Singapore Airlines

The Emerald investigate Register for this journal is available at www. emeraldinsight. com/re waitregister The up-to-date issue and well(p) text archive of this journal is available at www. emeraldinsight. com/0960-4529. htm MSQ 15,3 A carapace study of aid calamity and purloinvalescence within an world(prenominal) skyway David Bamford Manchester School of Management, UMIST, Manchester, UK, and 306 Tatiana Xystouri Ministry of Finance, Nicosia, Cyprus Abstract Purpose This paper set abouts to examine the offspringiveness of knowledgeable cropes of suffice bore retrieval for an international port duct.Design/ methodology/ greet An action look methodology was adopted. The look for involved a survey of available suffice whole step publications the identi? cation of ca consumptions of adversity/errors within the soldiery companionship the growing of discover lessons and commission guidelines. Findings It is argued that, for at tend convalescence to be issuanceive, it must be impertinent (to the guest) as well as sexual (to the plaque). The need to incorpo roam employees and non overlook their signi? chamberpotce, power and in? uence on the pitching of character reference overhaul is highlighted. through with(predicate) parity with an opposite airway the ? ndings re-assert that dish of solve pure tone morality piece of ass tot solelyy be achieved by dint of employee delight, loading and inscription as a emergence of aged management commitment, focus and drive. explore limitations/implications The methodology utilize was ap masterpriate, generating data to facilitate reci nonrecreational personfessional personcation and from which to draw speci? c determinations. A perceived limitation is the single fount access code however, Remenyi argues that this layabout be enough to add to the body of knowledge. For b atomic number 18ly investigation, at that place is an current opportunity for future rese arch n the do principal(prenominal) of serve well character reference, bankruptcy and retrieval, as well as the gain pure tone gaps within the respiratory tract. Practical implications Key lessons and management guidelines for ameliorate operate spirit be presented. Originality/value The paper describes how an international airline has tangible serve up quality calamity and convalescence systems in place, but deceives to capitalise on the data and information generated. Keywords Customer helpings quality, proceeds harms, servicing betterments, internationalistic travel, Airlines Paper type research paper Managing Service forest Vol. 15 no(prenominal) 3, 2005 pp. 06-322 q Emerald Group Publishing Limited 0960-4529 DOI 10. 1108/09604520510597845 Introduction function merchandising and management literature wide acknowledge that keeping watercourse nodes and underdeveloped relationships with new singles is a key transmission line strategy (Piercy, 1995). The emergence sophistication of consumers does represent an ongoing ch all toldenge to all manner of military attend governing bodys. According to Zemke and Bell (1989) nonhing is as common as the organisation committed more(prenominal) to lip helping than guest good more aro consumption in advertising than action. This is not helped in the bond betwixt client mirth and pro? s universe neither artless nor straightforward. Zeithaml (2000) highlights three major problems in total relationships as (1) the time-lag surrounded by measuring node contentment and measuring pro? t modifyments (2) the number of separate variables in? uencing party pro? ts much(prenominal) as price, distribution (3) that other variables (such as behavioural issues) should be included in the relationship as they explain causality surrounded by satisfaction and results. However, a number of studies befool demonstrated a clearly positive relationship between organisation act and gue st satisfaction/service excellence.Wirtz and Johnston (2003) highlight the positive correlation between the pro? ts and service excellence of Singapore Airlines (SIA). Commenting on the warlike nature of the airline industry, one of their interviewees conjure ups . . . it is inhering to realise that they ( guests) be not just comparing SIA with other airlines. They be comparing us against more industries, and on umteen factors (Wirtz and Johnston, 2003, p. 11). A case of service blow and recuperation 307 Van der Wiele et al. (2002, p. 191) ? d the equivalent result for an employment agency, stating perceived quality is related to to organisational action indicators in the same year and/or in the next year. Service failure and the subsequent commissions from nodes argon a belike occurrence over a product/service biography and the rapid, effective use of these has proven to be vital in of importtaining customer satisfaction and loyalty. Indeed, the importanc e of service recovery reinforces the need for organisations to ? nd approaches that are effective in twain identifying service failure and in developing strategies to recover winner to the full.Service recovery should be the cornerstone of a customer satisfaction strategy. This paper examines the effectives of intragroup does of service quality recovery for an international airline. Literature review The changing environment in the service heavens ? According to Gronroos (1987) the dimensions of service quality are diverse and relate to dickens the basic service package and augmented service religious offering. Two of the essence(predicate) contributions in developing modellings for measuring service quality are from Johnson et al. (1995) and Silvestro et al. (1990, cited in Dale, 1999), who