Service Development of the "Office and Leisure Centre in the Sky" for Singapore Airlines.

However, it is essential to realising a detailed external study of the market conditions with customer needs and also customer behaviour, competitors’ attitudes and strategies, and political and legal conditions. Indeed, it provides an essential efficient mastery and knowledge of the external factors and effects in relation to the new service concept. But it is difficult for SIA to make comparative and strategic benchmarking because SIA is the besting class in airline sector, and the other international airlines copy the good practice of SIA. However comparative and strategic benchmarking can be interesting for SIA to confirm and verify the SIA’s position as the airline leader and the best airline. And SIA should realising also an internal analysis of financial, technological, knowledge-related and organisational possibilities for identifying its strengths and weaknesses in relation to the new idea.

A pragmatic and detailed analysis of external and internal environments will provide to identify the opportunities offered by the market in order to take advantage of these key factors of success in the development of the new service concept and to improve competitive advantages. But especially SIA must constantly understanding and anticipating the customer needs to remain a service leader in the airline industry SIA.

The new “office and leisure centre in the sky” idea includes:

• A response to customers’ expectations about in-flight technology service for the work and business or entertainment with a large space for travellers in the airplane, or also for sleeping
• A various offer of service in relation to the high-tech materials which are the most modern technology:

• The access to the Internet for visiting Web pages, sending e-mails and fax, searching information, …
• The possibility of phoning
• Benefiting of a large comfortable space in the airplanes with flexible seats in different positions (sat or lengthened), and a large table for working for businessmen.
• Offering a very good audio and video quality for radio and TV screens and a large choice of in-flight activities: video games, films and movies, reading magazines, newspapers or books, listening radio, … Also offering a very large choice for each activities: different audio and TV channels entertainment or for business, a large purpose of magazines and newspapers, …
• Offering a new program of customer loyalty with price’s and caring advantages for the most loyal travellers.

• Without forgetting the basic elements, which already form the SIA’s success:

• The reputation of Singapore Girl, always confirmed by the travellers. They represent the luxury exotically romantic image of SIA. They are known for their beauty and charm, their competence and caring, their hospitality. They can stay the good positive marketing icon. Singapore Girl are still an SIA’s element of the successful service differentiation strategy.
• A philosophy around the customer focus. SIA must preserve its customer orientation, which is the best solution to always offer the best services expected by the travellers.
• To offer a service excellence in luxury environment. SIA must continuously improve its services to maintain an high service quality standards and keeping competitive advantages.
• To deliver catering services which are very personalized and offer a large choice for the different customers. And the food served must be always high quality and answer to the quality controls.

• The development of the service system

The service system includes the resources available to the process for realizing the service concept: staff, customers, physical/technical environment, and organisation. The central activities include:

• A demand specification on the basis of the service concept
• A thorough assessment of the current service system
• A detailed description of the design of the system for the new service

• Selecting and training/education the staff (responsibilities, motivation, understanding):

The staff is a key resource. But it is essential that staff is recruiting very well in relation to meticulous and defined criteria. It must take their staff’s special needs, demands and wishes into account. Knowledge, experience, motivation and enjoyment are necessary. SIA must create designing attractive jobs and a stimulating work environment in order to the staff, and especially its front-line staff, have really a customer orientation and offer the best service to customers. The recruitment, training, development and outplacement of staff must be realized with attention and care for maintaining the SIA’s success and the best reputation. Training continually the employment is important, and for motivating the staff, SIA should building a good communication system (e.g.: newsletters, memoranda…) with its staff. With a good communication, the staff is encouraged because of good information and a good listening of staff’s remarks and comments. SIA must promote the interaction between managers and employment for sharing information.

• Training and adapting the customers (as outcome and co-producer): Also the customers are a key role, so understanding customers’ needs, wishes and expectations is necessary for the success. So SIA must inform the customer about the new services and the company. Customers need to receive training in the role of co-producer. For this, SIA must define the role, the participation and the responsibility of customer in the generation of the service. Furthermore, the training of customers must take in account their needs and be made in the construction of customer-friendly, pedagogical customer processes. Organizing the interaction between customers (e.g. queues), the customer’s relationship with the company’s organisation, the interaction between customers and staff and finally, the interaction with the physical / technical environment are various interactions of customers and the service environment which must take in account and organise.

