Trans World Airlines Essay Example

a breakdown in the service delivery (Hoffman, Bateson, Elliot & Birch, 2010). Service failures occur during actual interaction by the customer with the organisation, at critical incidents (Hoffman et al., 2010). Through voice behaviour, J. Q. Customer outlined the service failures that he experienced in a complaint letter, which gave World Airlines the opportunity to respond, retain the customer and avoid negative word-of mouth.

Service Failure 1:

The issues arise during J. Q. Customer and his wife's first flight with World Airlines. A customer's zone of tolerance refers to the difference that exists between adequate service, the quality of service a customer is willing to accept, and the desired service, the quality that the customer wants from the service (Hoffman et al., 2010). Having booked first class tickets for this flight, J .Q. Customer's zone of tolerance would have been narrower due to the premium price, and therefore willing to accept minimal variation in the service required.

On Flight 3072, J. Q. Customer and his wife were served a seafood salad that was warm and following this, on their next flight with World Airlines, they both suffered food poisoning. The customer's wife consequently passed out and hit her head, resulting in head and back injuries. The flight attendants immediately attempted to assist, but could do nothing but aid in cleaning up (Engdahl & Hoffman, 1993). This is the first service failure that occurred, falling below the customers' expectations of an adequate service, resulting in dissatisfaction.

In order to identify the type of service failure, the incident sorting process will be used, as seen in Figure 1 below (Bitner, Booms ; Tetreault, 1990).

Source: (Bitner et al., 2007). Incident Sorting Process,

p. 76.

A service delivery system failure is one that is part of the core service provided, or an unexpected system failure (Bitner et al., 1990). Therefore as food poisoning can be considered a core service failure, following the incident sorting process, it will belong to Group 1C. In this circumstance the organisation demonstrated a lack of reliability and assurance, decreasing perceptions of service quality. The flight attendants' failure to provide sufficient medical assistance, under the total service product concept falls under supporting services as an exception, problem solving. As a service worker failure, perhaps stemming back to insufficient training from the organisation, this service failure belongs to Group 2A as a 'special' need.

Attribution theory, or attribution of blame, refers to who is blamed or at fault when something goes wrong (Robbins, Millet & Waters-Marsh, 2007; Swanson & Kelley, 2001). Attribution of blame has been correlated to a customer's propensity to complain, if blame is attributed externally, the more likely a customer is to complain. As J. Q. Customer did proceed to complain, it is clear that he attributes this service failure externally to the organisation. This can be seen as fair, as World Airlines is in control of the food they deliver, and the training they provide their staff. The customers' participation in the service delivery was minimal, and this can be said to increase dissatisfaction, as the customer has no perceived control over the situation.

This service failure could have been prevented by ensuring the food was of a high standard and kept fresh (Burslem, Kelly and Preston, 1990). Despite the occurrence of the food poisoning, and the fall, had the organisation acknowledged the problem,

provided immediate medical attention, and appropriate compensation, they may have prevented the complaint, and resulting dissatisfaction of J. Q. Customer (Bitner, et al., 1990).

Service Failure 2:

The second service failure brought up by J. Q. Customer was upon arrival at Munich, when both himself and his wife discovered that their baggage had been left in a rainstorm at Kennedy, thus ruining many items (Engdahl & Hoffman, 1993). As part of a core service failure, World Airlines again lacks reliability, failing to perform the promised service. Considering the incident sorting process, this failure falls under Group 1C, where the core service falls below basic standards for the industry (Bitner et al., 1990).

The attribution of blame would similarly fall on the organisation. This is due to the fact that it is World Airlines' responsibility to set higher standards of their service delivery workers to ensure promises are kept. Therefore the organisation is in control, and the customer would attribute the failure externally to World Airlines.

To prevent this failure, instead of allowing the customers to find out their luggage was saturated upon arrival at Munich, World Airlines could have also immediately acknowledged the problem, apologised, and offered compensation for any ruined items.

Service Failure 3:

On the customers' return flights the service quality did not improve. Flight 87 was delayed in boarding, due both to the slowness of the cleaning of the aircraft and to the late arrival of the crew. This led to further delay as a heavy rainstorm began causing the customers to miss their scheduled connection at Kennedy (Engdahl & Hoffman, 1993). Again, a part of the core service, this incident can be considered an unreasonably slow service

failure, Group 1B of the incident sorting process (Bitner et al., 1990).

Although the weather was not within the organisation's control, J. Q. Customer still attributed the failure to World Airlines, as they would not have had to wait for the storm to pass had the service workers arrived on time and had the aircraft been cleaned in time. Therefore this failure could also be classified as a service worker failure. This service failure could have been prevented by the airline, through the correct hiring, training and treatment of staff, to encourage timely behaviour.

