Harvard Essay: Service Marketing Analysis of Qantas Airways

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of Qantas Airways' service marketing, focusing on its front and backstage operations and their impact on customer experience. It delves into the importance of service encounters, from ticket purchase to baggage claim, and how Qantas manages these interactions to enhance customer satisfaction. The essay highlights the company's strategies to meet and exceed customer expectations, including reward programs, staff training, and insurance offerings. Furthermore, it examines managerial implications, emphasizing the role of customer feedback in shaping service improvements and differentiating Qantas from competitors. The analysis includes a flowchart illustrating the customer journey and explores post-purchase behavior and the significance of positive word-of-mouth in building brand reputation.

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HARVARD ESSAY
BY
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Service marketing
Quanta’s airways
Qantas is termed as the leading long distance airline worldwide. Its headquarters are
based in Australia and also one of the countries strongest brands. The company has been called
so since its foundation in the 1920s.this company is a member of the world famous organization
the one world alliance. Today this company offers an unparalleled system in its home mainland
and works an armada of somewhere in the range of 190 air ship over a system traversing around
75 destinations in 15 nations. (Benatallah, , 2004) Generally customers are ranked in the
following classes,
Travel class Eligible fare classes What you earn
First Class F, A 150% of actual miles flown
Business Class J, C, D, I 125% of actual miles flown
Premium Economy Class W, R, T 110% of actual miles flown
Economy Class Y 100% of actual miles flown
Economy Class B, H, K, L, M, V 50% of actual miles flown
(Qantas, 2009)
Qantas Airways operations
The Qantas airways company operations can be categories into to two categories;
1. Fronts stage operations
2. Backstage operations
The difference between the two terms is just based on the parties and activities to be
undertaken at each stage of service provision. The front stage can be defined as that interaction
that the final or the target service consumer has with the service being provided at a cost while
the backstage defines the back part of the service production chain that the target service
consumer is not able to see. These generally are the back office activities of any service
organization that does not involve the awareness or direct association of the service consumers.
Both a service delivering organization and the service consumer have a front stage and backstage
operation. In this essay, more will be the company’s front and backstage operations. (HICSS,
2008)
The front stage flowchart for the Qantas Airways Company

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Front stage
Maintenance of
the IT system
The maintenance and
organization of shuttles
Maintain system
Maintain the
supports vehicles
Maintenance of
the airport
infrastructure
like
Maintain the
infrastructure,
the IT, radio and
the radar
Maintenance of
the airport
facilities and the
support vehicles
Maintain support
vehicles
Maintain airport
facilities
Maintain and
organize shuttles
services
back stage
Check by the
mechanics
The supply of food, water, snacks,
drinks, reading materials and fuel to
the plane
The pilot and the crew get into the plane for
the journey
Load luggage into the plane for taking off
Alert to both bus
and stair drivers
Drive stairs to the
plane
Pilots and
control tower
make
arrangements
for taking off
after this the
pilot drive to the
runway and
takes off, flies via
the route;
copilot manages
the music and
air-conditioning
Communication btw the pilot and control tower
at the destination airport and the later control
tower alerts land crew and support vehicles
Support vehicles come to the plane, the crew ensures that
nothing is left in the vehicles, the luggage’s are transferred
to trucks, baggage are transferred to the running belt and
lastly the plane undergoes cleaning, checking and refilling
too for the next flight.

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Importance of the service encounter
Every time a customer has some service encounter, service experience also becomes part of
the customer. In most cases, a customer experiences services in the service provider physical
environment and so is the Qantas company case. The physical environment of the company
ranges from the website where the customer can purchase tickets up to the time they are reaching
the airport and board the plane. In addition to that, the employees of the Qantas Company also
form part of the physical environment. Although the Qantas Company is conducting this services
business to make a profit, of more of importance is how the customer interaction with the service
is going to affect the organization.
As illustrated in the flow chart above, the client of an aircraft service has various service
experiences or encounter which makes up the general air travel experience understanding. This
includes: getting a ticket; go to the air terminal; the registration and hold up at the airplane
terminal; the loading onto and flight service; the entry and collection of baggage; and the
departure from the air terminal. The present Qantas flight traveler has higher desires than
beforehand and aircraft need to contend by always enhancing traveler solace or comfort and
services. It’s the customer who the Qantas Company is delivering the service to that is more
important (Czepiel, 2013)
In the case of the Qantas Company, after the landing of the plane, the agents from the
company receive these responses from the customers and any response is well thought out and
all future intentions are considered. The post purchase customer behavior is also very crucial and
therefore if the customer was satisfied with the Qantas Company service they tend to use a word
of mouth to complement their service and these thereby reflects appositive service experience. A
negative word of mouth means that to some point within the process, the customer expectations
were not met. (Naumann, 2007) Although this may bring a wrong reputation to the image of the
Qantas Airways company, the management has been taking it with a lot of seriousness and also
helps them know where to work on improvement and avoid losing customers to their
competitors. (zeithaml, 2006)
Amid concurrent service production and utilization, it is the 'service experiences', that are the
basic snapshots of truth in which client frequently builds up a recognition mentality about the
business (Bitner et al. 2000) and differentiates it from its competitors. In the airline carrier
business, these service experiences are on which the association, either flourishes or passes on in
light of client's assessment of their offer service. Also, the fruitful organization make steps
further to upgrade their center or basic elements with expanded or improved components
Analysis of managerial implications
This revolves around how the management of the Qantas Company uses the observations
and information it gets from the feedback of the customer encounter experience It’s very
important that the every manager takes note of the response that the customer gives back
concerning their satisfaction. The Qantas management considers each class of travelers and
thereby they take every response keen. This, therefore, has helped the managers come up with
plans of Qantas flight services that every customer expects. The Qantas Airways have some
services that are aimed at ensuring that the customer comfort and satisfaction is reached.

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1. They have withdrawn booking for any Qantas service for those that book via their
websites.
2. The management has also introduced a marketing plan whereby anytime you book
their services you can be rewarded with some points which are redeemable. This
decision by management has led to increased bookings. This method encourages
customers to be in thirst of these services due to the points plus pay method.
3. They have managed to differentiate their services from their competitors, like the
provision of language carriers free of charge, taxi services to desired destinations
after landing, bars, and restaurants where they can rest as they await their next move
in case of customers taking other flights.
4. The management has also considered training its staff on how to communicate with
the customer even when they meet impolite ones.
5. Due to the unexpected plane accidents which have made some of the Qantas
competitors lose a customer, the management introduced an insurance cover method
to its customers. This has led to increased customers and they tend to testify a positive
customer experience.
6. Lastly, the management has also put in place ways in which it receives and handles
customer claims and complaints and this, therefore, leads to overall satisfaction of the
customers.( www.qantas.com)

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Work cited
Airways, Q., 2009. www.qantas.com. [Online] Available at https://www.qantas.com/za/en.html
[Accessed Augustus 2017].
Benatallah, 2004. IEEE Internet Computing, The self-serve environment for web services composition.
Bitner, M.J., 2010. Evaluating service encounters: the effects of physical surroundings and employee
responses. the Journal of Marketing, pp.pp.69-82.
Czepiel, J.A.a.S.M.R., 2013. The service encounter: Managing employee/customer interaction in service
businesses. word press.
HICSS, S.@., 2008. Bridging the "Front Stage" and the "backstage".
Naumann, 2007. One more time: How do you satisfy customers? In E. and Jackson, D.W. Business
Horizons. pp.71-76.
storey, c., 2000. the augmented service offering. journal of product innovation management, pp.333-51.
zeithaml, 2006. service marketing. In integrating customer satisfaction across the firm. NewYork.