Impact Of Service Process Factors On Customer Satisfaction Level In The Aviation Industry – A Case Study Of British Airways

Aim of the Research Study

Describe about the Impact of Service Process Factors on Customer Satisfaction Level in the Aviation Industry a Case Study of British Airways?

Various types of service industry have contributed to the economy within the global perspective. Immense levels of competition have also been increased in this particular field of business. The service providers have to focus upon the quality of service of this service sector. As stated by Anderson and Kerr (2008) the service providers has been faced some challenges in order to provide quality service to the users as well as customers of this sector. Level of customer satisfaction has become the new challenge for the service providers. Quality of service is the most important part for the service industry as because it is the main element of the sustainability of business. Quality of service and the level of perception of consumer have to be interrelated in order to provide success within the competitive sector of market.

On the other hand, Bolton et al. (2007) stated that, nature as well as quality of service can be the most important role that can be played by the particular organization for providing most valuable service to the customers. This can also impact upon the level of customer satisfaction among this particular industry.

This research has aimed to analyze the impact of service process factors on customer satisfaction level in the aviation industry. For analyzing this issue, the researcher has taken British Airways. This research has intended to understand the process of customer service has an impact upon the level of customer satisfaction. British Airways is the largest airline. It has the largest provider of international flights as well as international destination. In terms of carrying passengers, British Airways is the second largest airways of United Kingdom. It has the good reputation among the customers that users of flight mostly depend upon the service of this airline of United Kingdom. It carries passengers to the most preferred holiday destinations of London and other destinations of the world (Britishairways.com, 2015).

However, this dimension of this particular research study have been chosen in order to understand the factors of customer service to the level of customer satisfaction within the customers of this particular industry. This industry has been stated as the most influential service sector of service sector. For very few years, British Airways is one of the biggest service providers within this industry. It contributes more than £ 10 billion for the economic purpose of the country (Britishairways.com, 2015).

This research study has aimed to assess the impact of customer service upon the level of customer satisfaction within the service sector, like aviation industry. Therefore, this research study has focused upon the British Airways.

An organization of service sector always focuses upon the process of customer satisfaction. Main objective of this type of service sector is to provide the best customer service that helps to produce extensive level of satisfaction among the customers of the particular industry. High level of customer satisfaction helps to achieve sustainable growth in the process of business expansion within the competitive sector of service industry. Therefore, primary objective of this research study is to evaluate the factors as well as process of customer service of British Airways as an example. Rationale behind choosing this company is the reputation and trustworthiness of British Airways within the service sector of United Kingdom (Schneider et al. 2013).  This company tries to serve the customers as possible enough by delivering various aspects of customer service.

Rationale of the Study

Null Hypothesis:

H0: In the case of British Airways, there is no positive impact of customer service process upon the level of customer satisfaction.

H1: In case of British Airways, there is positive impact of customer service process upon the level of customer satisfaction.

This research study has focused upon the process of customer satisfaction that can be derived by effective process of customer service. Therefore, there are many segments of customer service within the aviation industry. Segment of customer service of aviation industry consists of pre board service, on board service and post arrival service to the customers.

However Schneider et al. (2013) argued that, there are wide ranges of process of customer service those are presented in the pre board, on board and post arrival section. Pre board service includes process of ticket purchase, services of pre flight, process of check in, departure, airport service. In the segment of post arrival, activities of arrival as well as post arrival have to be considered.

Pre board services are the first segment of services. Therefore, the pre board services include various activities, those are as follows:

Process of purchasing ticket can be stated as the most important aspects of customer service within the aviation industry. Related information of ticket purchase should also be delivered towards the potential as well as loyal and new customers of the particular aviation industry. Accurate and relevant information should be delivered to the customers. Speed of reservation should also be included in the effective customer service process of this particular sector of aviation industry. Activities of booking can also be included in the process of customer service. Customer always prefers smooth activities of booking that is related to the effective process of customer service of the airways (Tracht et al. 2013).

Check in is another important aspect of this area. Customer prefers to check the speed of the process of check in. Effective customer service procedure includes multiple facilities of check in that solely influence upon the level of satisfaction within the customers (Bloemer et al. 2006).

Customers always prefer multiple pre flight services. Airways should provide multiple facilities on the pre flight segments. Customers also look for the parking facilities within this area (Bearden and Teel,2007).  

Airport should deliver effective services to the customers. Availability of effective waiting lounges always has been searched by the customers. Helpful staffs should be there in order to help the customers. These helpful staffs measure the necessary materials for the passengers (Truscott et al. 2010).

In this case, customers prefer to know that the flights are running on time. Necessary information about the flights should be given to the passengers. Delay of the flights should be announced by the organization. Therefore, providing necessary information about the flight delay and other related information should be given to the passengers. This helps to improve the level of satisfaction within the customers (Toloie-Eshlaghy et al. 2011).

On board service includes the service in flights. Entertainment, amusement, quality food and beverages etc are included in the process of on board service. However, on board service should be reached by stipulated time to the passengers of that particular flight (Serrant-Green, 2007).

