BRITISH AIRWAYS AND CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

British Airways Customer Satisfaction

British Airways Have Satisfied Customer; What Are the Factors Influencing Customers to Choose British Airways?



British Airways Have Satisfied Customer; What Are the Factors Influencing Customers to Choose British Airways?

Introduction

The Service Delivery department of British Airways is responsible for the setting, and consistent delivery, of service standards across the areas of the airline that “touch” the customer - check-in, cabin service, catering, baggage delivery - through well-trained and motivated staff. Our aim is to provide overall superior service and good value in every market in which we compete.

Before 1983 critics liked to say that British Airways did not care and gave awful service. We have come a long way since then, and this short article describes how British Airways has moved towards the position where it can justifiably call itself “The World's Favourite Airline” (British Airways to Cancel 12 Routes and Cut Staff, 2002).

Discussion

There are lots of reasons why British Airways have satisfied customers. Below are some of the factors that influence customers to choose British airways.

First of all let me mention that the goal for excellence in customer services is a dynamic quest, one that reflects the changing pressures of the economic environment, as keenly felt in the airline industry as in any other.

A service industry is one that provides an intangible product rather than a physical end-product. In the airline industry, the product is the complete air-travel experience. Although it comprises some physical components, there is no concrete object at the end of the process. This leads to several characteristics peculiar to a service industry where, unlike the manufacturing industry, the product cannot be judged in isolation from those who deliver it (British Airways to Cancel 12 Routes and Cut Staff, 2002). There is direct customer contact since the consumer is present and active at every stage of delivery and the standard of service depends at all times on how he or she is treated and on nothing else. There is simultaneous production and consumption of the product and there is no luxury of being able to inspect the product for any flaws before it is sold, as happens in manufacturing industry. We have one chance, and one chance only, to get it right.

The final special characteristic of the airline industry is the social process of action and reaction, and the equation becomes even harder when we have to accept responsibility for the customers' actions as well as our own; and there is nothing behind which we can hide! Underpinning all of this has been the evolution of the industrial process that has seen British Airways, along with most service providers, become increasingly a market led company, rather than a process driven company, as we were in the past (Kevin, Alice and Paul, 2007).

We can all recall how airlines, aircraft or travellers have often been the first sufferers of economic or political turmoil. For example, following the American assault on Libya in 1986, demand for transatlantic seats fell alarmingly almost ...