Figure 16 Service process – revised (2)
The modified process provides a better picture of the steps that the customer undertake during
their service experience. As well, for the carriers this process view could be helpful in
identifying the key value creation steps and thus find improvement opportunities.
6. CONCLUSION
The purpose of this thesis was to investigate customer expectations of service quality in airline
industry. The research was based on process model of the services that the customer faces during
flight. The process model represented these services as a sequence of steps. Each step had
corresponding service quality attributes. The data for the empirical research was collected by
using survey method where the respondents were asked to evaluate airline service quality
attributes based on their perceived importance.
The theoretical review showed that whereas service quality is more complex to define and
measure compared to product quality, a number of researchers developed models that try to
provide measurement criteria for service quality. Service quality could be measured by a gap
between expected and perceived service quality with attributes used to measure certain aspects of
a service in question. Service quality in the case industry has been a subject for many discussions
as well, as it is a key driver for profitability and customer loyalty. Airlines have been striving to
balance cost cuts and service improvements for a while, and the understanding of customer
expectations and customer segmentation has become paramount.
The empirical results pointed out the importance of high expectations on such service quality
aspects as information availability, communication as well as timely arrival. Baggage delivery
emerged somewhat predictably as a very important part of overall airline service experience.
Moreover, research has shown that there is no much difference between male and female
expectations of airline service, rather different from what Westwood et al. (2000) claimed.
To conclude the research, it can be said that whereas customers require providing good quality
information and communicating promptly when needed, other services such as good quality food,
entertainment and simply a polite and helpful staff can help any carrier to go extra mile for
customer satisfaction and loyalty.
6.1.
Theoretical Contribution
This thesis discusses a process approach to service quality in airline industry, taking a customer’s
point of view. The process describes steps from ticket purchase to the end of the journey,
analyzing each step from service quality perspective and assigning attributes that help to measure
customer expectations.
Overall, services and service quality have received a lot of attention from researchers. Overall,
the literature on the topic provides numerous views, however, only the most relevant ones were
discussed in this thesis. Such models as Parasumaran et al. (1985) gap model and Gronroos’s
(1982) perceived services model were reviewed. In addition, systems view on services by
Johnson et al. (1995) contributed to the discussion as well as to final service process model. The
researchers agreed that the services are in a way harder to define or evaluate due to their
intangible nature as well as simultaneous production and consumption. Nevertheless, the
conclusion was made that it can be measured through the means of service quality attributes
(Chang & Yeh, 2002). The same approach was used in this study.
Service quality in airline industry has been in both researchers’ and practitioners’ view for a
while now. Due to industry characteristics, services remain a cornerstone of customer
satisfaction and carriers have struggled with delivering superior service experience while
keeping the costs low. Numerous attempts on finding out what is important for customers and
how do they perceive service quality has been made by e.g. Gilbert & Wong (2003), Park et al.
(2004), Chen & Chang (2005) as well as Chang & Yeh (2002). Their studies were used as a basis
for the survey.
6.2.
Practical Contribution
The thesis introduced a process view on service quality, which can be used as a basis for further
investigation. The model process model can be used as a for designing service quality surveys in
the airline industry or for designing completely new business models. The process model
provides information of the individual service components and pinpoint the service quality gaps
that might ruin otherwise acceptable service quality.
This study provides three most important findings. First, the results of the survey showed that the
respondents appreciate good quality information on available flights, schedules and prices,
prompt communication in situations of flight delay and cancellations as well as they do not want
to wait for their baggage to be delivered. These features represent a basic set of services that
have to be delivered by an airline. Customer satisfaction will not be complete if these services
are not executed well enough.
Second, difference between the expectations of male and female customers was found in only
one case. While testing the service quality attributes such as safety and reliability, it was
discovered that male travelers tend to pay more attention to employee’s appearance and attitude
compared to female counterparts.
Third, several correlations between the attributes were found. Here, the major input is that
customers do not differentiate between airport and airline staff and see it as a whole. The
respondents who like good attitude coming from staff, like it on any step of service process.
The same is with the facilities – correlations were found between airport and airline facilities as
well as between the facilities and staff. Thus, the respondents tend to see the experience as a
whole, without dividing it into airport and onboard locations. This is important information for
the carriers who could pay more attention to excel in their services on both airport and aircraft
levels. However, as it was discussed earlier, a number of suppliers deliver the services and
though the airline bears the accountability over customer satisfaction from the complete process,
it cannot control the services of all suppliers that interact with the customers.
6.3.
Managerial Recommendations
Based on this research, the first recommendation for management in airline industry is to have an
understanding of who their customers are and what they expect from the airline services. On the
one hand, such knowledge would lay a good ground for further internal research on customer
expectations and satisfaction and help an airline firstly to target exactly the customers that are
profitable and loyal and second to find out what service components the customers value. On the
other hand, service expectations research would help to point out the areas of improvement and
probably figure out the services that are not so important to the customers. The measurement
scale by Martilla & James (1977) can be of a great help for carriers to map their services and
choose the ones that actually add value to customer satisfaction.
The most important finding of this research is that the customers care more about very basic
aspects of air transportation: provide good information for decision making, be on time and
communicate promptly in case a flight is delayed or cancelled. Although the respondents
appreciated the previously mentioned steps as more important than on-board services, it
appeared from the open questions that business travelers value good quality food and are ready
to pay for it, especially when they travel in economy class where the quality of food is often
significantly lower compared to business class. The airlines may consider such results as an
incentive to deliver key services on consistently high level and carefully reconsider the value of
ancillary services.
Also, the airlines should not underestimate the importance of safety for the customers. The
survey results showed that safety ranks as the most important service dimension for the
respondents; Gilbert & Wong (2003) discussed the same results in their study. However,
customization was not of much value to the respondents (same result as in Gilbert & Wong’s
research), so the carriers could cut some costs, focusing on less customized but high quality
services.
All these results are aimed on indicating the right direction for the carriers to research their
customer expectations as well as perceptions and thus achieve better understanding of their
customer base.
6.4.
Limitations and Further Research
According to Jones & Sasser (1995), the results of any customer satisfaction survey can be an
important indicator of the current state of the business, but the authors claim that it can be
dangerous to rely fully on them. The authors suggest complementing customer surveys with
other methods to listen to customers such as market research, feedback, frontline personnel as
well as strategic activities (e.g. Southwest Airlines uses its frequent flyers in the selection
process of flight attendants). Thus, this survey cannot provide any complete information on
behavior of this particular customer group, but more it provides a direction towards complete
information and conclusions that can help a carrier to improve its customer satisfaction.
The survey respondents represent Finnish fliers mostly. This imposes limitations such as limited
coverage of evaluated airlines. The nationality aspect was not taken into account in data
collection although some researchers (Gilbert & Wong, 2003) argue that nationality affects a
perception and expectations of service quality. More in-depth study of customer expectations in
airline industry would benefit from including nationality factor in their research.
The target group comprises young professionals, who have either recently entered to professional
life or are about to graduate from universities and already have vast