Hypothesis of the Study

Services on post arrival are one of the most important aspects of customer service. It has the impact on the level of satisfaction among the customers. For this aspect, customers basically look on the aspect of baggage delivery. Therefore, customers prefer the speed of delivery of their baggage. This is the challenge for every organization to deliver the baggage of the passengers on time. Customers also prefer to have other facilities of travel, like food restaurant, family hotel etc. An organization should provide discount to the customers regarding the aspects of services.

Customer service process factors	Discussion
Ticket Purchase	availability of information Easy and accurate style of reservation and speed within ticket booking facility
Pre-flight services	Availability  of multiple pre-flight services suitable location of airport and parking facilities
Check-in	Speed of check-in Availability of more than one-check in options
Airport services	Airline has comfortable waiting lounges The staff are helpful The employees on the flight are courteous The airline has clean and comfortable facilities The airline maintains ready stick of necessary materials
Departure	The flight departs and arrives on time In case of delay, the airlines sooner makes announcements and provides necessary information
On board services	The airline has in-flight entertainment facilities The airlines offer improved quality food and beverages Airlines offer onboard shopping and wide variety
Arrival	See departure
Post-arrival	Quick and accurate baggage delivery The airline has other travel related partners such as car rental, hotel and travel insurance The airline provides discount if the customers accepts its other services.

Table 1: Factors of customer service

(Source: as created by author)

The aim of this research is to assess the impact of customer service upon the level of satisfaction within the customers of this particular industry. Therefore, the researcher has chosen aviation industry and utilized British Airways as an example of service sector. The researcher has selected five point likert scales in order to collect the primary data from the users of service of British Airways. ‘1’ of Likert scale represents low association on the other hand ‘5’ represents high association (Riege, 2008).

Data set therefore contains 19 individual variables those are categorized as three broad head, like pre board services, board services, post arrival services etc. The researcher has set the sample size as 40 service users. The researcher has used this 40 data set for the purpose of the analysis of this particular research. The researcher has used Microsoft Excel in order to execute statistical part of this study. On the other hand, descriptive study has been also presented in the excel sheet.

Options  (1 = low; 5 = high)	1	2	3	4	5
Ticket Purchase
availability of information
Easy and accurate style of reservation and speed within ticket booking facility
Pre-flight services
Availability  of multiple service of  pre-flight
suitable location of airport, effective facilities of parking
Check-in
Accuracy as well as Speed of check-in
Availability of multiple check in options
Airport services
Comfortable waiting lounges for the passengers
Helpful ground staffs
Well mannered and energetic  employees on the flight
British Airways  has clean and comfortable facilities
The airline maintains readymade stick of important and useful equipment
Departure
Several flights of British Airways maintains the accurate time for departing and arriving
In case of flight delay, this airlines makes serious  announcements about this delay as well as it provides necessary information about the delay of the flight
On board services
The airline has various types of amusement and entertainment facilities in the flight
This airlines offers  good quality of food and beverages
Airlines offers wide variety of on board shopping for the passengers
Post-arrival
This airline provides quick and accurate delivery of baggage
The airline has partnered with other related offering, like as car rental, hotel and travel insurance
The airline also provides discount of various services to the customers

Table 2: Data set

(Source: As created by author)

Options  (1 = low; 5 = high)	N	Mean	Std. Deviation	Min	Max
Ticket Purchase
Ease of availability of information	40	2.98	1.33	1	5
Ease, accuracy and speed of reservation and ticket booking	40	3.15	0.70	2	5
Pre-flight services
Availability  of pre-flight services	40	1.83	0.68	1	3
Convenient location of airport and parking facilities	40	4.10	0.67	3	5
Check-in
Speed of check-in	40	2.33	0.47	2	3
Availability of more than one-check in options	40	1.75	0.44	1	2
Airport services
Airline has comfortable waiting lounges	40	4.28	0.68	3	5
The staff are helpful	40	3.08	0.80	2	5
The employees on the flight are courteous	40	4.08	0.73	3	5
The airline has clean and comfortable facilities	40	3.00	0.55	2	4
The airline maintains ready stick of necessary materials	40	3.78	0.42	3	4
Departure
The flight departs and arrives on time	40	3.05	0.75	1	5
In case of delay, the airlines sooner makes announcements and provides necessary information	40	2.95	1.13	1	4
On board services
The airline has in-flight entertainment facilities	40	3.13	1.02	1	4
The airlines offer improved quality food and beverages	40	2.60	0.84	1	5
Airlines offer onboard shopping and wide variety	40	4.90	0.30	4	5
Post-arrival
Quick and accurate baggage delivery	40	2.43	1.03	1	4
The airline has other travel related partners such as car rental, hotel and travel insurance	40	1.98	0.70	1	4
The airline provides discount if the customers accepts its other services.	40	3.48	0.88	1	4

Table 3: Descriptive statistics of the data

(Source: As created by author)

Graph 1: Histogram of mean

Bin	Frequency
1.75	1
2.5375	4
3.325	8
4.1125	4
More	2

Table 4: Histogram of mean

The researcher has used mean (measure of central tendency), min value, and standard deviation (measure of dispersion), max value as the descriptive statistics.