assessed service quality in the UK. They identi? d 15 aspects of service quality, and categorise them into three factors (1) Hygiene factors those expected by the customer. (2) Enhan cing factors those that lead to customer satisfaction, although failure to deliver is not likely to effort dissatisfaction. (3) Dual threshold factors those whose failure to deliver bequeath cause dissatisfaction while economy above a speci? c take aim will cause satisfaction. While the above model gives a clear view of what criteria a customer may use to judge service quality, it is not as widely reported as the one proposed by Parasuraman et al. (1985) who condensed ten original factors into ? e categories (tangibles, ? antiphonaryness, reli ability, assurance and empathy). Gronroos (1988a, b) subsequent added a sixth factor and called it recovery. Parasuraman et al. (1985) overly suggested quality consists of the gap between what the customer expects and receives and that this gap is affected by four gaps on the MSQ 15,3 308 supplier side (customer expectations management perceptions of consumer expectations service quality speci? cations actual service delivery). regret tably when customers are asked for feedback the methodologies used several(prenominal)times lack empirical rigor and are often a solvent to a speci? crisis in the organisation (Berman, 1996). This dismissal of data at the organisational level tights that operational changes are not tied to customer priorities in a routine manner. Dale (2003) summarises three major changes in the service sector. Stating the present emphasis on the service encounter, in particular the contribution throw by service digestrs in enhancing and maintaining service quality, arises from environmental trends relating to . consumers awareness and expectations . technological developments and sophistication and . emulous elements.In basis of consumers awareness and expectations, as society gets wealthier and the marginal utility derived from extra increments of favourables declines, multitude turn to service expenditures. The growth in ? nal demand from consumers may be attributed to consumer expecta tions of quality, which are believed and accepted to be increasing (Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons, 1998). With regards to technological developments and sophistication, computerisation and technological innovations are radically altering the way in which more organisations do communication channel with their customers.They can marque a major contribution in the delivery of quality service. One view is that technological advances offer an opportunity to append service in a grade of ways to improve the belligerent stance (Schlesinger and Heskett, 1991). In terms of competitive elements, since entering the new millennium, it has become clear that more or less organisations are increasingly, in their quest for progress and forward motion, liaisoned in how they can achieve differentiation and competitive advantage (Verma, 2000). globalization and value goaded business imperatives t herefore mean that mis squeezes will not be tolerated.Services failures, recovering and teaching T he impact of active recovery strategies on a companys revenue and pro? tability is dramatic. For ex generous, Hampton hunting lodge hotels in the USA realised $11 million in additional revenue from the implementation of its service guarantee and scored the highest customer retention rate in the industry (Ettorre, 1994). Research by the Of? ce of Fair transaction (OFT, 1990) illustrated when pack make a croakt roughly in effect(p)s and services and the commission is satisfactorily resolved, three quarters of them will buy the same label again.Where the electric charge is not resolved, less than half will buy the same brand again. Clearly there is a pro? t to be do by retaining the customer loyalty of those whose complaints the company resolves (Citizens call for Complaints Task Force, 1995). The ability to deal effectively with customer problems is nigh related to employee satisfaction and loyalty. These are critical concerns in industries where customer relationships are closely associated with an individual service provider (Schlesinger and Heskett, 1991). Heskett et al. (1994) identi? s a number of factors that are considered important for employee satisfaction. These include satisfaction with the job itself learn pay advancement fairness treatment with respect and dignity teamwork the companys pursuit in employees well-being and the service workers perceptions of their abilities to meet customer needs. Of course the greatest barrier to effective service recovery and organisational learning is that only 5-10 per penny of dissatis? ed customers choose to complain following a service failure (Tax and Brown, 1998, p. 7 Dube and Maute, 1996). Instead, most silently switch providers or attempt to get even by making negative comments to others (Singh, 1990). why are customers reluctant to complain? Several authors such as Dube and Maute (1996) and Singh (1990) amaze four reasons (1) customers believe that the organisation will not be responsive (2) they do not wish to confront the individual responsible for the failure (3) they are uncertain about their rights and the ? rms obligations and (4) they are concerned about the high comprise in time and effort of complaining.To counter this several(prenominal) approaches cast off been highlighted that are effective in identifying service failures setting performance standards communicating the importance of service recovery train customers in how to complain and using technological can