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Service Failures Of The Airline Industry Essay

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From a customer’s perspective, a service failure refers to a real or perceived service- related problem, or where something has gone wrong in dealing with an organization. The customer’s expectations of the service encounter are therefore not met by the organization, and the customer could even perceive a loss as a result of the failure. Although customers and organizations increasingly seek a flawless delivery of core and supplementary services, this is virtually impossible in a service setting due to human involvement in service production and consumption. In addition, the inseparable and intangible nature of services also gives rise to service failures.
The airline industry is especially prone to service failures due to the service processes employed in service delivery. Although airline passengers may hold certain expectations prior to their impending travel, service failures in the airline industry can lead to several flight cancellations, diversions or delays, attitudes of ground and cabin staff, strikes, reservation problems and overbooking of flights. A service failure not only impacts negatively on customers’ confidence in an organization, but it could also result in their defecting from the organization. Organizations should therefore identify the probable failure points as well as methods aimed at preventing failures from reoccurring. Although it is highly unlikely that organizations can eliminate service failures, they can learn to deal with these failures

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