Customer service at Manchester Airport.

They have quite a lot of competition between the airports, this is a good thing in a way because it means if customer chooses their airport it gives Manchester airport a good indication that they were chosen over the other airports. To increase their competition they would need to go internationally and be seen as an international airport. This is a major improvement because this would mean that they would be seen as an international airport and they would have achieved what they have said in their mission statement. One of the ways that they could improve this is by expanding their airlines and tries to encourage more international airlines to go to Manchester airport which would mean that they are conquering more of the different countries. This is good because this would mean that they are becoming international slowly and it would also mean that they would be seen as an international airport. One of the bad tings about this is that they may lose some of their business regionally because it would mean that they are getting more international customers which would be good but at the same time bad. Some of the ways that they could improve this is by having more regional flights around the UK which is one of the ways that they would keep their regional customers.

By having effective staff would mean that they would be getting good staff which would get the jobs done without people having to tell them what to do. They would work as a team and be team players. They would contribute towards a good public image and getting more customers in. One of the ways that their employers help to make them the best that they are is by ensuring that every member of staff understands what is expected to them and they are treated with respect. This is shown in the goals of Manchester airport, which they try and stick to. In the values of Manchester airport it stipulates that they try and value their employees to enable them to get the best out of them. They try to ensure that they are honest and take responsibilities for their actions which are also said in their values. The behaviour that they expect out of their employees is that to work as a team, treat their colleagues fairly, listen with an open mind, to respect and trust the facilities around them, to encourage innovation and initiative and most of all listen to their customers. This is shown in the behaviours in Manchester airport. In the strategy and business plans it shows that their employees have to be punctual for a least 80% of the time. This means just because they expect their employees to be punctual for 80% of the time, it doesn’t mean that they have to punctual 80% of the time, they should be punctual all the time. These are all good points because if they didn’t respect and trust their staff then it would mean that the trust would be gone and their employees would work to the best pf their ability. Some of the ways that they could improve this is by giving those incentives for all the hard work that they should put in and following all the things that I have mentioned. This is a good way to get employees motivated and achieve all their targets and goals and they will work to their best ability.

In customer service there is such a thing as bad customer service. Some of the things that are consequences of bad customer service are;

• Poor communication
• Unable to get information
• Loss of income
• High staff turnover
• Inefficient telephone system
• Loss of customers

The first point of the consequences of bad customer service is poor communication. This is one of the main things that contribute to bad customer service. This is because if there is no communication between the staff and the customers then it is a recipe for disaster. One of the things with lack of communication is that if there is not a lot of communication then some of the information may be misread or misheard and that means that maybe timings may wrong and customers could miss a flight and that is bad customer service. In their goals and values it stipulates that they value their good customer service and what the customers need and want. If they fail to do this then they have met their goals and values and this looks bad on Manchester airport. If the communication is bad between staff then they will not be doing their jobs to the best of their ability. That is bad because customers will pick up on this and they will not be happy with their service. This is bad because information can be misheard or read, which could cause a lot of problems. Another reason for this being bad is because they will lose out on customers because it is seen as bad customer service. As part of customer service there needs to consistency and certain aims and achievements need to be made. If there is poor communication between staff, colleagues and customers then it needs to be resolved. This could be improved by maybe having some training on how to communicate with people and in a certain manner. This may help service and also it could also meet a lot of their aims and objectives.

When customers want to know information about certain products or the facilities that Manchester airport have, they should be able to tell then by looking at information that they should have. If they are unable to initially get information then they should tell the customer that they would research the information that they requested for and then give them a telephone call back. This way they are keeping customers and not losing them. If they cannot get the information initially and turn the customers away this is bad customer service and this is a way of losing customers and business. If is also a lack of communication because it means by not taking the correct procedure and not going out their way to satisfy the customers then that means they are giving out bad customer service and not good customer service. One of the ways that may happen is if they turn away customers too often this could give a bad public image for Manchester airport and this is not good. Ways they could achieve information and not lose their customers is by communicate with the customer and make the customers understand that they do not have the information available at that moment in time but would be able to get the information to them if they researched it. This is a good method but couldn’t be used too often because people would realise that they didn’t have information handy for them to use and then that would be seen as bad customer service. Communication is seen to play a major part in customer service. This is shown in the behaviours of Manchester airport. Some of the ways that this could be changed could be that the staff takes courses and training on a regular basis so they get reminded of what is needed from them and what is expected from them. They should also be monitored on the phone so that way they are being watched so there senior management can point out where they need to improve.

Another point of the consequences of poor customer service if Manchester airport are losing their current customers and they are not increasing the amount of new customers this means that they are losing revenue and losing future investments. In Manchester airports aims and objectives, they are saying that they want to increase their revenue and develop commercial income. If they are losing customers and not gaining new ones this means that they are not likely to achieve this. This is bad customer service because it means that they will develop a bad public image and that is very hard to change it to a good public image. One of the ways that they could increase their revenue and commercial income is by having more facilities which would increase the commercial income. Some of the ways that they could improve loss of income is by having offers on which are at the airport or flights that run from Manchester airport which are on special offer on certain days. This way it would increase customers and may attract new customers to the airport and at the same time it would increase the revenue and commercial income.