Service Failure 4:

Even though the delay was partially due to a lengthy cleaning, aboard Flight 87 the aircraft itself was in disrepair, dirty, had peeling wall coverings and litter on the floor (Engdahl ; Hoffman, 1993). This could be considered a service worker failure, but is also predominantly a breakdown of tangibles, a service quality dimension.

The blame can be attributed both to the flight attendants who are expected to uphold the cleanliness of the airplane, as well as to management who are responsible for addressing broken or unsightly aspects of their product (Bitner et l., 1990).

It was a problem that could have easily be prevented by being aware of the physical surroundings of the airplane and communicating with management about physical damages (Bitner et al., 1990).The importance of the servicescape is paramount in communicating quality and also affects perceived value to a customer. The Gaps model establishes where service failures occur (Hoffman et al., 2010). In this circumstance, the standards gap (Gap 2) is evident, which is the difference between the quality specifications set and what management perceives that customers expect (Hoffman et

al., 2010). This service failure could have been prevented addressing the standards set by management.

Service Failure 5:

Another service failure that occurred aboard Flight 87 was the fact that it was understaffed, there were many items unavailable, beer came out warm, there were no pillows or blankets and minimal food was left over(Engdahl ; Hoffman, 1993). This is a reflection of a service worker failure, affecting the reliability and responsiveness of the service. Following the incident sorting process, the unavailable items fall under Group 1A, as an unavailable service failure. This is also a failure in keeping promises made to the customer which can destroy the long term trust of the customer (Gustafsson, 2008). This failure is also a reflection of the existence of Gap 3, the delivery gap, as there is a difference between service quality specifications (items that should be available) and the service actually delivered.

Similar to other service failures, the attribution of blame again falls externally on the service workers, and the organisation. This is due to the fact that the service employees and the standards set are in the control and influence of World Airlines.

In this circumstance demand was much greater than supply; the service workers would have experienced role stress from role overload being understaffed. This should have easily been prevented by World Airlines, as seats are pre-booked and the supply of service workers and provisions should have been easily calculable.

Service Failure 6:

Despite the delay, World Airlines failed to inform the customers about a change in flight number and time for their fourth flight from Kennedy to Charlotte. This disrupted the customers connecting flight from Charlotte to Wilmington (Engdahl ; Hoffman,

1993). Preventative actions to service failures are as important as solving them. Failure to pay attention to problems that can arise falls into Group 3 of the service incident chart.

The blame here must be attributed to the communication management who relays information directly to the customer. While the problem of departure delays is usually out of the hands of the airline, a failure to notify the customer and give them ample time to find a solution for the overlapping times is a failure of the airline (Bitner et al. 1990).

Although this flight change would have caused dissatisfaction for the customer regardless, World Airlines could have minimised their dissatisfaction levels by keeping J. Q. Customer as informed as possible. This would have increased the customers' perceived control, and would widen their zone of tolerance, which is favourable to the organisation, and assists in preventing the dissatisfaction associated with this failure.

Service Failure 7:

J. Q. Customer was advised that due to the delay in his flight, World Airlines would take care of their accommodation in Charlotte. When they arrived, the company agent refused to assist, and only after much arguing was a voucher provided (Engdahl & Hoffman, 1993). This is an example of unprompted and unsolicited staff actions by failing to provide a proper level of attention and falls into Group 3A of the incident reporting chart, a service worker failure (Bitner et al., 1990).

The service worker in Charlotte attempted to attribute blame on the customer, when the blame should really have been accepted by the company, and immediately rectified on the spot.

This service failure demonstrates an absence of empathy, assurance and responsiveness on the part of World

Airlines. It could have been prevented simply by training the staff to be aware of when service failures have occurred and should be empowered to intervene and implement service recovery promptly to solve them. (Bitner et al., 1990).

Service Failure 8:

The final complaint J. Q. Customer brought to the attention of World Airlines was the fact that some of their luggage had been lost, and when it was found, it had again been left in the rain, all the items were ruined (Engdahl & Hoffman, 1993). This is another core service failure, showing World Airlines lacking service quality dimensions of reliability and failing to perform the promised service.

Similar to the second service failure addressed, this service failure is attributed externally by the customer to the organisation, as the luggage was in the organisations control at the time of damage. The damage of the customers' belongings increases their sacrifices made during the service delivery, which has an effect on perceived value.

Perceived value can be understood as an equation of a customer's benefits received from a services and sacrifices made in obtaining the service. From an evaluation of J. Q. Customer's experience, it can be seen that their perceived value of World Airlines' service would be greatly decreased. This is due to the amount of sacrifices made including monetary, physical and emotional. J. Q. Customer had to wait a number of months for any response or recovery efforts, which will now be examined.

