thus were responsible for the safely travel of John at Tiger airways. In reply to John’s query the manager accepts that despite the luggage having been marked for the destination John was heading to, it ended up in a different direction. Some of the factors that could have caused this are: poor social ethics within the Airways staff; disputes or poor relations between the workers of the airline could have led to them ignoring one another hence leading to this service failure. Low morale and limited feedback among staff can lead to improper communication whereby no accurate information is being communicated from one person to the other hence poor performance between staff. Poor supervision of workers or situations where errors by the employees are not reported by their counterparts if noticed at the airline could have led to negligence of duty by workers could have caused the luggage to end up being taken to a different destination; unskilled or unqualified personnel would bring in the essence of informalities and poor coordination hence service failure, lack of enough personnel to serve the duties at the airline could be a factor leading to service failure since some jobs would remain un attended to; poor management of the airline whereby the top managers have no proper quality control of services can cause poor performance of the service provider hence such a mistake and also poor working conditions that don’t favor the workers of the airline to render their services appropriately can lead to service failure. A situation where workers are being overworked and have no enough time to rest may lead to poor service delivery hence causing a service failure like in the case of John Doe. From Lazarus stress theory, different workers react differently to prolonged durations of work and hence some of them may cause a service failure (Parasuraman, Zeithaml& Berry 1985) Little or no confirmation of progress of events may cause poor performance of the airline since coordination between activities is limited and in some cases lead to a service failure. The level of technology used to process items and to coordinate events at Tiger airways is also put into question since when a luggage is directed into the wrong airplane it implies that the check points overlooked it hence causing a service failure. Customer relations at the airline should also be put to concern; given that John had submitted his details of travel then it should have been quite easy to trace his luggage to his destination. After writing to the firm, the manager in return calls John and apologizes for the errors caused to John and hence promises to help in the successful return of his luggage. He does not provide basis for incase the luggage gets lost but instead gives John an incentive to lure him back to the services of Tiger Airways through the promise of a ten percent discount on his travels with the airline. From deontology, it is perceived that upholding ones expectations in the society or to another individual is what which is accepted by the public and which is considered ethically correct(Greenberg 1987)John suffers from the actions of the airline management because they don’t do what is expected of them hence service failure. If the staff adhered to deontology then they would have made consistent decisions based on their duties. According to utilitarianism decisions that serve the best interests of many are best considered for use and are supposed to be the most ethical decisions (Konow 2003) In our case, the airline management promises to deliver John’s luggage and also, as a form of compensation to time wasted or as way of showing intention of good will, the manager offers him a ten percent discount should he use the airline again. The manager believes that if he offers John an incentive, there is a higher chance of retaining his customer than when he helps him recover the luggage only. This decision serves to the best interest of the firm and also to a positive change in the attitude of John towards the airline. The only limitation to this action is that the manager cannot tell whether his offer is good enough to convince John to consider using Tiger Airways services in future, also comparing the benefit of the airline in terms of profit gained if John uses their services again to the level of satisfaction gained from the incentive offered might be quite difficult to predict the outcome. If the luggage gets lost then the talks and agreements made before that moment become null and void since the offer does not work to the interests of John at that moment. According to the rule of rights, it is accepted by the society that every person or group have the right to own property hence they have the rights to their property (Welsh 2004) John’s rights to his luggage are relieved of him when his luggage gets lost under the care of the airline. He trusts the airline with his luggage and believes that it will be handed over to him upon arrival to Melbourne. The luggage ends ups getting lost under the care and possession of Tiger Airways. This again is a breach of trust between the service provider and the client and also the airline deprives John of the right to his own luggage by losing track of it. However, to serve justice, the airline accept their mistakes and promise to help him to recover his lost possessions. The only problem or possibility of getting short changed is that in the reply the manager does not give John the way in which the luggage will be refunded in the event that it gets lost. The virtue theory is concerned with judging an individual according