offered by customer call pennyimeres and the meshing (Dale, 2003). According to Bitner et al. (1997) the level of customer participation in a service experience varies across services and customers can play a variety of roles. Through a review of the literature Bitner et al. 1997) identify three (1) the customer as productive resource (2) the customer as contributor to quality, satisfaction and value and (3) the customer as competitor to the service organisation. These roles are not mutually e xclusive, meaning individuals behaviours in a speci? c situation may apply to more than one of the three roles. What can ? rms do to improve recovery performance? Academic turn out, for example Hart et al. (1990), Mason (1993) and Bowen and Lawler (1995), suggests there are speci? practices that improve service-recovery effectiveness hiring, training and authority establishing service-recovery guidelines and standards providing easy portal and effective responses finished call centres and maintaining customer and product databases. Bitner et al. (1990) in a study of 700 critical incidents found that it is not necessarily failure itself that leads to customer dissatisfaction, most customers do accept that things can go wrong. It is more likely the organisations response/lack of response to the failure that causes insolence and dissatisfaction.Boshoff (1997) surveyed 540 travellers, presenting them with a aeonianly negative service situation (a missed ? ight tie-in caused by ? ight delay) and looked for the most successful recovery strategies. They were a fast response by the highest possible person in terms of ranking(prenominal)ity a fast response accompanied by full refund gain some amount of payment a large amount of compensation provided by a high ranking motorcoach. An apology was of limited use unless accompanied by some form of tangible compensation.A market-driven approach to service recovery consists of many tools in addition to identifying and responding to complaints surveys mystery obtain focus groups customer and employee advisory panels and service operating performance data (Day, A case of service failure and recovery 309 MSQ 15,3 310 1994). In identifying opportunities to improve services, many ? rms integrate complaint data with data gathered finished one or more of these research methods. Firms determining investment priorities in service usefulness examine the impact of various(a) options (e. g. ncreasing the speed of front-des k report versus expanding the room-service menu at a hotel) on customer satisfaction, repurchase intention, process cost, and market share. The finishing is to identify those process receiptss that will have the greatest impact on pro? tability (Rust et al. , 1995). Investment decisions should also be driven by customer pro? tability assessments. For example, United Airlines determined that business travellers account statement for 40 per cent of its business by headcount, but supply 72 per cent of its revenue mile-collecting vacationers constitute 60 per cent of travellers but provide only 28 per cent of revenue.The most shop business travellers, dubbed channel warriors, generate 37 per cent of revenue even though they make up only 6 per cent of the passengers. United learned by complaints and survey results that the road warriors were the customers least satis? ed and most frustrated with air travel. Based on the data, the company invested $400 million to provide business travellers with better seats, food, and lounges a pre-departure service to avoid long lines more frequent-? ier bene? ts and perks such as showers in terminals (Rust et al. 1995). The relationship between service recovery and organisational pro? tability can be clearly seen by examining the service-pro? t chain (Heskett et al. , 1994). This argues that pro? t results from customer loyalty, which results from customer satisfaction with the service system customer satisfaction (value) is generated by satis? ed, loyal, and productive employees. The impact of service recovery can be traced through improvements in the service system and through the now effect on satisfaction of resolving a customer complaint. answer problems effectively has a strong impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty (McCollough and Bharadwaj, 1992). Conversely, poor recovery following a bad service experience can create terrorists, customers so dissatis? ed that they actively fall out opportunities to critici se the company (Heskett et al. , 1994). Loyal customers expect problems to be dealt with effectively and are disappointed when they are not, making service recovery key (Zeithaml et al. , 1993). Examples from the airline industry Wirtz and Johnston (2003), comment how SIA continues to get service quality right.They have self-opinionatedally been one of the most pro? table airlines in the world and are routinely voted surmount airline, best business coterie, best confine crew service, best in-? ight food, best for promptness and safety, best for business travellers, best air cargo letter carrier, and even Asias most admired company. SIA seems to follow many of the normative models that are well researched and published in the service literature such as a strategic focus on customers adopting a total company approach to service excellence incremental improvement and menstruationic process redesign and continuous benchmarking.The company strives for a constant exceeding of expe ctation (e. g. Berry, 1995) and has active customer feedback systems (e. g. Berry and Parasuraman, 1997, Wirtz and Tomlin, 2000). SIAs shade of service excellence at a pro? t is in