Service Recovery

Service recovery is defined as an organisations response to a complaint that results, or should result, in customer satisfaction (Hoffman et al., 2010). Within the case study, World Airlines responded through two separate letters to

the customer (Engdahl & Hoffman, 1993). The importance of efficient service recovery is paramount to a company's success. Complaints should be valued by organisations due to the fact that revenue would be lost through a customer's exit, the reputation of the firm can be damaged if the problem is not rectified and if complaints are not voiced, service failures cannot be prevented.

Furthermore, a strong service recovery can restore a customer to a higher state of satisfaction than was experienced prior to the service failure, defined as the recovery paradox (Hoffman et al., 2010). Customer satisfaction needs to be considered by an organisation as it has been strongly correlated with performance and profitability of an organisation (Hoffman et al., 2010; Spreng, Harrell & Mackoy, 1995). Furthermore, word-of-mouth arising from problem resolution can be a major positive or negative force for building a firm's reputation and retaining customers (Spreng et al., 1995). Therefore, there is a definite advantage for organisations which apply service recovery to the customer's satisfaction.

Perceived Justice Theory will be used in this essay to assess the airlines' recovery efforts. It is the dominant theoretical framework used for service recovery, which focuses on the process where the customer weighs the cost against the benefits when evaluating a service recovery strategy in order to determine whether it is just (Tax ; Brown, 1998). The costs include the time, energy, economic and cognitive costs.

The sum of these costs associated with service failure are then compared to the benefits the customer receives in return as part of the service recovery, which can include apologies, compensation and policies developed to prevent the same failure in the future (Hoffman et

al., 2010). A customer evaluates the fairness of service recovery from the three components of perceived justice; distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional justice. Both what is done (e.g. compensation) and how it is done (e.g. speed of recovery, employee interaction with customer) simultaneously influence a customer's perception of service recovery (Andreassen, 2000; Levesque and McDougall, 2000).

Distributive justice:

According to Voorhees and Brady (2005), distributive justice is the degree to which customers feel they have been treated fairly with respect to the final outcome of the service encounter. It focuses on the specific outcome of the airline's recovery effort. World Airlines responded in two separate letters, forcing the customers to deal with two different workers, and offered monetary compensation to the value of US$2000, and two first class airfares to anywhere in the world (Engdahl ; Hoffman, 1993). These efforts focus on the end outcome and attempt to recover J.Q. Customer and his wife's trust in World Airlines.

Although World Airline's offered sufficient compensation, their method in offering this was not satisfactory. To obtain the monetary compensation, World Airline's made use of a money draft, and made it a very difficult process for the customers to receive this. World Airline's requested that these customers have a General Release signed in front of a Notary Public, which suggests that the organisation does not trust the customers (Engdahl ; Hoffman, 1993). The method of compensation is also a component of procedural justice.

Procedural justice:

Procedural justice focuses on the overall process and procedures taken to fix the service failure, in which the service recovery decisions are made (Smith, Bolton, and Wagner, 1999). This includes the speed of recovery and this process

can have a large impact on satisfaction and customer retention. Research suggests that for the same strategy, if it is done properly can lead to a higher customer retention rates and effectiveness ratings (Smith et al., 1999).

The use of a General Release for the monetary compensation was too complicated and demanding of J. Q. Customer. After all the service failures these customers experienced, World Airlines should have made it easier for J. Q. Customer to receive the monetary compensation, such as a cheque or a transfer directly to their account. The whole recovery process was stretched out over a space of three months, and receiving the US$2000 would have taken even longer, due to the notarising.

Furthering this, the Claims Manager also requested that the customers include copies of all available travel documents, increasing the customers' efforts and sacrifices (Engdahl & Hoffman, 1993). A faster, simplified response would have indicated the true concern of the organisation, minimising the sacrifices the customers have to make yet maximising the benefits of compensation. Therefore World Airlines were not very successful at achieving procedural justice, which may contribute to a poor recovery evaluation by J. Q. Customer and his wife (Hoffman et al., 2010).

Interactional justice:

Contributing to the customers' recovery evaluation was the organisations use of interactional justice. The concept of interactional justice refers to the manner in which the service recovery process is applied and is usually associated with the effort made in resolving the problem and the willingness to fully explain as to why the service failure had to occur, while taking into consideration the courtesy and politeness of staff (Hoffman, et al 2010).

