McDonald's and Etihad Airways in the Hospitality and Airline Industries

Introduction

Services are integral aspects of all business whether they are engaged in distributing products or deal exclusively in providing customers with services. including business dissertation help. The service provided to customers goes a long way in impacting the business as it is linked directly to consumer satisfaction. If consumers are satisfied with the products and the services they are offered they are more likely to then come back for more and even introduce their friends and family to the business leading to market growth and profitability (Soni, 2014). This report looks to evaluate the service delivery within select organizations in terms of the operations and marketing concepts involved. The two businesses evaluated include the McDonalds fast food restaurant within the hotels and hospitality industry and Etihad airways within the airline industry. McDonalds is a global fast food franchise that operates all across the world with a wide variety of food options and depending on the country of location. In most countries however it majorly serves fast foods like Burgers, fries and soft drinks. I was in an encounter with the food restaurant to buy lunch. Etihad Airways on the other hand is among the leading airline brands and businesses with both long haul and short haul flights all across the globe. However their brand Identity is not only based on their assets in the large highly economical passenger flight carriers, they are also renowned for meticulous customer service and the value they put on their customers. My encounter with them was during a local flight I had.

Service Concept

The encounter at McDonalds involved the type of customer service I received at the restaurant while having my lunch and was evaluated using the Gap Model of service Quality. Kobiruzzaman (2021) describes the gap model of service quality as a service quality framework that helps both business and customers to better understand customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction according to the Gap model is largely a function of perception. Customers are satisfied if they perceive the service to be at par with their expectations, otherwise they are dissatisfied (Expert Program Management, 2018). Dissatisfaction however can be attributed to one or more of the five customer service gaps highlighted by Kobiruzzaman (2021) including

Knowledge gap – gap between customer expectations of service and a business’s provision of that service

Policy gap – highlights the difference between a company’s understanding of consumer needs and the translation of that understanding to service delivery policies and standards

Delivery gap – difference between service delivery policies and standards and the actual delivery of the service

Communication gap – gap between what is promised through advertisements and what is actually delivered

Customer gap – This is the difference between customer expectations and customer perceptions.

This concept was adopted to evaluate the level of customer satisfaction and the possible causes for customer dissatisfaction based on the quality of services I received from the employee interaction when making my order to the amount of time I had to wait for the food to be ready and the level of customer service offered when serving my food.

Marketing Concept

The encounter at Etihad airways involved the evaluation of the services provided by the airline to assert whether or not they provide the quality of services that is advertised for their renowned airline brand. As such the marketing concept adopted for this encounter was branding. When it comes to air travels brand names have significant weight in market shares and only the big brands can manage to attract and maintain a good number of frequent travelers. Shafiee et al (2018) asserts that an airlines brand image and its indicators have an important and detrimental role in passengers’ purchase intention. Branding is important in marketing not only because it highlights what customers should expect from a particular business but because it also creates a memorable impression of the company in consumers’ minds which is guaranteed to stay with them longer and aid the development of brand loyalty in them (Jones, 2021).

Branding is a way for businesses to distinguish themselves from their competitors and highlight why the services they offer are far better and greater than any being offered by the competitors. Brands are often built on a true representation of the company’s and therefore stakeholder’s values, ideas and beliefs and show how the business would like to be perceived (Oberlo. 2020). A representation which if fulfilled leads to adequate customer satisfaction. In the encounter I had with Etihad airlines I was more interested in evaluating whether or not the services provided are in line with the brand image the company has developed over the year. This would be carried out by finding out whether the company offers the level of quality services they advertise while trying to attract customers to book and fly with their airline brand rather than any other competitor brands.

Methodology

The evaluation of the businesses operations and marketing services were majorly conducted through observation and informal interviews during the course of the encounters. With a preset expectation of service quality expected from a fast food restaurant and Etihad airlines based on their effective marketing and advertising, the researcher engaged in subtle observation of the business premises and nature of service offered to the customers. The researcher also engaged in informal interviews with organization employees.

According to Bryant (2019) observation is a qualitative research data collection technique in which researchers’ observer participants’ ongoing behavior in a natural situation to collect information about them and their behavior and indulgences. Depending on the type of research and the ultimate objective of the study, the researcher can either insert themselves to be part of the group they are observing or watch from the peripheries without interfering. McLeod (2015) asserts that the purpose of observation as a research technique is to be able to capture and gather more reliable insight; this is because it captures what the participants are doing as opposed to what they say they do. As such the evaluation of their indulgences and behavior provide more insight about their character and behavior. Informal interviews on the other hand involve directly talking to people within the field of study informally and without any type of structure or directed objective. According to Johnson (2008) informal interviews often goes hand in hand with participant observation and helps to clarify and contextualize observed information.

The researcher observed the level and quality of customer service both in McDonald restaurant and in the Etihad airplane to determine how involved the business is with ensuring adequate customer services. The researcher also engaged the various business employees including the flight attendants and the restaurant waiters in informal interviews to clarify some of the operational issues and discrepancies observed when it comes to service delivery as well as delivery of the marketed and advertised products and level of service experiences.