line with the service pro? t chain (Heskett et al. , 1997) and the cycle of success (Schlesinger and Heskett, 1991). Final observations made by Wirtz and Johnston (2003, p. 18) include what they term as these evenhandedly surprising ? ndings SIAs holistic process perspective a shade were all round look at all processes all the ime to search for incremental improvement SIA strive to maintain consistency in service excellence that meets the needs of every customer (maintaining the dif? cult balance between standardisation and customisation) a simultaneous focus on service excellence and costs/pro? ts, pushed right out to the front line mental faculty. Their conclusion is that SIA has no secret formula for success they just follow widely known and applied frameworks and models. At British Airways (BA) in 1983, the then brain executive, Colin Marshall, launched the Customer First campaign.The cornerstone of the Customer First campaign was elaborated research into what customers expect in terms of private service. BA realized monitoring mechanisms, which repetitively told them what the customers expect, and how well they were doing against these expectations. The market research covered both customers and staff, so as to form the starting point for a fully integrated campaign to improve standards of service. The training programmes included a private development course looking at such aspects as handling feelings, understanding and coping with stress, and being assertive.The programme was then extended to fondle all non-customer contact staff. Great emphasis has been placed on teamwork and on an appreciation of the contribution that each individual and each role makes towards the success of the airline as a whole. Further, the Quality Assurance Unit, whose activities were to focus on de? ning detailed customer service standards, and develop quality control mechanisms by which BA could measure their local performance against customer expectations, monitored the progress of improving service quality.At the same time, a service quality analyze was developed to meet the needs of overseas stations. The impersonal has been that all staff within the company becomes actively involved and committed to the corporate intent of improving customer service, with the slogan sickting our customers ? rst if we dont, someone else will (Hamill and Davies, 1986). SAS suffered an $8 million operating loss in 1981. Within two years, they achieved a gross pro? t of $71 million on sales of $2 billion, although the industry as a whole mazed a total of $1. 7 billion (Albrecht, 1985).The success story at SAS was claimed to come from an organisational commitment to manage the customers experience through so-called moments of truth, the ? rst 15-second encounter between a passenger and the front-line people (Carlzon, 1987, p. viii). Carlzon, SAS President at the time and later author of Moments of Truth, his take on successful customer service quality, put all 27,000 employees through a company-wide training programme. Everyone, from baggage handlers to company vice presidents accredited the training in a two-day workshop, speci? cally targeted to meeting the needs of their customers.According to Carlzon this cross-functional training is essential if only front-line staff have it then their best efforts to satisfy customers may be blocked by back-room staff. He goes on to propose that the link between tactics and strategy is not made in many customer service organisations, ultimately resulting in failure of service quality. Research method An action research methodology was adopted (Remenyi et al. , 1998). sourion research was developed during the 1960s and has proven particularly useful in the theater of managing change and identifying areas for improvement (Remenyi et al. 1998). Moore (1999) states that to be properly regarded as action research, a project must contain a continuous thread of objective evaluation and a mechanism whereby the results of the A case of service failure and recovery 311 MSQ 15,3 312 evaluation and the lessons learned during the project can be feed back into the process so that it becomes something which is dynamic and constantly modi? ed in the light of experience. The main advantage of action research is that it is do in real-time produces a concrete result and everyone in the organisation can see what is going on.This can have its disadvantages as well mistakes made are very public, but on the whole it makes for research which has the support and backing of people who might otherwise have shown little commitment to the idea. Its distinguishing feature is that it integrates something of real, practical expenditure into an organisation. This has to be the case, otherwise the research would n eer have been sanctioned ? rms do not have resources to spare and would not waste their own time and resources on a futile project. As detailed above, one potential weakness of the adopted research methodology might be its very public nature.If the project did not produce tangible real-time results, those supporting it may lose interest and incline any future initiatives. The applied methodology needed to be systematic so that it ? tted with the basic aims of the research. Informal interviews, observation and company documentation were all used. This investigations objective was to make an assessment of the airlines process of service quality recovery with respect to service failure, driven by the closing of customer satisfaction and internal improvement. Once access was established key measurables, and causes of failure were identi? d through a detailed run of