When flying, passengers often look for the best travel deals and have a particular criterion, which they pursue in what an airline has to offer. One of the greatest areas that airline consumers’ desire is what the experience would look like. For travelers, looking for the best possible deal has always been the top priority. Founded in 1926, American Airlines (AA) has evolved from transporting mail to what is popular today as passenger transport (Flint, 2004). Since its inception, AA understands that bad customer service can cost millions of dollars in massive customer losses, bad publicity, and employee mediocrity. Therefore, customer experience is always at the heart of its services. The company seeks to ensure customers’ needs are met and their problems are solved. This forms the core of the company’s mission.
From a global perspective of competition, AA is not properly positioned to compete internationally. The major competitors include Delta Airlines, Southwest airlines, and Jetblue Airways. Besides being the dominant domestic airline, there are numerous global airlines to the different destinations served by AA. Therefore, efforts must focus on changing or improving AA’s services to allow the company to compete with these global players. In this paper, I will focus on how to implement a change at AA using Total Quality Management (TQM).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Thesis: American Airlines in order to attract more consumer and improve costumer’s relationship, needs to take onboard a more aggressive and productive process. This can be accomplished by learning from the consumer experiences and the company programs.
A. What is meant by TQM?
TQM is a holistic process towards radically changing a company through progressive changes in the systems, structures, practices and attitudes (Corbae, Jensen & Schneider, 2010). The concept of TQM is expressed as “achieving success through delighting customers” (Madu, 2008). Here, customers may include the end-user, internal user, external customer together with all stakeholders namely, suppliers, employees, and shareholders.
B. What specific goals do you hope to achieve with this program?
The main goal that I hope to achieve with this program is to improve customer’s satisfaction. In turn, this will make AA an organization that focuses on its customers, not on the bottom line. We can accomplish this by consistently meeting the customers’ expectations. In most industries, customers are always happy or satisfied when a company meets their expectations. This can be accomplished by delivering the product or the services that they expect and we the company deliverers it without a problem and at a fair price. Various studies such as Madu (2008) indicate a positive correlation between TQM and customer satisfaction. Because customers are our major profit providers, who pay for the services offered by AA, it is essential to ensure they are satisfied. Thus, maintaining the greatest degree of customer satisfaction is the goal of AA and will be achieved through TQM. In addition, TQM is a strong provider of customer satisfaction and consequently loyalty (Corbae, Jensen & Schneider, 2010).
C. How will these goals be measured?
Because the primary goal is to enhance the consumer experience, key success indicators will include customer loyalty and recurrent purchases. Loyal customers will often refer their friends and families. Customer loyalty is defined as the likelihood of rebuying AA’s services or products. Customer satisfaction is a key predictor for repurchasing and is influenced by service quality, value and explicit performance of the service/product (Corbae, Jensen & Schneider, 2010). Customer loyalty will be measured when a customer recommends to a family member or friend about a given product or service. Customers’ feedback is also another key success indicator. This will be obtained by carrying out consumer surveys after product/service use. This will be achieved through phone calls and emails. Overall, repurchasing, satisfaction and likelihood of recommending to others are indicators of customer satisfaction. In combination, these will be used to gauge the success or failure of this change initiative.
D. How will the program be implemented?
Implementation of this program must adhere to the eight steps of the TQM theory as discussed below.
Step 1- acquire commitment from top leadership/management. Successful implementation of TQM programs demands that managers must be properly trained in all the TQM procedures before implementing the same organization-wide (Corbae, Jensen & Schneider, 2010). Since the entire process sis a costly affair, these managers will act as change agents and facilitators within the company. In turn, the managers will train the subordinates to eliminate any obstacles and ensure a smooth implementation (Madu, 2008).
Step 2 – the company evaluates the present quality management, customer satisfaction and organizational culture (Corbae, Jensen & Schneider, 2010). It is necessary to conduct an assessment before introducing any change to a company. Of utmost importance are the departments that will be affected by the change. In this case, it seems the entire AA will be affected thus because it is a customer-focused company. This assessment will be done through focus groups and surveys to obtain in-depth details about the company.
Step 3 - determine the vision and core values. Here, the leadership decides on the key benefits of the program and communicates to the entire staff members (Madu, 2008). The company calls for forums that bring all employees on a common stage and discuss the importance of the change initiative. This would allow them to recognize that the program would not only benefit the company but also the employees alike.
Step 4 – create a TQM action plan as guided by steps 1, 2 and 3. This involves training the top management on the fundamentals of TQM, conducting research and determining the vision of the program in the context of AA.
Step 5 – identification and prioritizing consumer needs and create services and products to meets these needs. As far as AA is concerned, customers are pursuing unique services. They want reliable flights, comfort, and affordable fares.
