Customer satisfaction is a top priority for any business
During the year of 2019 in November, a survey was conducted by UK’s top business magazine “Which?” In that magazine, consumers have chosen Ryanair and British Airlines as the worst short-haul airlines due to poor performance in customer service and disruptions of several flights during the global pandemic. According to the report of Haming et al. (2019, p 30), customer satisfaction is the first priority for any business, hence a company should focus on delivering premium and standard products and services to its customers. Accordingly, airline companies are known for giving one of the best hospitality services. Several popular UK-based airline companies such as “Emirates, Qantas, Virgin Atlantic, and Titan Airways” have achieved a superior position for providing standard customer service starting from onboarding to the end of flights.
While both the Ryanair and British Airways has slammed by the customer for lacking on the above-mentioned priorities and making poor records on funds. It has also been reviewed by “which?” magazine that more than 1300 passengers have experienced short-haul airlines in several areas including boarding, cabin cleanliness, customer service, and satisfaction and refunding policy, especially during the Covid-19 situation (which.co.uk, 2022). However, several airlines managed the situation of crisis more deliberately and dynamically. Oppositely, Ryanair has performed worst in the terms of refunding or giving back money policy. As evidence of the matter, it has been also reported that one in five customers have claimed it took more than one month to get their refund money. One passenger expresses their experience and opinions “Ryanair is the most awkward airline to deal with that I have ever come across, said one customer. It seems to be proud of being difficult.
Figure: Ryanair and British Airways
(Source: which.co.uk, 2022)
It has been already known that poor customer satisfaction and an improper business operation could lead a firm to meet huge losses and also impact its corporate reputation. According to Baraibar-Diez & Sotorrío (2018), corporate reputation is defined as a straightforward term that shows a company’s perceived status by others. Furthermore, corporate reputation is associated with several valuable components of business such as brand value, corporate image, identity, brand equity, and status. All these components only can be increased with proper integration of business operations and customer satisfaction. However, in the case of Ryanair and British Airways both the companies have failed to do so. Moreover, several customers have given negative feedback on the airline’s corporate reputation. It has been said that Ryanair has been an awkward airline that faces difficulties while serving the customer (Ferla & Graham 2019,). In addition to this, due to lack of transparency in cost and giving the worst customer service, this airline company has been positioned in the bottom three in “which?” magazine for constant years.
On the other hand, it has been reported that compared to Ryanair, British Airways have the poorest refund policy (which.co.uk, 2022). Along with this, customers have claimed that they have to wait more than hours shifting from one department to another. Also, the food and drink, customer comfort, and value for money have been dropped due to improper operation systems of British Airways. It has impacted badly on the company’s reputation even though it’s one of the UK’s airlines that offers flexible customer service and has also provided vouchers to use by customers during pandemic situations for undertaking several benefits. British Airways has convinced its customers and promised to provide better work and services and as a result in 2021 the company has earned greater revenue compared to other UK-based airlines.
Impact of poor customer service on Ryanair and British Airways
Despite focusing and highlighting the issues, the performance of Ryanair has decreased continuously. As a result, Ryanair’s existing customers have shifted their choices to other fast and better airline services due to the fallback in corporate reputation.
Aviation plays a huge and important role in the UK’s national business and economic life. Moreover, airlines in the UK are one of the great resources that connect people around the world, and businesses, boost tourism and trade, and also support majorly to maintaining a highly-skilled aerospace supply chain. According to the report of Blakey-Milner et al. (2021), UK’s airlines are one of the largest airline chains that serve over 276 million and operate 90,000 employees. During the Covid-19 period, major disruptions in airlines have been observed by the regular passengers across different nations. In the UK the major number of passengers have survived due to poor customer satisfaction and services and poor refund policy.
One of the popular customer choice magazines named “which?” has identified Ryanair and British Airways have provided their worst experience to their customers (Nkrumah et al. 2022). From the survey, it has been highlighted that lack of transparency, poor customer service, and poor refund policy has been the major reason for the falling down of these two companies. On the other hand, several other companies such as Jet2 have given their best possible service during Covid-19. As per the report of Belhadi et al. (2021), the government’s health protocols and working guidelines have disrupted the work efficiency of the UK’s airlines. As the government claimed the business operations must be run including 30 to 50 percent employees, British Airways have followed the guideline that resulted in this company being hardly capable of managing those issues.
