Customer relations service comparisons

Customer Relations/Service Comparisons

There are certain industries and services where the results of success or failure for the industry depends on the relationship that one can develop with the potential buyers of the service or goods. It is in these business areas that customer relations are very important.

The industry that is going to be dealt with is the airline industry. The position in the first six months is being reviewed and the concerned airlines are U.S. Airways, United Airlines and Delta Air Lines. These airlines have reported more consumer complaints during the first six months of 2005 in comparison to the same period during the year 2004. That means there is less of customer satisfaction for these airlines. According to reports, these three airlines are three of the four major U.S. airlines having severe financial problems and many of the complaints that they received concerned that of mishandled luggage. The largest increase was that of U.S. Airways, according to Reuters. According to Department of Transportation figures, the complaint rate for this airline increased from 0.92 complaints per 100,000 travelers in the year 2004 to that of 2.07 for the January to June period during the year 2005. The data also reported that lost or mishandled baggage totaled to 50% of the complaints, and the other important complaints were regarding flight delays and cancellations as also customer service. (Three out of four major U.S. airlines with financial problems see increase in customer complaints) In our opinion, all the mentioned areas refer to customer service.

It is also clear that some of these airlines are more concerned about customer's happiness. Towards this United Airlines came forward with a plan to help customers affected by Hurricane Rita while there was no direct response was seen from the other airlines among the three. To help customers, United Airlines revised its ticketing policies for its customers who had travel plans "to and from Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach and Fort Myers, Florida and were affected by Tropical Storm Rita." (United Airlines revises ticketing policies for customers affected by Tropical Storm Rita) The airline mentioned that, with immediate effect, the revised policies were to be applicable for "all customers ticketed on or before 18 September 2005 for travel on 19-20 September 2005 to or from Southern Florida on any United, United Express, Ted or United code share flight." (United Airlines revises ticketing policies for customers affected by Tropical Storm Rita) Passengers were at liberty to make changes through a travel agency or even calling United Airlines reservations line on or before 20 September 2005. Even for passengers who were then en route and wanted to adjust their return trips, all rules and restrictions with regard to "standard change fees, day or time applications, and/or minimum stay or Saturday night-stay requirements were waived." (United Airlines revises ticketing policies for customers affected by Tropical Storm Rita) The direct action shows that the airline had a policy for assisting customers, and the corporate culture also supported the policy of assisting customers.

One of the feelings is that customer confidence and belief in services of an organization grows through the customer's experiences with the organization, or through good customer experiences. But some organization staff seems to fail to understand that they can keep or lose a customer very easily through their good or bad behavior. Care for this has to be taken at all levels. United Airlines had sent a client a letter with regard to the renewal of the client's status as a Premier Executive, which is the second-highest reward status of the airline. United Airlines had always been the client's first choice for air travel; during his lifetime the client would have traveled just short of 1 million miles and spent somewhere in the neighborhood of $50,000 a year with United Airline. The approximate lifetime value of this travel to United Airline during the 30 years that he was traveling would have been close to $1.5 million. (Sturm, 2004)

The conflict came in the year 2003 as most of the travel for the client was close to his base residence, and even the client knew that the status would go down. The travel was less than expected. United Airlines informed the client that he did not qualify for any status unless the client flew a certain number of miles in 2004. This irritated the client, but the situation was the worst when he took the family on an international trip and found that their seats has been reassigned to the non-Premier areas of the aircraft with less legroom. This also happened on subsequent flights, and the client felt that he was treated like baggage. (Sturm, 2004) It has already been seen that this airline is concerned about their customers, yet the airline succeeded in irritating a customer with what the customer feels is "lack of gratitude." One is sure that what the airline staff did was according to the laws, but the client was unhappy. This is generally the result of not being able to communicate in a manner that makes clients happy. Thus methods of implementation are probably as important as the policies themselves.

Let us now look at another airline from the list. Delta Air Lines chief customer service officer Lee Macenzcak has stated that the airline is trying to be "one of the top three ranked airlines for customer service, on-time performance, baggage handling and cancelled flights as part of its turnaround plan." (Delta Air Lines aims to climb customer satisfaction table) The struggling airline is already in bad shape, being USD 20 billion in debt. The aim of the airline is to attract customers away from low-cost domestic airlines. Macenzcak was speaking to Delta Air Lines retirees, and also mentioned that the airline will introduce a staff bonus scheme if required to boost its ranking. (Delta Air Lines aims to climb customer satisfaction table)