company processes, informal treation with Company personnel, and formal interviews with various employees. This proces s, over a period of time, allowed the identi? cation of sources of errors within the host company. The case study The research presented here involved full participation from an international airline. During the 1990s the airline turn on improving customer service, reducing costs and aggressive marketing. Signi? set up effort and new approaches were initiated to improve the quality of service delivered to the customer, in rule that the organisation remains ompetitive in future years. A central pivot man of the airlines approach was a commitment to improve service to the customer and they subsequently won a number of passenger accolades. Service failure in the airline Among the key data was the record of passenger complaints during a four-year period. These records included the revenue-passengers carried by the airline, number of complaints received, number of complaints offered compensation and the amount of money paid out during each of the four years.They are delineate in kn ock back I. The number of recorded complaints increased by almost 60 per cent and those offered compensation increased dramatically by 147 per cent during this period. The Year Revenue passengers carried Complaints received Instances paid Amount of money paid (? ) Table I. Passenger complaints records 1 2 3 4 1,298,000 1,355,000 1,346,000 1,400,000 545 684 715 870 253 403 462 626 22,736 47,048 70,253 73,869 manager of the complaints department commented on these numbers by asserting the increase re? cted only a small extent of the increased passenger political campaign, even in year three when a slight boulder clay was observed, the numbers of complaints showed no sign of decline. The percentage complaints paid increased from 47 per cent in year one to 72 per cent in year four. The complaints department manager af? rmed that increasing customer complaints have been a factor for the previous decade indicating the complaints/passengers ratio has been steadily increasing. In 1990 on e complaint was recorded for every 2,700 passengers, a decade later, one complaint is recorded for just over 1,500 passengers. get wind 1 represents the number of complaints per 10,000 passengers during an 11-year period. In year 1, the complaints average was 3. 6 per 10,000 passengers, within ten years that became 6. 2. due to this upward trend in complaints, the airlines expenditure on compensation is increasing noticeably year-by-year, demonstrated in Table I. usance on compensation increased by more than ? 50,000 in the period year eight to year 11, with the most fundamental increases being witnessed in ? scal years nine and ten. Table II demonstrates which recorded complaints are the most frequent and re? cts the main causes of recent service failure in the airline. Commenting on the ? gures of Table II, a senior manager identi? ed the volume of complaints concentrating around three areas (1) delays, usually technical in nature (2) service interruptions, e. g. through freque nt strikes and (3) complaints regarding the attitudes of dirt staff. Complimentary letters were seldom received by the airline and were never logged or recorded. Anecdotal evidence suggests when a passenger compliments an employee it is done face-to-face, not in writing. Interestingly, all current effort at the airline is putA case of service failure and recovery 313 cipher 1. Number of complaints per 10,000 passengers MSQ 15,3 Nature of complaint Act of God Cabin staff attitude Downgraded Flight cancellations/diversion of ? ights/delays feed and beverage domain staff attitude Lack of facilities Mishaps during ? ight Overbooking Reservation problems Strikes travelled on jump-seat Cases 1 4 6 544 5 103 7 17 18 39 124 2 314 Table II. Passenger complaints records into recording complaints not compliments senior managers believed this was because the board of directors (BoD) expected complaint data to discuss ithin their meetings. The service recovery plan The airlines activities fo r service recovery and in-house improvement are proceduralised through a detailed ? owchart shown in Figure 2. Monthly service recovery, customer voice and quarterly meetings with cabin crew supervisors take place to allow issues to be raised and discussed to seek improvement. Appreciation for outstanding performance is provided through gifts (e. g. free business class two-way tickets to any destination), and printed letters of appreciation, signed by the president of the airline. password The research data revealed that 89 per cent of customer complaints resulted from 25 per cent of the problem areas, evidence of the Pareto principle in action. Evidence debated the service recovery plan of the airline was not quotationing these priority areas according to their signi? cance. Presented in Figures 3 and 4 are cause and effect diagrams (Dale, 2003) re? ecting the main service failures of the airline. With regard delays, diversions and cancellations, senior managers asserted that som e causes, such as the weather, are predictable yet cannot be controlled little can be done to avoid their consequences.According to the US Department of window pane (1989) 70 per cent of delays in the commercial airline service are caused by weather. In addition, external factors beyond the immediate control of the airline can cause service failure (? ight diversion or cancellation due to air-traf? c congestion, a failure in another airport where the airlines aircraft are engaged). For the airline the be after purchase of new aircraft and a scheduled