Service failure and recovery in UK airlines

Gotsis, V

Abstract

This research has focused on the service failure and recovery of the Airline industry and the impact that has on customer satisfaction along with the task to identify optimal recovery strategies.

It has identified 22 Failure types that occurred during service failure and has expanded the understanding of the impact that several factors such as Severity of Failure, Failure type, Emotion and Justice have on Post Failure Satisfaction (PFS), on Satisfaction with Recovery (SWR), on Post Recovery Satisfaction (PRS) and Loyalty through the use of a suggested model (conceptual framework).

More specific it has found that the factors of Severity of Failure (exclusively for the airline industry) and Failure type have a negative effect on Post Failure Satisfaction (PFS), on Satisfaction with Recovery (SWR), on Post Recovery Satisfaction (PRS) and Loyalty. In addition, the factor of Emotion did not have a significant effect on Post Recovery Satisfaction (PRS) and Loyalty while the factor of Justice has.

It has also identified some recovery strategies that work more effectively after the occurrence of service failure. More particularly the strategies of providing (on behalf of the airline company) : (1) Opportunity to voice my view/feelings, (2) Correction of the problem, (3) Staff empowered to solve the problem, (4) Apology for the service failure), (5) Follow-Up in writing from airline manager, (6) Facilitation for making complain process easier, (7) Appropriate place to explain/handle the complaint, (8) Understanding staff and some others to a smaller extent, work more effectively with regards to the recovery process for the customer.

The research had a quantitative approach and was carried out with multivariate statistics (IBM’s SPSS software package) such as Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and (OLS) Regression analysis. It suggested a model (conceptual framework) where several factors were tested with the above-mentioned statistics.

Further this research has also revealed some service quality models for the airline industry (both industry specific and non) that work better and more specific suggested the use of the Hierarchical model along with industry-based models. In addition, the usage of the SERVPEX and SERVPERF models cannot be totally rejected as there are arguments from both sides.

Overall this research has contributed to theory by demonstrating through a conceptual framework what general impact exist in the whole service failure and recovery process with regards to the factors of Severity of Failure, Failure type, Emotion and Justice. The findings provide a significant contribution to the literature.

Citation

Gotsis, V. Service failure and recovery in UK airlines. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: May 31, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: May 31, 2017