Good Research Proposal About Customer Service And Response To Customer Complaints

Customer service is the process of providing services to the customers during, before and after any sale or purchase. Customer service varies with the type of products, services, customers, and industry. The success of customer service highly relies on employees who easily adjust to fit the situation at hand. Good customer service and relations can be one of the greatest competitive advantages to any organization or company. Therefore, a company that invests well on this and most especially on the employees i.e. in training would enjoy a higher profitability (Vikas & Carly 550). This paper purpose to analyze how effective customer service position in responding to the complaints from the customers. As such the paper will analyze Emirates Airlines as the case study of the paper.

Overview

Emirates Airline was started in 1985 after the government gave 10million US dollars as the startup capital. The Airline operates as a subsidiary of the Emirates group. Emirates group is owned by Dubai government’s Investment Corporation of Dubai. Emirates Airlines is the largest in Middle East. It operates 3500 flights every week to more than 142 cities that are in 78 countries and about six continents. The airline is ranked 7th largest in the entire world in regard to revenue. In terms of the passengers it ferry the Airline is ranked 4th in the world as at 2014. In terms of scheduled kilometers, that it flies’s it is ranked the 3rd largest. Emirates has over the years established kits brand name as the aviation industry leader, precisely in terms of excellence in service provision and its rapid growth rate, as well as consistent profitability (Airliner World 2). Throw its success in the industry it has received various awards i.e. ‘Airline of The Year’ by Air Transport World which ranked it 8th. The award was given in consideration and acknowledgment of operational excellence, financial condition, customer service trendsetters, and commitment to safety. In the year 2013 it was voted as the Airline of The Year.

Customer Care Systems and Strategies

An emirate recognizes the fact that employees are keys to the best customer services; hence it has invested more in them. One of the strategies employed by the Airline in regard to customer service is scheduling adequate number of employees with necessary skills needed to answer calls. This is the process by which the company assigns resources necessary to meet the customer demand as well as scheduling the adequate number of staff in right places. The planners in Emirates try their level best to often match the workforce to schedule closely to the demand of the callers since it is the very best way to attain accessibility target. In addition, the Airline invests in training and educating all of its agents to handle a call effectively and efficiently. Further to enhance good customer service among its consultant’s emirates motivates them through good compensation strategies such as high salary as well as medical insurance.
Further, Emirates have set up a contact center that receives customers’ requests, comments, and complaints. The contact center is fully vanished with enough employees to answer the calls. Emirates contact center has its branches in all of the major destinations that the Airline operates. In addition, to call center Emirates have utilized technology establishing their website and database where its customers can interact with the staff at the contact center. The clients can book their flights online as well as submit their complaints to the company. This boosts the company practices in regard to customer service as it reduces the jam in the call center. It has also utilized the social, media establishing Face book page, and Twitter handles where its customers can monitor the operations of the Airline.
Emirates in its spirit of customer service excellence, have established a regular monitoring system of their agents. This is done through recording of the calls made by customers. The airline often monitors the operations of its agents in the contact center to ensure that they maintain the best practices. Further, it ensures that the agents can get the customers’ details right, have appropriate greetings and properly address the customers. Monitoring within Emirates often improves customer services, increase employee productivity, feedback, and support and resolves the arguments of the customers as well as maintains high standards at the contact center.

How Emirates Respond to Customer Complaints

Emirates in their website and brochures have directed their customers on the right procedures to launch a complaint and where to direct it. Within a period of 30 days after receiving any complaint Emirates returns an acknowledgment and respond to the complaint within a time limit of 60 days after the receipt of the complaint. Emirates under its department of customer relations ensure that the customer service is maintained at high levels through their constant analysis of the customer feedback. The department looks into all the complaints and compliments made by the customers in regard to EKAS (Airliner World 2). After this analysis, they identify areas that need to be improved as well as where the staff requires further development. In regard to aspects such as the refund request, the Airline does work on it within seven days after submitting the refund form for eticket and within 20 days for tickets refund. This is just but examples of how Emirates Airline swiftly handles customer complaints as well as requests.