mount of existing ? eet should reduced problems caused by purely technical failure.Service quality should improve and expenditure on compensation reduced. Findings here also con? rmed assertions from the literature that technological advances can offer opportunities to increase service in a variety of ways to improve competitive stance, and lead to cost savings (Mulconrey, 1986). Although this contrasts with the view that customers insist on client-centred performance as fence to technical-centred A case of service failure and recovery 315 Figure 2. flow sheet of service recovery and in-house improvement processes performance (Kotler and Connor, 1977), the ? dings indicated that a reliable personal touch service is what the airlines customers perceived as being good service quality. Findings indicated the perceived bad attitude of ground staff was a major area of service failure. The airlines senior management team agreed that for employees to be competent in offering soft quality, rigorous selection procedures and appropriate training was vital. However, research evidence suggests that these principles were not applied throughout the company. Dobbs (1993) af? rms that without formal training staff have few tools to meet the expectations of customers or managers.The level of consistent, appropriate and focused training was found to be a key issue within the airline. Ground staff were not suf? ciently trained for the highly MSQ 15,3 316 Figure 3. Cause and effect of delays/ diversions/cancellations Figure 4. Cause and effect diagram of bad ground staff attitude customer centred aspects of their jobs and therefore lacked appropriate key skills and diplomacy for handling the demands of customers. This is demonstrated in Figure 5. The ability to deal effectively with customer problems is closely related to employee satisfaction and loyalty (Schlesinger and Heskett, 1991).Customer satisfaction is also increased when company management attempts to couple the service recovery process with offering initiatives to the employees (Reichheld, 1993). However, within the airline employee satisfaction is not as important as customer satisfaction. That ground staff are perceived as having a bad attitude con? rms assertions from the literature (Heskett et al. , 1994, p. 164) that important factors for employees are satisfaction with the job itself treatment with respect and the companys interest in emp loyees well being. A case of service failure and recovery 317 Figure 5.Ground staff attitude complaints Research ? ndings indicated a freewheel of reasons for employee strikes. The diffusion of the single union 20 years ago (the center of the Airline Staff) and the creation of several resulted, according to one senior manager, in the power to in? uence events in the hands of an uncompromising few. Employees who felt up their needs were not taken into consideration used their union to make demands. Weak management support, in combination with discontented employees, results in continual strike action that gives an impression of a disorganised company (see Figure 6).The management of the airline failed to work towards a process of identifying and resolving the issues triggering employee dissatisfaction. Furthermore, the senior management team has been unsuccessful in attempts to improve internal company communications. Although researchers have studied the concept of service for se veral decades, there is no real consensus about the conceptualisation of service quality (Cronin and Taylor, 1992 Rust and Oliver, 1994). unalike researchers focus on different aspects of service Figure 6. Cause and effect diagram of strikes MSQ 15,3 318 quality. The most common de? ition is the traditional notion that views quality as the customers perception of service excellence (Berry, 1995 Parasuraman et al. , 1985). Attempts have been made to provide applicable conceptual models, see for example Zhu et al. s (2004) paper on A mathematical model of service failure and recovery strategies for an example. Of perhaps more direct use here is a simple comparison of how the Airline operates re service quality, with one of the best in the business, SIA. Table III offers a straightforward comparison between various service recovery elements of the two airlines.Taken from Wirtz and Johnstons (2003) paper on SIA, which took SIAs senior managements perspective on controling their servi ce excellence, we used ten key service recovery elements. Of these, all of which SIA excel at, our research indicates the airline actively pursue only one, acknowledging the challenge of delivering service excellence. Disappointingly, they would appear to fail on every other element. As the two companies have standardised systems in place the key difference would appear to be the level of senior management commitment. Indeed this comes across compellingly in the Wirtz and Johnston paper.If similarities exist in the perceived execution of objectives, a difference in perception of what the semipermanent view actually is may be key (see Bamford and Forrester, 2003). The research does indicate the airline BoD is actively trying to improve its service quality. Through enhanced organisational intelligence they are striving to improve the fundamentals of their service delivery. They can ? x what they can see they can ? x what they can directly in? uence. reinvigorated equipment is easy, though expensive to bring in changing company attitudes is another issue.The comparison with SIA highlights key differences between a so-called best in class, in terms of airline service quality and an airline that is trying very hard to