Essay On Customer Service Profile

Analysis of Singapore Airlines (SIA)Introduction

The company chosen for this paper is Singapore Airlines. The chief reason for selecting this company is high efforts company puts in for ensuring superior customer service. The company has greatly differentiated itself from rest of the airline companies grounded upon exceptional customer service, both on the ground as well as in-flight (Christensen and Askegaard, 2001).

Definition of good customer service

A good customer service is as easy as resolving issues and putting forward resolutions in a quick way (Batey, 2002). It involves overall politeness and pleasantness from ones who show front-lines of the corporation.

Establishing good customer relations and rapport

Good customer relations and rapport are established by offering superior products to the customers; handling customers' complaints in the most effective manner; making use of different communication channels like advertisements, public relations, social networking sites and others; establishing online forums where customers can obtain information and provide feedback; gaining customers' views on company's products and services and lastly, treating them politely (Ford, et.al., 2001).

Basic customer needs common to all customers?

Be it any sector or industry, the basic common needs of every customer is to get best value of their spending. Today, customers have become highly attentive and prefer products and services that are new and different (Christensen and Askegaard, 2001).

Customer service for SIA

There is no doubt in the fact that SIA lays high emphasis on customer service. As per the company good customer service involves offering superior products to the customers and dealing with their problems, if any in the most effective and quick manner (Heracleous et. al., 2006). SIA uses several different ways for ensuring good customer relations and rapport with the customers (Batey, 2002). It does this by offering superior products to the customers; handling customers' complaints in the most effective manner; making use of different communication channels like advertisements, public relations, social networking sites and others; establishing online forums where customers can obtain information and provide feedback; gaining customers' views on company's products and services and lastly, treating them politely (Wirtz and Johnston, 2003)..

The exceptional customer service of SIA

Subsequent to functioning as Malaysian Airways and after that as Malaysia-Singapore Airlines, Singapore Airlines (SIA) was officially introduced during the year 1972 (Batey, 2002). In the present day, the network of SIA spreads across 93 different destinations situated within 42 nations, serving Asia, North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the South West Pacific (Heracleous et. al., 2006). The regional airline subsidiary of SIA i.e. SilkAir serves around 21 different destinations located within 8 nations. The company has also formed several strategic agreements with other chief global airlines for serving other marketplaces collectively (Heracleous et. al., 2006). Outstandingly for the airline sector SIA holds all its aircraft, unlike several other airline companies that lease a considerable fraction of their fleet. Also, SIA holds one among of the youngest fleets of all key airlines, with standard age of only above 5 years. Moving ahead, the chief mission of the company is to offer exceptional and superior services to its customers (Heracleous et. al., 2006). On the whole, making their experience with the company unforgettable and outstanding.

Customer service policies of SIA

The SIA airline has been quite capable of developing its exceptional competitive edge with respect to customer service by way of its people (Heracleous et. al., 2006). From the beginning only SIA acknowledged the significance of customer service in retaining existing and new customers trustworthiness. The corporation has at all times laid high significance upon quality training for employees that has set up its cabin crew like the 'hallmark' of effectiveness as well as customer service (Heracleous et. al., 2006). This has resulted in higher competitive benefit. The customer policies adopted by the company are all directed towards ensuring superior services and experience for the customers (Ford, et.al., 2001).

SIA’s focus placed on customer needs

There is no doubt in the fact that SIA lays high focus upon customer needs. The majority of company's efforts are directed towards ensuring excellent customer services and experience. Singapore Airlines (SIA) is a premium brand which is highly acknowledged within Singapore and is highly renowned for the superiority of the products offering as well as quality of the service standards (Batey, 2002). The customer service standards of SIA are highlighted through different uniform of the flight stewardess, signifying its Asian heritage. Within the present day service economy, it's normally customer service which differentiates one service/product from other (Heracleous et. al., 2006). A good instance of this is the airline sector, where people might be travelling for several hours. In these time-periods individuals wish to lay down in comfort, understanding that their individual wants are being satisfied. Singapore Airlines intends to make available the most excellent product/service for its customers, along with superior customer service (Batey, 2002).