Step 6 – ensure continuous improvement. At this point, AA must create continuous improvement teams. The best way to improve a team is by conducting regular training sessions. During these training, all employees must be onboard. This may lead to better services.
Step 7 – top leadership supports the initiative through employee training and furnishing necessary resources to employees. Employee training and development has demonstrated to be a successful participatory method of imparting required knowledge and skills. A well-trained workforce tends to be highly productive and problem solvers, which are vital in process improvements and sustaining implementation efforts.
Step 8 – offer regular feedback to employees. The company can create an employee recognition program to create an environment in which the staff members will be more positive. In turn, this will increase employee morale and work performance. Moreover, by giving them feedback, employees will feel they are contributing towards achieving company goals because they have a say in the company.
E. How will the company be structured to achieve these results?
To achieve the desired results, AA needs a hierarchical organizational structure. This structure is often laid out like a pyramid. Under this structure, AA will have the CEO at the top of the pyramid. The CEO will be followed by managers who will be followed by supervisors in charge of different aspects of the program. Next will be sub-supervisors who will be responsible for ensuring each element of the program is implemented according to the top office. At the bottom of the pyramid, we will have other employees who must be thoroughly trained on the TQP processes.
F. How will “buy-in” by the employees be gained?
AA will start working on employee buy-in even before the change is introduced. When I present the idea of TQM, I must ensure I spell out the positive points about the value of TQM in the company (Madu, 2008). In this way, I will be able to sway staff members towards excitement, optimism, and employee buy-in. specifically, I will emphasize that each employee has something unique to offer. I will explain the goal of TQM and the contribution of each staff member to this goal. Then, I will inform them how they will benefit and make the most from this experience. All staff members must know that this change is important and how they must prioritize it within the current schedule. In addition, I will inform them what to do in case they require extra help to carry out their duties (Corbae, Jensen & Schneider, 2010).
G. What is the role of leadership/management in the implementation of TQM?
The role of the leadership in the implementation is three-fold. Leadership can act as senior management’s tool in implementing TQM in three fundamental ways: involvement, interest, and monitoring.
Involvement – TQM requires complete participation by all departments and employees who will be affected. Leadership serves to identify the affected departments and employees and create an implementation team composed of representatives from each affected group (Madu, 2008). Then, the leadership creates a structure that identifies the group leaders, their responsibilities and an accountability framework, which ensures that the implementation team meets the initial timetable for having the new program in place.
Interest – successful implementation of TQM demands a feeling of urgency throughout the company. It is the job of the leadership to generate this urgency by explaining to employees the significance of the program (Madu, 2008). The leadership must explain to the staff members how the company will benefit from the new implementation. Importantly, it must make the company realize the setbacks of not adopting the change.
Monitoring – within the company, TQM is not an exact procedure. On the contrary, it is a dynamic process, which requires be monitoring by the leadership and altered to meet implementation goals. It is the primary responsibility of the leaders to institute a monitoring system, analyze nay information obtained during the implementation and initiate any necessary modifications to render the implementation a success.
H. What is the company doing at the present time to fix this problem?
Presently, the existing American Airline’s customer service plan is customized to identify and fix issues with the customers. The plan addresses a number of the service goals we have defined for ourselves. Every customer is important to American Airlines and American Eagle, and we are dedicated to making every flight you take with us something special. Your safety, comfort, and convenience are our most important concerns (Flint, 2004).
AA is currently facing a high threat of competitive rivalry. In fact, the company is not properly positioned to compete internationally. The major competitors include Delta Airlines, Southwest airlines, and Jetblue Airways. Besides being the dominant domestic airline, there are numerous global airlines to the different destinations served by AA. Therefore, the change proposed in this paper is focused on changing or improving AA’s services to allow the company to compete with these global players. The paper has discussed how to implement a change at AA using Total Quality Management. By implementing this program, the company is likely to attract more customers while experiencing customer fulfillment.
References
Corbae, G., Jensen, J. B., & Schneider, D. (2010). Marketing 2.0: Strategies for closer customer relationships . Berlin: Springer.
Flint, P. (January 01, 2004). Rewired for success: American embraces continuous improvement and teamwork at its Tulsa MRO base. Air Transport World, 41, 9, 38-39.
Madu, C. N. (2008). Handbook of Total Quality Management . Boston, MA: Springer US.
Other sources
What Is Total Quality Management Retrieved from http://www.bexcellence.org/Total-quality-management.html
A Roadmap for Implementing Total Quality Management Practices in Medium Enterprises Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2325838
Customer service plan Retrieved from https://www.aa.com/i18n/customer-service/support/customer-service-plan.jsp
