Service Sector Management Case study for practice – November 2007

NOV: 2007

Dear Customer Service Manager,

Through the XYZ Travel Agency, my wife and I booked round trip first class seats on the following Dorby Airlines flights on the dates indicated:

1^st July DBA 3072 Mumbai to Heathrow

1^st July DBA 86 Heathrow to Munich

21^st July DBA 87 Munich the Heathrow

21^st July DBA 3073 Heathrow to Mumbai.

In addition, we had booked domestic flights between Udaipur-Mumbai and back for the respective dates on another airline.

The out bound flights 3072 and 86 seemed pleasant enough at the beginning. However, mid flight on 86, we discovered that we had been poisoned on flight 3072, apparently by the chicken sandwich that was served in first class that day. My wife was so ill dying to get to the restroom to throw up, she passed out cold, hitting her head and we discovered over the next few days, apparently damaging her back. In addition to the nausea and diarrhea, she had a large knot on her head and headaches far several days. Her lower back has been in constant pain ever since. I, too, was very ill for several days. A nice start for a vacation: But it gets worse.

During the long layover between flights at Heathrow, there was a tremendous rainstorm, and our baggage apparently was left out in it, a situation that we discovered when we arrived at our first nights lodging and discovered of our clothing was dripping wet. In addition, four art prints that we were bringing as gifts for our friends were ruined.

The return flights were better only in that we did not get poisoned; instead we did not get fed! We had to ask for drinks-, the meals ran out and we were given no choice but an overdone piece of stale meat, with tomato-sauce on it. Given our previous experience with the food, we decided not to eat.

Flights 87 was delayed in boarding by two hours, due to the “slowness in cleaning the aircrafts and late arrival of the crew” we were told. Also, thanks to heavy rainstorm that hit Heathrow again, our flight take off was further delayed-, all of which could have been avoided, if the plane had taken off before the rainstorm had started, as scheduled, had the crew and the cleaning done their jobs on time.

Due to the excess delay at Heathrow, flight 87 was very late and we could not make our connection from Mumbai to Udaipur. As it turned out we would have barely been able to make it if the flight has been on time because Dorby Airlines had changed not only the flight numbers but also the flight times on the Heathrow – Mumbai leg of our journey- AND WE WERE NEVER NOTIFIED OF THIS CHANGE UNTIL WE ARRIVED AT THE AIRPORT. As first class passengers we have been treated as cattle!

In Disgust,

J. D’Souza

Questions:

i)      What are services? What are critical incidences in this case?

ii)     What according to you are the causes for poor service deliver in this case?

iii)    Discuss the core and supplementary service in this case.

iv)   What is service recovery? How would you design a complaint handing process?