Airline Service Failure: Baggage Loss

Service failure is crucial for any organization because it diminishes the trust customers have on the company. The customers subsequently reduce their favor for the company and do not tend to give their time and business to the company (Aryee et al.2016). It is better to provide quality service consistently to the customers than recovering from it. There have been incidents of service failure in the airline companies which must be addressed properly and strategically and sensitively. It is said that when a mistake has occurred in a company, a well –performed service recovery strategy might prove to be of greater help (Collier, Breazeale & White 2017). The valued relationships and the customer loyalty can be protected and retained. The present paper deals with the case study of a service failure incident in an airline. The paper further details the strategies which the company can implement for the quick recovery assist in improving the customer post purchase behavior and promote customer loyalty.

 In the globalize world which is expanding rapidly, where information can travel faster than anything, the global and cultural boundaries are getting gradually reduced. The business world faces certain service related problems and they are in need of specific service recovery strategies. In order to explore the global market, the service industries such as the airlines industry have to be able to cater the different tastes off the diverse customers because they are the major component on which a business stands (Sengupta, Balaji & Krishnan 2015). Different countries have different markets and different types of people. There airlines companies have found to be faltering in the international market. According to a latest survey based on the customer feedbacks on the service failures of airlines companies the complaints of lost baggage, delayed flights and uncomfortable airline seats are listed on top.  The customers see the loss of their baggage as a violation personal properties which infuriates them the most. There are also instances of customers facing problems related to misplacement of baggage. Since the passengers are not allowed to carry their baggage along with them on aircrafts and their luggage might contain valuable goods, money, laptop, jewelry, phone, urgent medicines, the issue of lost baggage is crucial for an airlines company. According to a case study over 26 million suitcases go missing each year in the airports. The Atlanta’s Hartsfield –Jackson International Airport case study reveals the fact that in the year 2011 almost 26 million checked luggage in international flights went astray (news.com 2018). It is the busiest international airport in the world.   Some of the suitcases are found after a long time and some are never recovered.  This luggage gets either stolen or lost the identifying tags on the way. The airlines services are found to give lesser attention to the lost luggage according to a baggage supervisor at JKF (thenationonlineng.net 2018).  The record of baggage handling in some of the largest foreign airports of the world has been found to have an increased number of mishandled bags. The more the passengers increase in number, the more the bags go missing.  The airline trade group IATA has become aware of this serious concern and trying to reduce the rates up to 20% per year (futuretravelexperience.com 2018). It has also been found that in Athens, there are extensive number of bags going missing in the connecting flights. Another problem causing the baggage lost issue is the delay in bringing the bags from the conveyor belts after the flight landed.

Solutions for Baggage Loss Issue

 The problem of baggage being lost in the airlines can be resolved by following some steps.  It is recommended that the airlines should immediately implement tracking devices to track every single bag in the journey.  The number of mishandling systems can be reduced by the application of more comprehensive tracking system. This system will enable the airlines to rise in greater level of customer service. The passengers will be reassured regarding where their luggage is and thy get receive the luggage on time. Not only the passengers, the staffs at the ground level will be helped as will prepare the flight fast for departure.  The overall operational efficiency of the entire system will be facilitated and improved. The baggage must be tracked while being handed over the airline by the customer, while getting loaded to the flight, at the time of delivery to the transfer zone, while being returned back to the customer.  Through this modification, the customer loyalty will come back and they will retain more in order to avail better customer service.

 The airlines must improve the service quality of their organization in order to achieve optimum customer satisfaction which is essential for any business. In this respect they can follow the service quality and customer satisfaction theories in order to measure their lacking, areas to be improved and what the customers expect from them.  The service quality is an attitude formed by a long- term, overall evaluation of the firm ‘s performance and customer satisfaction on the other hand is a transaction specific measure (Rajaguru 2016). It has been found that the two concepts are intertwined and in order to bring changes an organization first of all, find out the current situation of their operation and then work on it. They can measure their existing service quality by the help of SERVQUAL theory. It is a versatile scale designed to assess the customer perceptions on the quality of their services.  

The theory divides the idea of service quality into five parts: tangibility, reliability, responsiveness, assurance and empathy. In the present context of this report, the airlines first focus on their physical facilities, staffs and equipment. They must assess what type of facilities and staff service they are providing that fails to preserve the customer and baggage data properly.  Then they must judge the ability if their workforce and equipment to perform accurately and trustworthily.  The measurement of the responsiveness of the staffs to help the customers will reveal how much assurance they can give the customers. The sensitivity and caring attitude towards customer issues and enquiries will determine their areas of modification and enable them to work efficiently (Prince & Simon 2014). These five dimensions can be measured by the customer feedbacks because they are the actual people who can find out the right points. The organization can also get their perspectives by conducting customer focus group interviews measuring the employee behavior, attitudes and morale.

Measuring Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction

Having noted the customer feedbacks, the airlines must develop service recovery management by identifying the root cause of the failure in service. The root cause behind the failure, in this case the baggage lost issue the responsible personnel must be identified first.  The stability of the issue also needs to be recognized so that they can understand whether it is a onetime issue or likely to occur again.  Then the organization must select the suitable customer service recovery strategy from the compensatory strategies, restoration strategies, apologetic strategies, reimbursement strategies, unresponsive strategies and others (Hoffman, Kelley & Rotalsky 2015).  The major eight components must be addressed by the airlines such as – acting quickly to apologize for the service failure, providing adequate explanations, treating the passengers fairly, cultivation of strong relationship with the passengers, learning from the past recovery experience, leaning from the passengers who have suffered from the loss, tracking the complaints and others.

 The service recovery has been found to be a significant determinant of the passenger loyalty and satisfaction.  The three major ways to recover the service failure in the airlines industry are by apologizing, assisting and compensating the loss. The apology can be in verbal or non-verbal form. The customers must be consoled nicely and tactically by the staffs and assured that their situation will be considered soon and the loss will be recovered fast. The behavior of the staffs can leave an effect on the psychology of the customer.  The next is assistance. Assisting the customers in finding their luggage also helps to retain the customers.  The modern technologies are suggested to be used by the airlines in order to enhance the operational efficiency (Migacz,  Zou & Petrick 2018).  The most frequent form of service recovery strategy is compensating the loss as soon as possible. The compensation can be in financial form.  Another form of compensation are vouchers, free gifts or loyalty miles.  As a compensation, tier upgrades can also be provided.  The most important part is to have a range of employees qualified and well trained. The training programs must include communication methods with the passengers during the flights. They should alps be trained regarding what kind of service they can provide so that the negative effects are completely reduced.

The employee motivation is also equally related with maintaining the quality of the service and service failure. The less motivated employees can cause higher rates of service failure. Therefore, this aspect must be observed by the airlines organization and addressed in the best possible manner. Training them and caring for them and treating them correctly can enhance the employee motivation (Dhar 2015).

Conclusion 

Therefore, from the above discussion it can be said that service recovery strategies are important in retaining the company reputation, customer loyalty and satisfaction. The baggage lost issue in the airlines is an instance of service failure. It causes high passenger dissatisfaction, fraud, theft of the valuable objects and declines the reputation of the customer service of the organization.  However, there are strategies by which the organizations can find out faults in their existing service quality and make suitable changes where necessary. The organizations can follow the SERVQUAL theory and retain their customers with the perfect service recovery strategies.

References

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thenationonlineng.net (2018). Over 17,000 luggage delayed, missing on international flights – The Nation Nigeria. [online] The Nation Nigeria. Available at: https://thenationonlineng.net/over-17000-luggage-delayed-missing-on-international-flights/ [Accessed 6 Oct. 2018].