SWOT Analysis

Emirates Airline has capitalized its strengths in good customer service services and strategies. As discussed above it is evident that there is advance technology and innovation within the Airline. Also, the Airline enjoys developed infrastructure that enhances good customer care, for instance, the ground service lounges. Through effective training and right recruitment, the Airline has the best-skilled staff to handle the customer services. This is the greatest asset that the Airline has.
In terms of the Airline’s weakness, it is evident that there is shortage in acquiring the local labor due to lack of skills. This makes the Airline rely mostly on expats. This is a challenge to the Airline since customer service is best done by the local labor as they understand their culture and language that is of the vital essence to be considered. Also in responding to customer complaints the airline is extremely slow. 60 days is a long time to respond to the customers as it makes them impatient.
The opportunities that Emirates has include; with growth in the global market and expansion due to increasing liberalization and deregulation, the Airline has an opportunity to trains its local staff to help them in this new markets. Further with the advanced technology Emirates have the opportunity of adopting new software that would assist them in customer response, for instance, to utilize the online services fully.
In addition, Emirates does face various threats including; environmental constraints, for instance, global warming, air pollution, climate change and resource shortage. This factor directly affects the operations of the Airline hence a challenge also to the customer service center. For example when a flight cannot take off due unavoidable circumstances. Staff poaching is another threat that faces Emirates for instance after investing much in employees other airlines takes them while at the peak of their careers hence disadvantaging Emirates.

Theory of Customer Service

The theory of customer service rallies on identification and satisfaction of customer’s needs as well as exceeding their expectations. An organization or company, according to the theory ought to totally commit to delivering high standards of customer service in order to retain and gain customer loyalty. All individuals within the company starting with the management all the way to the junior employees should be tuned into the needs of the customers. The company must create a customer service culture around the business so as to assist build success. Customer satisfaction as well as loyaltyare inseparably connected to the profitability of the company. Indeed, Emirates Airline has embraced this theory through heavily financing and monitoring customer service. It has employed and trained enough skilled personnel to this department. All this has been done by Emirates Airline to sustain and increase its profitability (Vikas and Carly 568). This is the reason it is the Leading Airline in the industry of Aviation.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Emirates Airline is in a good position of addressing the customers’ complaints. This is so due to the best systems, staff and strategies that they have put in place with regard to customer complaints. The very first process of responding to solving complaints is receiving them. By establishing a contact center and vanishing it very well, makes it easy for customers to launch their complaints. Further the customer relations center is there to settle the complaints through analysis and recommending necessary improvements in areas affected by the complaints. Nevertheless in spite the best strategies for receiving and analyzing the customer complaints it is evident that Emirates is slow in responding to this complaints. Indeed taking more than a month before responding to a complaint is not an effective means of response. This ought to be corrected by the Airline to ensure that customers do not run out of patience. Indeed effective customer service and response to complaints as launched by the customers is very important towards the success of an organization. It handled with caution and efficiency customer service increases an organization's profitability by a higher percentage.

Questionnaire

For how long have you been working with Emirates Airlines?
How many contact centers do Emirates Airline have?
How many hours do you work a day?
How many customer calls do you receive per day?
When is the peak and off-peak period based on the number of calls received per day?
What number of staff is required per day in the contact center?
How often do the employees undergo additional training in customer service?
How long does it take before responding a complaint made by the Customer?
Do customers express their satisfaction in the responses made to their complaints?
How does Emirates Airline motivate the employees to increase their loyalty to the company?

Works Cited

Airliner World. “Emirates- 25 Years of Excellence: Building a Global Network.” Stamford Key Publishers. 2012. Print.
Vikas Mittal; Carly Frennea. "Customer Satisfaction: A Strategic Review and Guidelines for Managers." Marketing Science Institute: MSI Fast Forward. 2010. Print.
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