Southwest Airlines is a company with a short history that began its operations approximately in the second half of the last century. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Southwest Airlines’ fleet grew from a couple of Boeings in Texas to a dozen planes that circulate between a thousand destinations. Nowadays, Southwest Airlines has extended its services even farther – to the Caribbean region (Law, 2018). Nevertheless, even successful companies may be subjected to wide-spread issues. Poor customer service is a notorious problem that the majority of low-cost airlines encounter, as it is the easiest way to cut down expenses. This approach goes against the motto that the majority of airlines use in their campaigns – the one that states that clients’ comfort is their priority. Thus, the necessity to address this issue has grown with the rapid development of low-cost travel options.
Offered services are an essential criterion that affects how customers evaluate their satisfaction. It is a part of the profit cycle that helps airlines achieve their goals. Clients’ satisfaction increases the revenue and potentially guarantees further loyalty. In this way, airlines try to control the maximum of service activities to grow their potential profit. Nevertheless, airlines have control over a limited number of factors that influence customers, for instance, the delivery system, environment, and product quality (Law, 2018). Tangible services influence the surroundings in which passengers experience a flight. More specifically, the availability and quality of in-flight entertainment, the quality of the in-flight meal, and the amount of space for legs are direct criteria for customers to base their satisfaction or dissatisfaction levels on. Intangible custom services include the attitude and manner in which customers are treated by the personnel (Kossmann, 2016). The speed of the check-in procedure and in-flight meal delivery, the warmth with which customers are greeted, and helpfulness of the cabin crew form a passenger’s opinion of airlines’ service quality.
Tangible and intangible customer services can be controlled by airlines only to a certain degree. Even though the tangible ones may seem easier to command, intangible services also can be influenced through the system of motivation and reward, since the company’s staff is in direct contact with clients and is responsible for the hospitality sector. On the other hand, there are factors influencing customer satisfaction that are relatively out of airlines’ control. Meteorology has an impact on aircraft operations that is hard to overestimate. The effect of the weather can be minimized, generally, by predicting, but it is still one of the crucial factors in customers’ dissatisfaction (Law, 2018). Cancellations, misconnections, and delays are the first reason to cause discontent among customers and are some of the most challenging issues to predict.
In order to determine ways to improve customer satisfaction with the quality of flights, it is essential to establish an understanding of the concept. According to Kossmann (2016), service quality in aviation can be defined as “meeting customer expectation from a quality of the product or service itself” (p. 130). Some of the methods that are often used to measure service quality by airlines are post-service ratings and social media monitoring. These are effective instruments that allow estimating customer satisfaction and their opinion on the quality of in-flight services.
A comprehensive picture of customer satisfaction includes all factors that influence their opinion. In order to understand as clearly as possible the ways to deal with potential dissatisfaction, the quality of both controllable and uncontrollable service activities should be taken into consideration. Improvements can be made by taking a systematic approach to problematic aspects, which may be achieved through the quality rating that reflects the real customer’s opinion to the fullest.
References
Kossmann, M. (2016). Delivering excellent service quality in aviation: A practical guide for internal and external service providers. Taylor & Francis Group.
Law, C. C. (2018). A practical guide to airline customer service: from airline operations to passenger services. Brown Walker Press.