to their attributes rather than the decisions and actions they make (Welsh 2004) If John had previously lost luggage through Tiger Airways then the managers reply to his query would be of a lesser impact than if this was the first time. The manager might be an efficient runner of the airline and this being the first blame the error on a slight and correctible mistake but then, would it have been a repeat then the manager would have been a poor runner of the airline. The limitation of this view, is that it overlooks the fact that there might have been changes between a previous situation and a current situation and hence blemish may be inflicted when undeserved. The manager’s use of incentives shows that he values his clients and has no intend of losing them. It also implies that that it is not within him that an intention of losing Johns luggage was routed but an error in the airlines system or organization that brought about this kind of a situation. In conclusion, it is evident that there are numeral causes of John losing his luggage which involve: negligence by airline staff, poor staff supervision, poor working conditions, unskilled or unqualified airline working staff, poor customer relations between airline staff and clients, lack of information control within the airline working environment, overworked personnel and low personnel morale. Even so, the manager’s response to the problem shows that the airline admits their mistake and that they value their customers greatly. It enhances a good rapport between the service provider and the client and also poses an intention of good will towards the client and hopes of serving the client better in future remain bright. Therefore, the risk of losing a client is lessened. To reduce service failure, service providers should ensure that there is proper working conditions for their workers so that they can offer the best they can give. They should also enhance team building within their organizations so that there is good working ethics between workers and hence more production by the firms. They should also introduce adequate labor to service their firms so that service delivery is efficient. Service providers should also introduce quality control into their operations so that the quality of output is relative to what they have promised to their clients and that they may remain competitive in the market. They should also provide room for feedback by their clients. This helps them give an insight into the clients’ view of their operations and give them a base on how to make reforms that work towards making their services better. They should review the qualifications of their working staff in reference to the area of operation one is appointed to work in so that there is efficient delivery of service appropriately. Service providers should also put much consideration into the complaints they get from their clients, since complaints are a form of direct addressed to overlooked errors and the service provider is able to adjust appropriately to the problems addressed. APPENDIX RE: LOST LUGGAGE AFTER FLIGHT Dear Sir/Madam, I travelled from Sydney to Melbourne on flight ZE 234 on 24th of October this year. I have to say I was demoralized by the level of efficiency at your airline environments. Even after spending much time on the luggage registration queue, the speed of operation was quite slow at most check points. I had with me my luggage that was set to be checked and transported to Melbourne, my destination, with tag RS45632 but on reaching Melbourne, it was not available at the luggage section. The staff present to sort out this kind of situations promised to make a follow up but until to date no viable information has been communicated to me. Furthermore, they keep on postponing my queries from time to time. I have called your airline customer care line but nothing still seems to be happening. I am deeply setback by how poor your services are being rendered and yet your airlines are one of the best we have in the country. I hope that my luggage will soon be found and should it go missing for the next two weeks I feel I should be compensated somehow. I can be reached via my email sample@lettercom Sincerely, John Doe RE: REPLY TO QUERY MADE ON MISSING LUGGAGE Dear John, It must have been upsetting to lose your luggage as you were travelling via our airlines. Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience caused in your travel that day. I also should like to thank you for the sincerity in your letter and to promise you that the issues you pointed out are currently being ironed out wherever noted. On enquiry about your luggage, I found out that it was boarded onto the wrong aero plane and after further arrangements it is currently on its way to Melbourne. You can pick it anytime as from 30th October. Am truly sorry for such inconvenience and if you happen to travel with us again remind us to give you a 10% discount on your travel costs. With regards, Manager. Tiger Airways Limited. REFERENCES Berry, L. L., &Parasuraman, A. (2004). Marketing services: Competing through quality. Simon and Schuster. Czajkowski, K., Fitzgerald, S., Foster, I., &Kesselman, C. (2001). Grid information services for distributed resource sharing. In High Performance Distributed Computing, 2001. Proceedings. 10th IEEE International Symposium on (pp. 181-194). IEEE. Berry, L. L. (1995). Relationship marketing of services—growing interest, emerging perspectives. Journal of the Academy of marketing science, 23(4), 236-245. Keaveney, S. M. (1995). 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