Figure: Customer Satisfaction Theory in Aviation
(Source: Lu et al. 2020)
On the other hand, the airline business and industries need to serve with flexible booking policies.
In the view of Linden et al. (2021), the application of contingency theory is a must for airline companies, as the theory supported airlines to resolve these in the best possible ways. Hence, it can be clearly assumed that lack of developing contingency theory in both business platforms such as Ryanair and British Airways has become one of the major reasons that the company wasn’t able to manage the crisis.
Along with this, for customers who have or are enjoying the services of airlines, it is also advisable for them for ensuring a safe flight booking. Customers are also needed to look carefully when choosing an airline facility that includes the flexibility of rebooking their accommodation without paying an admin fee. Over the past years, global aviation including UK aviation has majorly focused on giving superior and standard service to its customers. Poor development of customer satisfaction theory can lead a firm to meet several issues and meet huge amounts of loss (Lu et al. 2020). Therefore, from the overall research, it has been observed that both Ryanair and British Airways neither developed strong theories nor implemented any strong strategy to prevent these issues which have led both companies toward a major fall-back.
References
Baraibar-Diez, E., & Sotorrío, L. L. (2018). The mediating effect of transparency in the relationship between corporate social responsibility and corporate reputation. Revista brasileira de gestão de negócios, 20, 05-21. Retrieved on 16th April 2022 from https://www.scielo.br/j/rbgn/a/dkyG6XcG9dW9RgcKjJRRq8d/?lang=en
Belhadi, A., Kamble, S., Jabbour, C. J. C., Gunasekaran, A., Ndubisi, N. O., & Venkatesh, M. (2021). Manufacturing and service supply chain resilience to the COVID-19 outbreak: Lessons learned from the automobile and airline industries. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 163, 120447. Retrieved on 16th April 2022 from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc7836947/
Blakey-Milner, B., Gradl, P., Snedden, G., Brooks, M., Pitot, J., Lopez, E., … & du Plessis, A. (2021). Metal additive manufacturing in aerospace: A review. Materials & Design, 209, 110008. Retrieved on 16th April 2022 from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264127521005633
Ferla, M., & Graham, A. (2019). Women slowly taking off: An investigation into female underrepresentation in commercial aviation. Research in Transportation Business & Management, 31, 100378. Retrieved on 16th April 2022 from https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/download/1da93843ade24006face7a6018d601e47c73726d239e524c178bccd493ce6f9e/141942/Woman%20slowly%20taking%20off%20Revised%20paper.pdf
Haming, M., Murdifin, I., Syaiful, A. Z., & Putra, A. H. P. K. (2019). The application of SERVQUAL distribution in measuring customer satisfaction of retail companies. Journal of Distribution Science, 17(2), 25-34. Retrieved on 16th April 2022 from https://www.koreascience.or.kr/article/JAKO201915658236448.pdf
Linden, E. (2021). Pandemics and environmental shocks: What aviation managers should learn from COVID-19 for long-term planning. Journal of Air Transport Management, 90, 101944. Retrieved on 16th April 2022 from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0969699720305275
Lu, V. N., Wirtz, J., Kunz, W. H., Paluch, S., Gruber, T., Martins, A., & Patterson, P. G. (2020). Service robots, customers, and service employees: what can we learn from the academic literature and where are the gaps?. Journal of Service Theory and Practice, 30(3), 361-391. Retrieved on 16th April 2022 from https://www.academia.edu/download/61819889/Lu_et_al_Service_Robots_JSTP_202020200118-124796-18mmn3q.pdf
Nkrumah, E. N. K., Liu, S., Fiergbor, D. D., & Akoto, L. S. (2022, February). The Thought of Death in a Pandemic Era: Can Anxiety Determine the Nexus between the Accessibility, Availability, and Use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for COVID-19 and Work Behaviour among Aviation Workers?. In Healthcare (Vol. 10, No. 2, p. 215). Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute. Retrieved on 16th April 2022 from https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/10/2/215/pdf
which.co.uk, 2022 Ryanair and BA rated worst short-haul airlines for pandemic flights and refunds [Online] Retrieved on 16th April 2022 from https://www.which.co.uk/news/2022/02/ryanair-and-ba-rated-worst-short-haul-airlines-for-pandemic-flights-and-refunds/
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