In Manchester airport one of the major things that can have an effect on the service that they give to the customers is a high staff turnover. Providing bad customer service dissatisfies the customers, so it means if the staff are being looked over by their supervisor then it means the supervisor will realise that some of the staff are giving out good customer service and some are giving out bad customer service. This means that the staff that is giving out bad customer service will be given their notice which will mean they will need more staff. This means that staff will need extensive training because for customer service and how to behave in a certain manner. As its says in their values at Manchester airport if they invest in employees the they expect the best out of them, if they are not achieving the best out of them, then that means they are happy with them and will give them their notice. The reason for this is Manchester airport only want the best out of their employees and if they are not giving their best it is not good enough for Manchester airport. Some of the reasons why they have a high staff turnover is for many reasons which are;

• Women may decide to have a baby and when they are due for their baby they may decide to take maternity leave.
• The staff that they have are just not up the job
• Another reason why is because they may not be a team player and are not right for the job.
• The supervisor may find a fault with them and may want to take further which may lead to being dismissed

These are only some of the ways. Ways that they could improve this is by training their staff more and having regular check ups to see whether they are meeting their targets and are achieving what they are meant to be doing. Another way is by having a more specific recruitment and selection process because that means they will be more specific in what they are looking for. This way is better because it means that they will be picking people that are right for the job, not the people that have applied for a job because it’s a job.

When a customer phones the airport the staff have to go through a long and frustrating process so that the airport staff have the details of the person that has rang. This can irritate the customers because it means that the staff are getting more stressed because it means they have to follow procedure and also it makes the customer frustrated and angry which makes them feel dissatisfied. One of the reasons why they have to follow procedure is because it means that the airport are not liable for people to sue them and also they have to have all the people’s details on file for referring back to them if they need to. This is a bad way because it means that they are dissatisfying the customer. This is because they are putting the customer through all the procedures before the customer can ask what they want to ask which is annoying and doesn’t really make a lot of sense if they have picked up that it is not pleasing the customers that they have to go through a long procedure. One of the ways that they could improve this is by designing a new procedure which is a lot shorter than the original one and it is also a lot less frustrating. This means that they would have to train their staff on to the systems that they create to change the old one for this one. Another way is to not have a procedure and go on their instincts and get the customers wants and needs out of the way before going through the procedures but even then the procedures doesn’t want to be too long.

When customers go to a certain facility and they have high expectations of it and when they get there it is nothing to what they expected which means their expectations have dropped which means they are not very impressed with the service that they got. This is when a customer has high expectations and they have higher expectations than the staff at Manchester airport. This is a critical point to make because if the customers are not very happy with the services that they receive that means they may not use their facilities again, which means that they are losing customers. This is a bad thing because if they do lose customers through bad customer service they will not only lose customers but they will also get a bad reputation for bad customer service. Some of the ways that they could improve this is by following their values and goals which both are on the similar lines of giving and providing excellent customer service. Some of the ways is by have more training and communicating to their colleagues to find out things that they are not sure on and that is in the behaviours of staff at Manchester airport which applies to everyone.

There are many factors to customer service and some of main ones are;

• Public image
• Repeat business and
• Competition

If you were to have a bad public image that would mean that they would be losing customers which would mean they would be losing revenue and income. When having a bad public image it is very hard to try and get a good public image. One of the ways that they could get a bad public image is by giving out by customer service which means they are dissatisfying customers. This means the word that they give out bad customer service spreads and people would rather use another airport than use their because its means if they go to one which they know they give out good customer service than Manchester airport which gives out bad customer service they will go to the one which gives out good customer service. One of the ways that they could try and keep their good public image is by keeping to their goals and values of the airport which says they value excellent customer service and try to meet the needs and wants of their customers. Another way is to train their staff to the standard where they know what is right and what’s wrong when it concerns customer service. Another way to try and make their public image improve is to make the customers aware what their policies are and what they are to expect. This is a good idea because it means if the standard is not up to what they have said it means that they have the right to complain about the service that they are getting. This may improve the amount of complaints that they get.

Repeat business is very valuable to Manchester airport because it means that if they give out excellent customer service and they are happy with what they received, then it is a possibility that they will come again and that is repeat business. One of the ways that they could lose their repeat business is when the customers are either not happy with the facilities or the service that they have received. This means the airport could lose out on revenue and commercial income from the customers. If the facilities are not up to scratch which means that they are either not happy with the state that they have been left in or they are not adequate with what they expected. Some of the ways that they could improve their repeat business and still attract new customers would mean to improve the facilities and maybe add more space in the airport and expand. This would mean that there would be more shops, more catering facilities and many more things. This would means that the amount of customers would increase and they would get more repeat business. Some more ways that they could improve their service is by offering them discounts on certain things at certain times of the year which would mean they would increase their chances of having a busy peak and off peak seasons. One of the main ways is the expansion of the airport which says in their aims and objectives of Manchester airport to increase their revenue and commercial income which means that add things to the airport e.g. more shops.

Competition is a main thing in the world of airports because the more competition they have the more they see who has the majority of the customers and which airport is the best in the country. If the airport has a sudden loss of income this could mean that they may loss some competition and the edge of it. This is because they will not have the capital to improve things and it will also mean they will not be able to expand. This looks bad for the airport because it means that they will lose customers because of their facilities not their standards of customer service which may be excellent. The lack of development would means that loss of income and the loss of revenue would increase. This means they are not meeting their objectives because it says in their objectives that they wanted to increase their revenue and commercial income over the year if they lose their edge of competition then that may lose them their objectives and they will not meet them. Some of the ways that they would increase their chances of having a good edge of competition would means they would have keep up their excellent customer service and increase their facilities when the income if flowing and not stalled. One of the ways they could achieve this is to have offers on and advertise them on the TV and in other places.

In conclusion to all of these points I can see that there are a lot more points to consider when you break up customer service and the impact of customer service whether they are good or bad. This is a way to see where a company or business is going wrong and as you can see at Manchester airport there are more negative impacts than positive but that doesn’t mean they are losing out on business and income, it is just looking at all the points to consider. In my opinion I can see that Manchester airport is meeting all their aims and objectives. Although they still need to review certain things every so often. This is because then they can see their progress and where they need to improve and what needs to be improved dramatically in the airport.