• The physical / technical environment: it includes premises, computers and other technical systems and also the equipments of partners’ and customers’ premises. SIA must continuously improve its organisation of administrative support systems, responsibilities for the various activities in relation to the customers’ needs. It is interesting to create favourable conditions for increasingly better services and increasingly profitable business deals. Technical development should be customer-driven and business-driven. The staff, the organisational structure, the administrative regulatory systems and the customers must interact with the technical environment. For SIA, the physical and technical environment needs to be always very modern and new, successful and improved regularly. Indeed, in relation to the “office and leisure centre in the sky” idea, SIA must install in the planes audio and video system, which is very modern for having the best audio and image quality. The seats must be adapted in customers’ activities. The customers’ positions in their seat are different when they work and play or watch the TV, or also they sleep. The seat must propose these different comfortable positions: sat or lengthened. The necessary space and the use of the space are very different for businessmen and families. Businessmen need a large workspace: to put their laptops, sheets and other documents, to be able to note comments on these sheets without moving another material. Families need comfortable place for playing with video games or watching films… So “comfort“ and “technical” notions are essential for the development of the new idea.

• Organisation and control: it includes

• All the organisational structure with their own responsibilities and authorities. All SIA’s departments need to know its responsibilities, role and authority for acting efficiently and in synergy.  
• The administrative support systems (planning, wage, financial and information systems). SIA need an adapted computerized administrative support system, which is modern, powerful, effective and quick. For example, the Priority Passenger Service (PPS) programme provides a database of customer information and personal needs. This tool must be regularly updated for not becoming obsolete and not stay successful.
• The interaction, dialogue with customers and other interested parties (partners and suppliers): feedback, customers’ complaints and dissatisfaction management. It should be very interesting in set up a very thoughtful feedback system and a complaints and dissatisfaction management for continually improving services in relation to customers’ wishes. It does this by listening intensely to its customers and constantly identifying opportunities, such as lighter and more nutritious food and an in-flight e-mail service. Such new ideas are also generated by feedback from staff, information about other airlines, analysis of complaints and compliments, and major traveller surveys. Indeed this process provides interesting information about customers’ needs and the factors of improvement.
• The organisation and control of the various activities connected with marketing: Firstly, to develop the new “office and leisure centre in the sky” idea, SIA need to use the market and customers’ needs and demands, and customer logic. As we have seen before, SIA can set up a good feedback system and complaints management for continually improving the customer satisfaction. Also it can realise market studies for discover the market opportunities. Then it is necessary to ensure that realistic expectations are created. Indeed the new service must correspond to customers’ expectations, needs and wishes. Finally customers need to teach how to act/behave in the role of co-producer.

It is essential to create the right internal conditions and understanding by means of internal marketing to staff and partners with a successful efficient adapted organisation and effective control. The control system of SIA must be the most rigorous, as well as staff recruitment, selection and training.

• The development of the service process

The service process consists of activities at partners’ and customers’ premises and a precise description of various standardized and alternative activities in the customer process. The company must be able to control the process and the sub-processes in its entirety. It is necessary to verify carefully that the customer outcome and customer process have the right quality at reasonable cost. All departments of the company must collaborate in the development of the service process in a synergy. Different things must be taken in account in the service process:

• Roles and responsibility of customers and partners must be clarified
• Customers’ expectations must be controlled to verify that the new service is adapted and to improve the current services
• Procedures of teaching the customer need to be defined in details in relation to the service concept and system, and the customers’ behaviour and expectations.
• Detailed description of the service process with respect of activities and subprocesses, equipment, quality and cost factors, provide the important information with critical points and the line of visibility.

To elaborate the service process, it must act by these following stages:

1. Define quality requirements according to partners and suppliers
2. Understand internal customers’ expectations of various internal departments
3. Understand end-customers’ expectations

The SIA case study shows that service excellence requires a total approach. Excellent customer service results from all the appropriate components being in place, from the correct strategic focus and service culture, to a clear understanding of service, good training and people, and good systems and processes. So SIA must develop its new idea of “office and leisure centre in the sky” by this approach and by respecting the different stages of service development: first, an detailed description of the service concept, then the building of successful service system around the staff, customers and the physical and technical environment, finally an detailed description of the service process from SIA’s suppliers to end-customers.

BIBLIOGRAPHY / REFERENCES •

• C. Lovelock, S. Vandermerwe, B. Lewis, “Services Marketing: a European Perspective”, Prentice Hall, 1999

• S. Vandermerwe, C. Lovelock, Singapore Airlines, page 257
• B. Edvardsson, J. Olsson, Key concepts for new service development, page 396, (The Service Industries Journal, Vol16, No 2, April 1996, pp 140-64)

• Wirtz, J., Johnston, R., 2003, "Singapore Airlines: what it takes to sustain service excellence - a senior management perspective", Managing Service Quality, Vol13, No 1, pp10-19
• Daniel Chan, “The story of Singapore Airline and Singapore Girl”, Journal of Management Development, Vol19, No 6, 2000, pp 456-472