EasyJet Airline's Service Quality Improvement Report

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MANAGING QUALITY
IN HOSPITALITY,
TOURISM, AND
EVENTS
EASY JET
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This assignment is based on easy jet a UK based airline. Although all the UK airlines and the
airports are facing the dissatisfaction of consumers across the UK and depression in the
industry but Easy jet is ranked the lowest airline in UK based carriers and there are number of
customer complaints about easy jet from the customers but still it managed to have a growth in
its revenues from last year and have announced that they have started with a very good
revenue rate at the beginning of the year 2018. So the aim of this assignment is to improve the
service quality of easy jet company by analyzing the whole situation.
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Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY...................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................. 4
BODY.............................................................................................................................................. 5
CONCLUSION/ RECOMMENDATIONS.......................................................................................... 12
REFERENCES.................................................................................................................................14
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INTRODUCTION
Easy jet is the UK based British Airline Company that flies to 136 destinations of the world and is
a public limited company that is headquartered in London with the fleet size of 323 airplanes.
The company has grown revenue from 14 % (1.4 billion) this year and increase in revenue per
seat by 2.1 % and the passengers in last six months have tremendously increased by 3 million
due to the cheap fare price. The above figures prove that the financial health of the company is
good but the company is performing very poor in its operations. The reason being the
customers are highly dissatisfied with the service quality provided by the easy jet airlines. Many
of the customers gave the feedback of worst airlines in the world, so to find the reason behind
the diminishing customer satisfaction is necessary and to decide how the company can
overcome these quality issues by performing some quality standards and reviewing their
customer service techniques.
Figure 1- EASY JET AIRLINES
Source- Easy jet, 2019
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BODY
1. EXPERIENCE THE PROBLEMS BEING EXPERIENCED AT EASYJET
The company easy jet is the company that is facing some serious problems that are
affecting its business and goodwill; these problems will result in serious threat from
competitors and the environment in the near future. The problems faced are-
Customer Dissatisfaction- The core problem faced by the company is customer
dissatisfaction and this is the view of not some people but the majority of people who
have traveled and taken the services of the easy jet. Once the customer is dissatisfied
he/she will never travel through easy jet again in spite of its cheap fare prices. The
customers are a complaint that the company is providing below satisfactory services
which are below the standards of the airlines they are paying for. The customer
dissatisfaction may be faced by many companies in this or every industry but when
these dissatisfactions increase the unbearable rate then it needs to be controlled before
the company gets questioned for its survival in the market.
Below average quality of services provided- The Company is facing serious service
quality issues that are not due to complaints of customers but the UK careers have
ranked it the lowest performing company in the UK and can have some serious threats
from the regulatory board because of the low service quality provided by the airlines.
There are some quality standards that an airline company needs to follow mandatorily
and the standards are mostly security related but also include the customer relate
policies that define the customer level of satisfaction.
Negative Goodwill- The low or negative customer satisfaction will result in higher
damage to the company’s goodwill. The goodwill or the brand image of the company is
built after a long time good service and huge company effort. The goodwill or the brand
image takes time to build but can be vanished within a second, it can be destroyed
through negative publicity of the company, customer's negative and offensive feedbacks
or the competitor's strategy to deviate customers that are loyal. These all factors
contribute to a negative public image of Easy Jet. Negative image spreads more quickly
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than positive or favorable news. Once the image is pushed below the standards then it
is very hard to regain the customer trust and their vote.
Passengers with special attention – In the flight there were passengers that were given
special attention and the regular customers were ignored, this complaint was given by
many of the passengers like B Lawson and P Reese who believes that they were not
provided with the food and the special customers were served before anybody else and
were provided with lots of free food and special facilities. These passengers are so
dissatisfied that they will never travel with these airlines again ever. Many customers
also complained that they didn't get any services not even basic services until they are
being asked for the same. This means the problem is from the employees' side which
needs to be removed if the guest satisfaction is to be achieved.
Lack in basic facilities- The passengers like Allan Gibson complained that they were
treated like cattle; there were long queues for every check whether it is passport
checking line, luggage exchange line, etc. also at the cabin they were not allowed to take
such a small bag and without any reason no explanation. Also, there were unsatisfactory
services for toilet and seating system, the company have so many complaints about the
seating system, the customers are not provided with comfortable seating and more
importantly their problems were not heard properly and taking action on the
inconvenience was not the staff members concern.
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2. EXPLAIN TO WHAT EXTEND EASYJET HAS RIGHT CAPABILITIES AND COMPETENCIES TO
IMPROVE QUALITY
Easy jet is the company that has its tremendous growth in its revenues and increase in
customer base but the company has low performance in its service quality. Easy jet has
its strengths that can be used for increasing customer satisfaction such as –
1. Unparalleled network- the company easy jet have a huge market share and a very
significant presence in the market and so the network has been expanded at a very
greater level that will help the company in retaining the customer base. The
company has 803 routes and the network is mainly focused on the major airports
over 29 bases in Europe that involve providing high services in GDP catchment areas
of Europe.
2. Well-known brand - The Company have been providing safe lading services and
reliable services to the passengers and is in operations since 1995 so it is a well-
known brand , this company is known for its cheap rates of airfare so it has a huge
customer base and since the company is well known it can use this to improve its
quality by asking customers about their feedbacks, in which areas the company
needs improvement and what are the wants and desires of the customers, what
delights the customer and their experiences in the flight, then these suggestions
needs to be implemented within the cost limit and very fast so that the loyal and the
existing customers don’t shift their preferences to the competitors.