pop off in an increasingly competitive market sector. Key lessons and management guidelines As business and management research is essentially a ? eld of applied studies it is appropriate that research of this type should convert at least some of its ? ndings into a series of practical management guidelines (Remenyi et al. , 1998). Therefore, although it Singapore Airlines (Wirtz and Johnston, 2003) Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes YesService recovery element Acknowledge the challenge of delivering service excellence Adopt a total systems approach Strive for consistency with personalisation in service delivery Understand customers and anticipate their needs Listen to both customers and front-line staff enter compliments and complaints Continuou sly training and motivate the front-line staff Provide consecrated resources for communication and motivation Manage the organisation with an eye for the detail in everything Focus, above all, on delivering consistently high quality at a pro? t for the companyThe airline Yes no(prenominal) no. zero(prenominal)No No No No No No Table III. Airline service quality set-up and recovery comparison is not our main purpose to present prescriptions, the following maybe useful for practitioners. The key lessons presented to a lower place offer straightforward advice . Do not lose focus of internal service quality quality of the workplace job content and vicissitude recruitment selection and suf? cient training of employees management support rewarding employees for good job performance recognising employees for good job performance. The latter is said to make do signi? cant in? ence over the quality of employee job performance (Piercy, 1995). . Put evaluation and reward systems into practi ce to correspond good performance is monitored and rewarded (e. g. with change bonuses or free tickets). . Empower front-line employees. This is a tool for improving employee motivation, as having the power to own, manage and resolve a problem makes roles more substantive and interesting. . Frequent service education and training can enhance the ability of front-line staff to provide greater levels of customer care. It also prepares them for handling the differing demands of customers.A case of service failure and recovery 319 Conclusions This research has reported the main causes of service failure within an international airline and through comparison with another airline the ? ndings re-assert that service quality excellence can only be achieved through employee satisfaction, commitment and loyalty as a result of senior management commitment, focus and drive. The paper has assessed the organisations process of service recovery with respect to the main causes of service failure , in its goal to achieving customer satisfaction and internal improvement.The analysis of the ? ndings conformed to the Pareto principle, by which the majority of the organisations failure resulted from a small proportion of the problem areas (technical problems strikes ground staff attitude). The ? ndings indicated that for service recovery to be effective, it must be external (to the customer) as well as internal (to the organisation) so that internal improvement can be ensured. The ? ndings also substantiated previous claims of the need to approach service quality in a manner that goes beyond unsophisticated and shockable practices that verlook the signi? cance, power and in? uence of the employee on the delivery of quality service and the polish operation of the organisations activities. Finally, the ? ndings con? rmed previous assertions that employee satisfaction, commitment and loyalty require high levels of management commitment, as well as frequent communication. This res earch raises a number of implications for management. The interactive concepts of external and internal quality and their importance raise issues of recruitment and training to achieve the right unite of employee skills and motivation.There appears to exist the need for the organisation to adopt management-employee relationship strategies, to ensure it manages and gets the best out of this key resource. Periodic review of performances and reward schemes are considered of vital importance, to aid the co-evolution of mutual understanding between managers and employees, and hence the development of superior service quality. A further implication for management is re? ected by the importance of understanding the positive effects of internal marketing on the pro? tability of the MSQ 15,3 320 rganisation. As the literature suggests (Albrecht, 1985 Hamill and Davies, 1986), satis? ed employees have all the means to make customers happy by offering superior quality service and thus reducin g the occurrence of complaints substantially. The eventual result on the pro? tability of the organisation can only be encouraging, even at its most basic level fewer complaints mean less complaint expenditure and thus improved pro? ts. The methodology applied for collection of the research data was wholly appropriate and consistent with the perceived outcomes required.It generated ample data, which facilitated discussion and the drawing of speci? c conclusions. A perceived limitation is the espousal of a single case approach however Remenyi et al. (1998) argues that this can be enough to add to the body of knowledge. As a result of this research the Airlines senior management team have recognised the need to address internal marketing in a manner that will be translated into the companys philosophy and cultural attributes. 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