Abstract
Introduction
This case can be examined from diverse perspectives. The personnel of the airline company have made several deviations in service delivery and recovery. However, one can also argue that the key protagonist, Mr Bhambri was being unreasonable when a flight was about to take off. He could have expressed his protest and boarded the flight. Upon landing he could have communicated his displeasure, in writing to the concerned personal at the destination terminal. Who is to blame here? Are all the actors, in the case—victims of a service context? A context consisting of demanding customers and overstretched employees taking shortcuts to achieve operational targets.
Readers of the case could be well served to analyse the case in stages. The first stage of the analysis, captured in part A of the case, calls for understanding the nature of the service encounter. The next stage, discussed in both parts A and B of the case, is to examine the nature of service failure and the consequent recovery process.
The Events of 20 March 2017
Mr Bhambri and his colleague, Mr Thakur, are unable to board flight PC 81 from New Delhi to Bangalore. It is important to understand the nature of the service encounter. The service encounter itself can be broken down into stages, namely the pre-usage stage which involves the ticketing process, the usage stage which is the date of the journey and the post-usage stage which is, basically, focused on user evaluation.
As one can see from the case facts, there is a failure at the usage stage and the subsequent interactions with the airline company. How does one understand the process of service failure and recovery? A detailed reflection and synthesis of the email communications could provide some insights into the same.
The Nature of Service Failure
Table 1 captures different types of service encounters and usage situations. The conflict with the gate manager occurs over what Mr Bhambri sees as a discrimination in the sequence of boarding the aircraft. In the mail he points to being denied boarding as a deliberate act of depriving him. This is a break in procedure, however Mr Bhambri also escalates matters by demanding to see the supervisor. One could argue that he was letting his ego do the talking, as he was a loyalty cardholder with a lot of points. However, if one looks very closely, some pertinent issues and questions arise. It is important to ask—what are the sources of service failure? A few indicative questions could be the following:
Did the gate manager explain the exact reason for not following the announced sequencing to Mr Bhambri? Why did the gate manager not inform Mr Bhambri that there will be no interaction with the supervisor? Why did the gate manager not inform Mr Bhambri that the gates were about to close?
Mr Bhambri is a forceful customer. The gate manager should have demonstrated a coping or adaptive mechanism to ensure that further escalation does not happen. Mr Bhambri could have also defused the situation by boarding and then lodging a complaint at the destination terminal. The lapses from the airline company start piling up once Mr Bhambri and his colleague are left stranded at the airport. The response of the duty manager at Gate 37 is a classic case of not following the basics of a service recovery process. The duty manager does not care about the customer’s grievance and aims to pass the buck. The duty manager also does not follow the standard operating procedure for ensuring that customers not boarding the flight are escorted out of the airport. Their behaviour shows impatience and clearly a discriminatory attitude. Mr Bhambri then logs on to the airline company’s website to lodge a complaint but the system does not have a process to respond to the complaint. This is a big service failure, unsurprisingly, it will lead to enormous customer dissatisfaction.
Service Encounters and Usage Stages
Examining Service Recovery Processes
Exhibit 2 captures the first attempt by the airline company to initiate a service recovery. Mr Rajesh assures Mr Bhambri of a complaint redressal within a specified period. The details of the personnel handling the issue and a reference number were also provided. Unfortunately, the first attempt at service recovery does not translate into a response within the stipulated deadline.
Exhibit 3 captures the growing dissatisfaction among customers with the company’s processes. Procedural fairness is critical for a service recovery and this can be achieved through prompt, polite and appropriate communication.
The delayed reply from Ms Rana, captured in Exhibit 4, shows the lack of cohesive internal processes to address customers’ feedback and complaints. Twenty-one working days have passed without any response from the airline company, this is an inexcusable delay.
Exhibit 5 captures the legitimate indignation of Mr Bhambri which violates the basic principles of interactional and procedural fairness.
Company’s response to the complaint takes 28 working days; the response is captured in Exhibit 6. The response follows the standard operating template; however, it also offers some clues. The airline policy is to allow boarding of all the passengers after seat number 22 has been occupied. The actions of the gate manager seem to violate the company’s own policy. The airline company claims that they requested Mr Bhambri and his colleague to board the flight. This is not matching with the version of events mentioned in Exhibit 1 of the case. It is also surprising that a passenger with such a large accumulation of loyalty points was not given a preferential boarding—according to the company’s own stated policy. Did Mr Bhambri choose to stay in the normal queue because Mr Thakur did not have a loyalty card? Unfortunately we do not have details in this regard. One of the protagonists of the case is misrepresenting the facts; given the offer for a refund, I suspect, it is the airline’s gate manager who was either irresponsible or was under some degree of stress.
Service Recovery and Outcome Fairness
The airline wants to close this matter by offering a full refund. Part B of the case study offers insight into the nature of service recovery and the fairness of the same. The company admits to an error in service delivery, it now seeks to limit its exposure to this issue by offering a refund. Mr Bhambri’s dissatisfaction with the compensation is legitimate as the compensation offered does not cover actual financial loss and agony. The airline is also not able to calculate the true value of Mr Bhambri’s patronage of the airline, this is surprising and once again points to a weaknesses in internal processes in assessing lifetime customer value. A customer who is a regular user of a service will take on an activist role and complains vigorously. Once again, the service recovery process stops with no communication from the airline.
Exhibit 3 of Part B is a reminder from Mr Bhambri that this issue has not been closed.
Exhibit 4 captures the revised offer from the company—offering 4,000 air miles to Mr Bhambri. According to airline policy, a customer gets 4 points for every spent of ₹100. Mr Bhambri would have to spend lakh of rupees for purchasing additional tickets to get 4,000 points. The quantum of the compensation appears to be fair, however, the procedure followed has too many loose ends. Unsurprisingly, it shakes the confidence of a loyal customer. This is due to the inconsistent processes for procedural fairness. Human beings value the quality of the exchange process, this expectation has not been fulfilled in this series of service encounters.
Closing the Loop
Exhibit 5 indicates that Mr Bhambri does not want to pursue this issue any further. He accepts the offer from the airline company and asks for a credit of the loyalty points. There is also a request for guidance on how to redeem the points.
Exhibit 6 of Part B once again indicates that the company operates in silos and the customer is being asked to search for information on how to redeem points. This information could have been easily provided in the reply, to close the loop. The airline has allowed too many loose ends to develop in its service recovery and customer relationship management processes. In the conclusion, several questions, as following, remain unanswered:
What happened to the loss that Mr Thakur suffered? Does this company care only for the loyalty programme flyers? Why is there no telephone call to Mr Bhambri, a loyal and regular user of the airline’s services? What action was taken on the gate manager and the concerned staff at Gate 37? What is the underlying reason for indifferent, rude and delayed responses from a whole bunch of the airline company’s employees?
The company seems to have fixed the customer. However, finding answers to the aforementioned questions could fix the problem. Otherwise, there will be more service failures and recovery processes. Each interaction will address the symptoms without curing the basic malaise affecting this company—an inability to craft an appropriate response to customer concerns. This phenomenon, if left unchecked, can lead to customer defection to competition.