Relationship between employee empowerment and accountability

There exists a positive relationship between employee empowerment and accountability. SIA very well understands that employees form an important part of the company's success and make high contribution towards it (Heracleous et. al., 2006). Empowering employees to give in their best efforts results in higher accountability on their part (Christensen and Askegaard, 2001). The SIA is Singapore’s leading private segment employer having a strong workforce of 28,000. The company is dedicated towards the progress of the human resources.
Moreover, initial training for cabin crew of SIA is organized for the period of around three months (Batey, 2002). It's designed for supporting employees in learning to foresee and satisfy wants of all the customers, e.g. during training the employees are motivated to visit homes of old people and work with kids when going through training. Other facets of training take in make-up and grooming, along with comprehensive training for Health and Safety (Batey, 2002).
The chief focus is laid upon superior quality customer service as well as focus on detail. Language training is significant and employees would be capable of speaking several different international languages taking in English (Heracleous et. al., 2006). Training motivates team spirit and employees properly comprehend that they are Singapore's ambassadors. For several visitors SIA employees would be their foremost view of Singapore. As a result, it is important for creating a positive image. Through continuously raising the service level SIA is developing a standard that other companies find hard to follow (Heracleous et. al., 2006). The policy of SIA is that all empowerment should arrive from inside the corporation, thus there exists high scope for employees growth (Davis, 1996). Scholarships are present in the corporation for sending cabin crew to Universities. The company manages its own management development units that employ expert trainers (Heracleous et. al., 2006).

All these initiatives intended towards employees help in raising their morale so that they could give in their best efforts.

Communication strategies used to develop good customer relations and rapport
Communication strategies used for developing good customer relations and rapport different communication channels like advertisements, public relations, social networking sites and others; establishing online forums where customers can obtain information and provide feedback; gaining customers' views on company's products and services and lastly, treating them politely (Ford, et.al., 2001).

Complaint resolutions process at SIA

The company has a quick and easy complaint resolution process. The customer can simply call company's customer care reporting for their issue. In case the issue could be solved immediately, a call back is arranged within next 4 hours for the customer to help solve his/her problem. The customers can otherwise also mail the company reporting their issues or also post a comment on their twitter or Facebook page.

Illustration:

The company has developed online page for customer help on twitter and Facebook where customers can easily post their issue, get information of how similar issues have been solved of other customers previously and get a quick resolution from company's experts.

Conclusion

SIA offers a good example of incessant enhancement within cut-throat worldwide competition. Remaining ahead in the sector implies that the corporation could never stand still (Davis, 1996). It is quite evident that SIA is at all times trying to perk up the service it offers to its clients and the way it is continuously attempting to enhance customer service (Batey, 2002). SIA has been quite capable of successfully differentiating its product through regularly offering the advantages for meeting the requirements of the present day's air travellers (Heracleous et. al., 2006). Through steadily enhancing the products quality by making use of the globe's expert designers as well as chefs, SIA is capable of creating the synergistic advantages which arise from operating with the superior employees worldwide (Batey, 2002). While customers are completely delighted with the company, they could be certain that SIA is operating for making their next flight more outstanding (Davis, 1996). However, there have been customers’ complaints regarding lost baggage and long waiting time for getting baggage at the time of arrival. This needs to be managed by the company.
The company should make a proper track of all the baggage that is being loaded at the time of departure so that no baggage is left back. Also, the company should have around 2 terminals for baggage collection to trim down waiting time of customers. SIA promotes a customer first attitude by offering exceptional and superior services to the customers and obtaining their experience every time they use Singapore Airlines.
The paper helped the writer to gain valuable learning inputs. It is quite clear from the above discussion that customers play a vital part in success of every company. Every possible effort should be made to ensure good relation with customers and ensure that their needs are fully satisfied.

References:

Batey, I. (2002). Asian branding: A Great Way to Fly, Prentice-Hall, UK
Christensen, L. T. and Askegaard, S. (2001). Corporate identity and corporate image revisited, European Journal of Marketing, 35 (3/4), pp. 292–315
Davis, B. (1996). Why Singapore Airlines is the world's most profitable airline, Asian Business Review, pp. 34–37
Ford, R.C., Heaten, C.P. and Brown, S.W. (2001). Delivering excellent service: Lessons from the best firms, California Management Review, 44 (1), pp. 39 – 56.
Heracleous, L., Wirtz, J. and Pangarkar, N. (2006). Flying High in a Competitive Industry: Cost-Effective Service Excellence at Singapore Airlines, McGraw-Hill, Singapore.
Wirtz, J. and Johnston, R. ( 2003). Singapore Airlines: what it takes to sustain service excellence – a senior management perspective, Managing Service Quality, 13 (1).