MEASURING CUSTOMER SERVICES, DELTA AIRLINES

MEASURING CUSTOMER SERVICES, DELTA AIRLINES

In the current business environment customer delight has moved to another level, a level that implies giving the customers not only what they need but also going the extra mile of surprising them with what they may not be expecting. The extra miles are also referred to as “WOW” factors because they surprise customers when received. Constant improvement on customer delight has been the major focus of Delta Airlines. There are several examples of Delta Airline Company providing valuable customer services. Steve Denning (2011) expressed his experience with airline organizations relishing their customers as opposed to focusing on making money.

In his experience, he has compared two major airline companies, US Airways and Delta Airlines which are the two main competitors in the air transport industry. His initial experience was on the US Airways which he had booked to fly to Seattle but due to weather conditions the flight delayed and ended up missing his connecting flight. Under such a frustration he called the customer service agent but was informed that it was out of his fault that he missed the connecting flight and therefore was supposed to acquire a new ticket which would fly the following day and ended up purchasing a ticket with Delta Airline (Gunarathne, Rui & Seidmann, 2018). The Delta flight had also delayed as a result of bad weather and ended up missing his connection again. However, his experience was amazing with Delta because when the management realized the occurrence had rebooked his ticket and the company agents supported him fully to an extent of handing him a hotel and restaurant vouchers. Although the remaining flights had already been booked, the management found him a way of getting him to the next city for another connection so that he can make it to his conference (Gunarathne, Rui & Seidmann, 2018).

Framing this incidence under the four customer service dimensions emphasized logistics, Delta Airline Company can be ranked on top of the table. When looking at the first dimension among the four, time, it has been exhibited amazingly from the way the management took it as their responsibility of ensuring that this customer does not miss his conference which had been scheduled the following day (Dabestani, Shahin, Saljoughian & Shirouyehzad, 2016). On realizing that the customer was likely to miss his conference, the management took it as their responsibility and rebooked his ticket in an attempt to ensure that the customer makes it to the conference.

Secondly, the many ways which were implemented by the management after realizing that the customer was going to miss his conference shows that the company adheres to the second dimension of customer service, dependability.  First of all, the management took the initiative of rebooking his ticket after realizing that he had missed his connection flight. Then again, they realized that the remaining flights had already been booked fully but that did not stop them from finding a solution to ensure that the customer does not miss his conference (Dabestani, Shahin, Saljoughian & Shirouyehzad, 2016). They found him a way of getting him to the next city for another connection so that he can make it to his conference. This is a clear implication that the customers can depend on the company and won’t be failed at all the means.

The company agents supported him fully to an extent of handing him a hotel and restaurant vouchers during his moments of frustrations and that shows that the company adheres to the third dimension of customer service, communication. Through communication, the customer felt much satisfied despite of the chain of frustrations which had befallen him and was able to remain calm as the company management was in the process of helping him out to make sure he does not miss his conference (Dabestani, Shahin, Saljoughian & Shirouyehzad, 2016).

Comparing the experience of this customer in the US Airways and in Delta Airline, it is clear that Delta Airline adheres to the fourth dimension of customer service, convenience. In both companies, the customer missed the connection flight but the responses from the two managements are totally different (Dabestani, Shahin, Saljoughian & Shirouyehzad, 2016). In my company of focus, Delta, it exercised flexibility by helping the customer despite of the fact that he had already missed the connection flight.

Despite of the efforts to achieve the four dimensions of customer service by Delta Airline, the company can do better by getting the contacts of their customers two to three hours before departure in order to get to know the state they are in before their booked flights leaves them (Hochschild, 2015). This is because a customer can be left by a flight by a margin of less than 10 minutes which can be adjusted to accommodate him or her before the flight departs. This is a two edged sword as it cuts across both the dependability and convenience dimensions of customer service.

References

Dabestani, R., Shahin, A., Saljoughian, M., & Shirouyehzad, H. (2016). Importance-performance             analysis of service quality dimensions for the customer groups segmented by DEA: The          case of four star hotels. International Journal of Quality & Reliability             Management, 33(2), 160-177.

Gunarathne, P., Rui, H., & Seidmann, A. (2018). When social media delivers customer service:     Differential customer treatment in the airline industry. Management Information Systems          Quarterly, 42(2), 489-520.

Hochschild, A. R. (2015). The managed heart. In Working In America (pp. 47-54). Routledge.