3. Low-cost model – the company has the cheapest rates of airfares that are being
provided to the passengers that attract a large number of customers, and the
company have the low-cost model as their cost per seat is decreasing , so they have
high revenues and profits which they can invest in improving the service quality
provided to the customers like improving the toilet facilities, seating improvements
i.e. improving the seats or applying new seats or giving maintenance to the original
seats in the planes. This extra profit saved through cost-cutting can be used in
providing small benefits to the passengers like free and extra chocolates or any
other perks that please the passengers and their experience at the plane.
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4. Large employee force- Easy jet has the employee force of over 10000 people at their
service which could together be helpful in creating better services for the customers.
This large force can result in better customer satisfaction if they are trained
properly. These many people can manage the customers and together they can
solve the customer related problems as many of the staff members are experienced
and they know how to handle customer requests and how to solve passenger
related problems.
Figure 2- STRENGTHS OF EASY JET
Source- Easy jet, 2019
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3. ASSES THE IMPACT THAT KAIZEN TECHNIQUE COULD HAVE ON EASYJET IN TERMS OF
DELIVERING CONSISTENT AND EFFECTIVE QUALITY MANAGEMENT
Kaizen is the strategic quality regulating tool that ensures the quality of the services
provided. The word kaizen means to change for better, this technique is adapted from
Japan and this technique aims at continuous improvement in the technology or the
production process or the method of service provided, so this technique will help Easy Jet in
improving the efficiency and service quality that will ultimately satisfy the customer needs
and wants. Japanese companies give so much importance to the kaizen technique to uplift
their company from all their rivals, so this technique is differentiating strategy that will
increase the brand image or goodwill of the company in the minds of the customers and
prospect customers also this technique will give the competitors a healthy competition. This
technique is about accepting the change and changing the process used in the company
according to the environment change may be technological changes or quality changes or
any other type of change that results in positive terms for the company (Tetteh, 2012).
Kaizen technique can be used by Easy jet to improve its service quality to the international
standard levels. This airlines company not only can use this at every level of its service
distribution, since this is service oriented company so the service provided at each and
every level is engaged with the interaction of customers or guest so kaizen can be
implemented at every level of service that is being provided. Kaizen can also be related to
six sigma technique that also ensures quality maximization at the rate of .06 % of quality
defects.
Easy jets have different ways to use kaizen –
Change the service quality – Through proper training of the employees, staff members, the
flight attendants including the pilots and air hostess (Heracleous and Wirtz, 2010). There is a
necessary requirement to change the way of communication with the passengers, they
need to be trained to provide special attention to the customers and provide to them their
best services before they ask for the same, it’s their duty to imitate the process of better
customer experience. Easy jet can learn from the other competitors that provide best
quality services, the manager of easy jet should travel in other airlines and should
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experience their hospitality and should note some points that are not provided by staff at
easy jet airlines and should then execute the same in their services for their customers.
Technology advancement- kaizen always suggest change according to the change in
environment, like customers are facing the problems of waiting in long queues so this
problem can be solved by updating their technology by making the customers check in
online and making the other changes in managing the guests and their boarding passes and
passports seat arrangements through management software that result in allocation of
seats without any biases and customer preferences. Through the online website, the
customers book their tickets online but there are some clashes that are to be solved as now
people prefer online booking the most and so to provide proper security and privacy of the
passengers.
Technology can also be used to gain the knowledge of customers by using search engine
optimization techniques and also to know the customer's likes and dislikes, online people
can suggest the company the ways in which it can improve its quality of services. Like Go-go
Company that provides online social interactions in flight which can entertain the customers
in flight (Galang, 2012).
Figure 3 - ONLINE PORTAL OF EASY JET
Source- Easy jet, 2019
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Customer first- the customer preferences, customer behaviour, customer needs and desires
that can help easy jet to achieve high customer satisfaction, most of the complaints from
the customers are that they are being ignored so the staff needs to change their way of
providing services this is called social change where the customer needs are given more
importance than the employee needs.
Kaizen also suggests the change in monitoring and evaluating process of the employees, as
the employees are the ones that communicate with passengers and they are performing
below the standards so the management needs to change the evaluation process or
monitoring procedure, the employees who are misbehaving or not providing satisfactory
services to the customers should be punished with fine or any other punishment and the
employees who are performing good and are giving excellent quality services to the
customers should be appreciated and rewarded in front of everybody this boosts up the
enthusiasm of employees to perform better (Dinçer et al., 2017).
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CONCLUSION/ RECOMMENDATIONS
Every company in every industry have some weakness and problems that are both internal and
external but to overcome these problems and internal weakness through optimizing the
strengths and turning the weakness into its strength than and only than it can survive in the
consumer market. The company have basically one major problem that is consumer satisfaction
and to overcome the same the company needs to follow below recommendations-
1. Training of employees- the company should provide training to its employees especially
the flight attendants as they are the face of the airlines these employees are rough
through the edges and hence the customer is unsatisfied. To train the employees about
the antiquates, flight schedules, communication skills is necessary for customer
satisfaction (Heracleous and Wirtz, 2010)
2. Customer desires and wants analysis – The Company is facing dissatisfaction because
their basic wants from the air experience and for knowing the basic desires the company
needs to analyze the consumer demands, consumer behavior and customer definition
for satisfaction, then only the company will move in right direction to increase its quality
of services (Yee Liau and Pei Tan, 2014).
3. Implementation and regular feedbacks – Ones the company easy jet has found the
demands and wants of the consumers the company can implement those changes in its
functioning and then the company has to take feedback from the customers that have
taken the services and ask for their recommendations for improvement in service
quality (Yee Liau and Pei Tan, 2014).
4. Reviewing performance of employees- The most important task is to communicate with
the employees and review their performances and their attitude towards the customer
their communication and responses to the customer is to be analyzed weekly (Dinçer et
al., 2017).
Total quality management is the tool that ensures high quality and the concept of total
quality management that can be used for the easy jet is lean management as the customers
have a complaint of waiting in long queues.
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