This document discusses customer service processes for airlines. It covers preventing service failures, recovering from failures, and engineering positive customer experiences. Some key points include: focusing on resolving customer issues and meeting their stated and unstated needs; apologizing and owning up to mistakes when failures occur; thinking creatively to resolve issues and soften negative impacts through communication; and making customers feel valued to build loyalty. The goal is to exceed expectations during normal service and turn dissatisfied customers happy again following any problems.

1. Customer
Service for
Airlines
Processes
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Chatterjee
Service Failure
Prevention & Recovery

2. In this module…
 Three faces of service delivery
 Customer needs
 Total customer experience
 Preventing service failure
 Recovering from service failure
 Engineering customer experience
 Case studies
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3. Think about it
95% of complaining customers will remain loyal if their problems
are resolved immediately and to their satisfaction.
On average, companies have a 20-40% chance of selling to lost
customers, and only a 5 – 20% probability of selling to new
prospects.
It costs 4 – 10 times more to win a customer than it does to keep a
customer.
Long-term customers tend to spend more with a company than
new customers (and they are easier to serve than new customers.
Customer loyalty to airlines is a thing of the past: now it’s all about
the customer experience.
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4. Why customers leave
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5. Three faces of service delivery
Service Excellence Service Failure Service Recovery
Customer is: Customer is: Agent:
 Satisfied/happy  Dissatisfied  Prevents/pre-empts
service failure
 Delighted  Has to call back to
follow up on service  Makes a dissatisfied
customer happy again
Meet or exceed Meet or exceed
Not meet customer Key to Customer
customer expectations after
expectations Retention!
expectations causing distress
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6. Think about it
What makes you stay loyal to a store,
restaurant, or airline?
 Product  People  Convenience
 Service  Service  Location
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7. Typical customer needs
 ‘Listen to me’
 ‘Be sensitive to
‘Resolve my issue’ my needs’
 ‘Treat me like a
human being’
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8. Typical agent behaviors
Customer service agents:
Meet the customer’s
STATED needs
 Answer questions
But…
 Act on customer requests what about the
UNSTATED needs?
 Follow procedure
 Resolve the issue
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9. Customer experience
Total Customer Experience
Tone
Product
The The
Choice of
Service
Functional Emotional
words
Resolution
Needs Needs
Body
language
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10. The Singapore girl
Evokes an
emotional
response in
customers
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11. Think about it
Review Case Study #1.
 At which points did service
fail?
 Could the service have been
recovered?
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12. A different approach
How could the customer experience have been different?
1. Ground staff at the point of 1. Could have informed the
departure customer about the delay
2. Ground staff at the point 2. Been there to receive the
arrival guests
3. Bus driver 3. Shown more urgency in
communicating with airline
4. Flight attendant staff
4. Been professional and
empathetic
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13. Customer service roadmap
2. Recover 3.
1. Prevent
(Failed) Engineer
Service
Customer
Failure Service Experience
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14. 1. Preventing service failure
• Keep your promises
Pre-empt • Be on top of process knowledge
Failure • Offer a solution
• Repeated calls-backs &
Recognize confirmations
Triggers • Anxiety
• Special/unusual requests
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15. 2. Recovering from service failure
Apologize
Own up
Understand
Seek solution
Fix
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16. 3. Engineering customer
experience
Lateral Old Wine in Create an
Thinking New Bottle Experience
• Think out • Soften the • Make a big
of the box: blow by deal;
explore tweaking manipulate
unusual your words the
options and tone experience
(within
process
scope)
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17. Old wine in a new bottle
Explaining Policy
Instead of:
‘‘I’m sorry, we can only upgrade you to First Class if
you’ve flown 3000 miles in the last six months. You’re
short of 25 miles.’’
Try saying:
‘‘I’d love to upgrade you to First Class but our records
show that you’ll become eligible before the next flight.
We’d be happy to serve you in First Class on your next
flight with us!’’
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18. Old wine in a new bottle
Saying No
Instead of:
‘‘All the seats on the evening flight are booked. You’ll have to
fly out tomorrow morning. There is nothing that I can do. I’m
sorry.’’
Try saying:
‘‘I’m sorry, there are no seats available on the flight this
evening. However, I can book a seat of your choice on the
first flight out tomorrow morning. You will be able to reach
Bangalore in time for the meeting. Would you like me to go
ahead and book a seat on that flight?’’
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19. Old wine in a new bottle
Explaining Procedures
Instead of:
‘‘You can update your contact details on the website. Just go
to the Customer Information page and enter the new
information.’’
Try saying:
‘‘You can update your address and other contact details in the
Customer Information page on our website. If you are at your
computer, I could walk you through the steps to do so.’’
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20. Case Studies

21. Summary
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22. Thank you for your time!
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