Qantas Airways: Service Experience And Customer Satisfaction

Characteristics of Outstanding Work

Qantas is termed as the leading long distance airline worldwide. Its headquarters are based in Australia and also one of the countries strongest brands. The company has been called so since its foundation in the 1920s.this company is a member of the world famous organization the one world alliance. Today this company offers an unparalleled system in its home mainland and works an armada of somewhere in the range of 190 air ship over a system traversing around 75 destinations in 15 nations. (Benatallah, , 2004) Generally customers are ranked in the following classes,

(Qantas, 2009)

The Qantas airways company operations can be categories into to two categories;

1. Fronts stage operations
2. Backstage operations

The difference between the two terms is just based on the parties and activities to be undertaken at each stage of service provision. The front stage can be defined as that interaction that the final or the target service consumer has with the service being provided at a cost while the backstage defines the back part of the service production chain that the target service consumer is not able to see. These generally are the back office activities of any service organization that does not involve the awareness or direct association of the service consumers. Both a service delivering organization and the service consumer have a front stage and backstage operation. In this essay, more will be the company’s front and backstage operations. (HICSS, 2008) 

Every time a customer has some service encounter, service experience also becomes part of the customer. In most cases, a customer experiences services in the service provider physical environment and so is the Qantas company case. The physical environment of the company ranges from the website where the customer can purchase tickets up to the time they are reaching the airport and board the plane. In addition to that, the employees of the Qantas Company also form part of the physical environment. Although the Qantas Company is conducting this services business to make a profit, of more of importance is how the customer interaction with the service is going to affect the organization.

As illustrated in the flow chart above, the client of an aircraft service has various service experiences or encounter which makes up the general air travel experience understanding. This includes: getting a ticket; go to the air terminal; the registration and hold up at the airplane terminal; the loading onto and flight service; the entry and collection of baggage; and the departure from the air terminal. The present Qantas flight traveler has higher desires than beforehand and aircraft need to contend by always enhancing traveler solace or comfort and services. It’s the customer who the Qantas Company is delivering the service to that is more important (Czepiel, 2013) 

Categories of Qantas Airways Operations

In the case of the Qantas Company, after the landing of the plane, the agents from the company receive these responses from the customers and any response is well thought out and all future intentions are considered. The post purchase customer behavior is also very crucial and therefore if the customer was satisfied with the Qantas Company service they tend to use a word of mouth to complement their service and these thereby reflects appositive service experience. A negative word of mouth means that to some point within the process, the customer expectations were not met. (Naumann, 2007) Although this may bring a wrong reputation to the image of the Qantas Airways company, the management has been taking it with a lot of seriousness and also helps them know where to work on improvement and avoid losing customers to their competitors. (zeithaml, 2006)

Amid concurrent service production and utilization, it is the ‘service experiences’, that are the basic snapshots of truth in which client frequently builds up a recognition mentality about the business (Bitner et al. 2000) and differentiates it from its competitors. In the airline carrier business, these service experiences are on which the association, either flourishes or passes on in light of client’s assessment of their offer service. Also, the fruitful organization make steps further to upgrade their center or basic elements with expanded or improved components

This revolves around how the management of the Qantas Company uses the observations and information it gets from the feedback of the customer encounter experience It’s very important that the every manager takes note of the response that the customer gives back concerning their satisfaction. The Qantas management considers each class of travelers and thereby they take every response keen. This, therefore, has helped the managers come up with plans of Qantas flight services that every customer expects. The Qantas Airways have some services that are aimed at ensuring that the customer comfort and satisfaction is reached.

1. They have withdrawn booking for any Qantas service for those that book via their websites.
2. The management has also introduced a marketing plan whereby anytime you book their services you can be rewarded with some points which are redeemable. This decision by management has led to increased bookings. This method encourages customers to be in thirst of these services due to the points plus pay method.
3. They have managed to differentiate their services from their competitors, like the provision of language carriers free of charge, taxi services to desired destinations after landing, bars, and restaurants where they can rest as they await their next move in case of customers taking other flights.
4. The management has also considered training its staff on how to communicate with the customer even when they meet impolite ones.
5. Due to the unexpected plane accidents which have made some of the Qantas competitors lose a customer, the management introduced an insurance cover method to its customers. This has led to increased customers and they tend to testify a positive customer experience.
6. Lastly, the management has also put in place ways in which it receives and handles customer claims and complaints and this, therefore, leads to overall satisfaction of the customers.(qantas.com)

References

Airways, Q., 2009. www.qantas.com. [Online] Available at https://www.qantas.com/za/en.html [Accessed Augustus 2017].

Benatallah, 2004. IEEE Internet Computing, The self-serve environment for web services composition.

Bitner, M.J., 2010. Evaluating service encounters: the effects of physical surroundings and employee responses. the Journal of Marketing, pp.pp.69-82.

Czepiel, J.A.a.S.M.R., 2013. The service encounter: Managing employee/customer interaction in service businesses. word press.

HICSS, [email protected], 2008. Bridging the “Front Stage” and the “backstage”.

Naumann, 2007. One more time: How do you satisfy customers? In E. and Jackson, D.W. Business Horizons. pp.71-76.

storey, c., 2000. the augmented service offering. journal of product innovation management, pp.333-51.

zeithaml, 2006. service marketing. In integrating customer satisfaction across the firm. NewYork.