Results

McDonalds

Based on the observation and informal interview of the waiters and sales people within the McDonalds restaurant, the findings show a significantly satisfactory level of customer service. All the employees spoke to the customers with significant humanity, dignity and respect and were always looking to be of help to any customers with any issues they had. However the quality of the food served was not entirely satisfactory as advertised and the services offered in terms of the attention given to customers were also very limited. Despite having to wait for the food to be ready, there was no system in place to alert me when the food was ready and I as such had to keep checking with the reception to find out whether the food was ready

Etihad Airways

My observations and experience with Etihad Airways shows that the company indeed lives up to their marketing and advertising. The airplanes space, design and ambience is developed for optimum customer satisfaction and comfort during the flight and the customer services abroad the plane are also of high quality meeting the standards advertised by the airline. The time keeping of the airline was however the only issue observed as passengers had to wait an extra 30 minutes past the flights scheduled takeoff time to take off

Discussion

While the restaurant employees were considerably very professional and formal in how they addressed their customers and clients the food served and the time taken for the service was inherently unsatisfactory. This indicates a knowledge gap and Communication gap as the result for customer dissatisfaction. According to Kobiruzzaman (2021) the knowledge gap highlights a discord between the customer expectations of service and a business’s provision of that service. While the customers are aware that they have to wait a few minutes for their food to be ready and served, they expect the business to be accurate about the amount of time to wait and to have a system for alerting the customers or serving them as soon as the food is ready. Based on the observation findings the business often took way more than the expected waiting time to deliver and did not have a method of alerting customers once the food was ready. As a result customers had to keep checking whether their food was ready and some were left waiting for up to an extra 10 minutes after their food was ready due to the lack of an alerting system. In addition the quality of food offered was not satisfactory and significantly different from the quality advertised. This indicates a communication gap which according to Kobiruzzaman (2021) is a discord between what is promised through advertisements and what is actually delivered. Both of these unsatisfactory aspects of service indicate an average customer service experience from McDonalds.

Etihad Airways

Similarly Etihad Airways employees were also significantly professional and considerate of customer experience and satisfaction. They ensured all the customers are adequately serviced and are comfortable throughout the entire flight. This satisfies the purposes of branding according to Jones (2021) which is to ensure the marketed quality of products and services is afforded to the customers. The only drawback for Etihad Airways and one that they can easily correct is the adherence to the time schedule.

Recommendations

In light of the drawbacks and problems in customer services and operations experienced both at McDonalds and Etihad Airways the following recommendations are suggested for both businesses to enhance customer satisfaction and impact increased productivity and profitability.

McDonalds

Improve the level of quality for the products and services provided within the restaurant. This can be done by ensuring the employees preparing the food do it to the best of quality despite the multiple customers at each brand.

The line of restaurants can also improve significantly on their customer service by developing a better customer service format where customers are adequately attended to. This can be done by developing an alerting technique for when a customer’s food is ready or including an additional employee to take care of serving the customers adequately

The restaurant can further develop more branches and outlets to minimize the number of customers per branch so as to enhance the improvement of service quality offered.

Etihad

The Etihad airline’s service, advertising and branding is adequately efficient as the airline provides adequate services as promised by the advertisements and marketing content. While the incident of 30 minute lateness may be an isolated occurrence the airline can improve its customer services by ensuring they adhere to time schedules as advertised.

Conclusion

While I expected a much higher level of customer service given the size of the company and its scale of operations on a global level, McDonalds offers a relatively more than average customer service when it comes to customer satisfaction. Similarly despite the incidence of slight lateness and deviation from the flight schedule, Etihad Airways have invested significantly in developing their brand and delivering exactly what the brand advertises, which is one of the mayor reasons why the company is among the top airline companies across the globe. Both companies have adequate operations when it comes to ensuring customer services and truthful marketing and advertising of their products.

References

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Expert Program Management, 2018. Gap Model of Service Quality. [online] Expert Program Management. Available at: [Accessed 7 January 2022].

Johnson, R., 2008. Qualitative Research Guidelines Project | Informal Interviews | Informal Interviewing. [online] Qualres.org. Available at: [Accessed 7 January 2022].

Jones, K., 2021. Council Post: The Importance Of Branding In Business. [online] Forbes. Available at: [Accessed 7 January 2022].

Kobiruzzaman, M., 2021. 5 Gaps Model of Service Quality. [online] Newsmoor. Available at: [Accessed 7 January 2022].

Mcleod, S., 2015. Observation Methods - Naturalistic, Participant and Controlled | Simply Psychology. [online] Simplypsychology.org. Available at: [Accessed 7 January 2022].

Mohammad Shafiee, Majid and Sanayei, Ali and Shahin, Arash and Dolatabadi, Hossein Rezaei, The Role of Brand Image in Forming Airlines Passengers’ Purchase Intention: Study of Iran Aviation Industry (2014). Int. J. Services and Operations Management, Vol. 19, No. 3, pp. 360–376, 2014, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3185728

Oberlo, 2020. What is Branding? - Why is Branding important? - Get the Answers Here. [online] Oberlo.com. Available at: [Accessed 7 January 2022].

Soni, P., 2015. Desired & adequate service levels of satisfaction. [online] Slideshare.net. Available at: [Accessed 7 January 2022].

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