A letter of confirmation was received

from the Claims Manager following an agreement settled through a phone conversation with the customer, which is a sufficient way to show that World Airlines wanted to make sure everything agreed upon were noted (Engdahl ; Hoffman, 1993). A written statement is usually preferred to prevent any miscommunication which can further triggers problems. Despite this, the letter was very brief, and the employee only apologised briefly at the end of the letter, with a limited amount of courtesy and empathy (Engdahl ; Hoffman, 1993).

In the second letter, the World Airlines Customer Relations Manager made a brief explanation about the service failures mentioned by the customers (Engdahl ; Hoffman, 1993). This was mostly done by comparing the disparity between their service quality specifications and the actual delivery of the service. The Customer Relations Manager did make it clear to the customer how service is supposed to be delivered within the organisation, and did state that there would be a review of the standards with the responsible staff of the servicescape to minimise the gap so such problems would not occur in the future. However, this employee also made many excuses as to why the service failure occurred. For example, instead of assuming responsibility, this manager states that "only in an ideal world could we say that baggage will never again be damaged" and blames the flight delay on the weather alone (Engdahl ; Hoffman, 1993).

Although the Customer Relations Manager does explain some of the service failures, there is an evident lack of empathy from World Airlines with J. Q. Customer in this situation, as the service employee does not fully explain why each service failure occurred.

The offering of two free first class tickets seem sufficient compensation, however this would not be successful in regaining the customers' trust and satisfaction. As the Customer Relations Manager says the tickets are "tangible evidence" of World Airlines' concern, it is almost as if the employee is saying, "so as to prove we are concerned". The tone and manner the service employee utilised in the letter although was polite, though defensive and unapologetic for the most part, which counteracts their supposed concern. If World Airlines had of assumed responsibility, evoking empathy, they would have been more successful in restoring the customers' trust.

The three components of perceived justice are inter-related. Distributive justice, interactional justice and procedural justice work concurrently to invoke a sense of justice in the customer (Cropanzano & Folger, 1991). They are closely related and need to work in congruence. Compensation is important to restore customer perception, while the speed by which service failures corrected is handled through procedural justice (Blodgett, Hill & Tax, 1997; Tax & Brown, 1998). The interaction between them is very important in organisational justice. All the components need to be taken into consideration when formulating an effective recovery strategy (Wirtz & Matilda, 2004). For organisations that are committed to the recovery and retain customer, perceived justice is crucial for the service recovery process as a lack of perceived justice may lead to customer defection.

Prior to using a service, a customer experiences what is called perceived risk. Recovery efforts aim to increase trust, thus decreasing the amount of risk a consumer perceives prior to purchase, or use of service. Based on the recovery efforts by World Airlines, the perceived risk

experienced would not have been decreased. In light of having received two free first class tickets, the J. Q. Customer and his wife may not even be willing to use the tickets, due to an increased perceived risk based on the previous experience. Although the fact that the tickets are free removes much of the financial risk, the physical risk and psychological risks would be too great. Based on this analysis, J. Q. Customer and his wife would not have perceived that the recovery efforts were fair or just in light of their experience, and their trust would not have been restored.

As previously stated, the aim of service recovery is to result in customer satisfaction. From the analysis of World Airlines' efforts, it is evident that J. Q. Customer and his wife would not have been satisfied. World Airlines should have implemented more extensive staff training in the area of service recovery, empowering employees to remedy a service failure during critical incidents. Organisations in general should ensure their staff are aware of customer concerns, placing the service worker in the shoes of the customer (Hoffman et al. 2010).

Furthering this in order to address Gap 2, the standards gap, management needs to clearly define their expectations of staff towards service recovery, moving towards empowerment of staff (Hoffman et al., 2010). This could assist in avoiding dissatisfaction, customer defection and negative word-of-mouth. Had World Airlines implemented a stronger service recovery strategy in dealing with complaints, they may not have filed for bankruptcy for the third time within 24 months of this incident (Siddiqi, 2003; Engdahl ; Hoffman, 1993).

Conclusion

From an analysis of the case study, the service failures

evaluated were unacceptable situations and consistently the blame could be attributed externally to World Airlines, rather than the customers. As was shown, the failures could have been prevented. Even if they had of occurred, service recovery should have been implemented immediately, without the customer having to send a letter of complaint on the conclusion of their interaction with World Airlines.

Perceived justice theory was used to analyse the distributive, procedural and interactional factors of World Airlines' recovery efforts. It is evident that World Airlines' recovery strategy was not sufficient, did not result is customer satisfaction and would not have been successful in restoring the trust of J. Q. Customer and his wife or have decreased their perceived risk in using the organisation again. As was established, there is a definite advantage for organisations which implement service recovery to the customer's satisfaction.