As stated by (Morgan, 2007) descriptive statistics helps to review the entire data set that also helps to execute those data in a statistical study.

Mean or the measure of central tendency helps to indicate average score of each variable. From table number 3, the researcher has identifies that, “Availability of more than one-check in options’’ has scored lowest average of 1.75. On the other hand Airlines offer onboard shopping and wide variety’’ has scored highest average of 4.90 (Luo  and Homburg, 2007).

There are also some important variables except from “Airlines offer onboard shopping and wide variety”,  “Airline has comfortable waiting lounges”, “Convenient location of airport and parking facilities” and “The employees on the flight are courteous” are also important variables in this study. The measure of dispersion, specially the standard deviation as shown in the above descriptive statistics table also support these conclusion (Jun et al. 2003). 

Regression Statistics
Multiple R	0.628
R Square	0.394
Adjusted R Square	0.344
Standard Error	0.544
Observations	40.000

 

ANOVA
	df	SS	MS	F	Significance F
Regression	3	6.940	2.31	7.81	0.00
Residual	36	10.660	0.30
Total	39	17.600

 

	Coefficients	Standard Error	t Stat	P-value	Lower 95%	Upper 95%	Lower 95.0%	Upper 95.0%
Intercept	2.829	1.48	1.92	0.06	-0.17	5.82	-0.17	5.82
Pre board services	0.327	0.38	0.87	0.39	-0.44	1.09	-0.44	1.09
On board services	-0.726	0.19	-3.86	0.00	-1.11	-0.34	-1.11	-0.34
Post arrival services	0.680	0.16	4.37	0.00	0.36	1.00	0.36	1.00

Table 5: statistical test of the data

(Source: As created by author)

Regression analysis has been used as the effective statistical test in order to verify the null as well as alternative hypothesis of this particular research study. ‘Multiple Regression Model’ has been used by the researcher (Gruber et al. 2008).

Variables for the Study

 In this analysis, level of customer satisfaction has been taken as the independent variable. On the other hand, on board services, pre board services, post arrival services have been utilized as dependent variable by the researcher.

The researcher has shown in this table that, the value of R Square is 0.394. Therefore, from this regression analysis, researcher has concluded that, post arrival services and on board services have the positive correlation with the level of satisfaction of customers.

The regression equation:

Y=A + B x 1 + C x 2 + D x 3

Y= Level of satisfaction among customers

A= 2.829

B= 0.327

C= -0.726

D= 0.680

Regression equation is as follows:

Level of customer satisfaction = 2.829+ 0.327* (Pre board services) -0.726* (on board services) + 0.680* (Post arrival services)

1.11. Conclusions and recommendation:

The researcher has drawn the conclusion that, customer service process of British Airways has the impact upon the level of satisfaction within the potential as well as loyal and new customers of this service sector. Level of satisfaction of customers solely depends upon the various aspects of customer service of this particular industry. Therefore, the researcher has provided some recommendations in order to improve the process of customer service of this particular service organization within the aviation industry. From this above research, the researcher has drawn some recommendations, those are as follows:

Recommendation 1: This organization should improve the in-flight services. Particularly, in within this segment, customers expect more. Current stage of this organization is enough. However, this segment needs to be improved by the organization in order to attract the customers. Therefore, this particular organization can conduct feedback survey among the customers in order to adopt some new services for getting new experiences of travel.

Recommendation 2: British Airways should improve its website that customers can be able to acquire more online operation in order to reduce the gap between the passengers or service users and the particular authority of the organization. Therefore, improved website can help to reduce time consumption for ticket booking and other related activities. This organization should provide secured as well as accurate website for the customers.

Recommendation 3: This organization needs to incorporate change in the strategic direction within the management level. Electronic queuing process, prompt boarding time should be taken by the organization.

Recommendation 4: This organization provides various international flights. However, beside providing international flights, various types of domestic flights should be incorporated by the organization.

Recommendation 5: This organization also should conduct effective training and development process within the staffs. Therefore, the staffs can enhance quality of services in order to attract potential as well as loyal and new customers of this organization.

Recommendation 6: Management of this organization should emphasize on the process of recruitment as well as selection of the employees. On the other hand, extensive level of training and development is also required for the employees of the organization. Effective training and development therefore helps the employee in order to provide quality services to the customers. Effective training will help the employees in order to behave with the service users with effective help and cooperation.

Pre Board Services

The researcher has to face many difficulties in order to collect the data from the higher officials of this organization. The managers of this organization have not provided accurate and authentic data about the internal activities of British Airways.  Therefore, time is another limitation of this research study.

Limitations of this particular research area have opened scope for further study. Future study of this particular research area should focus upon the international sector of aviation industry.

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