For Essays Guru - Week 10 bus

October 23, 2018

United Airlines

Organization Description and issue to be Resolved

The organization selected for the purpose of this assignment is United Airlines Incorporated. This airline company was founded under the name Varney Airlines in 1926. United Airlines Inc. has been ranked as the third world largest airline after the industry giants Delta and American Airlines. The ranking is based on revenue generation. The organization operates in over nine hubs across the US and one international hub based in Tokyo Japan. In addition, the company has ever-expanding routes and destinations. Currently, they offer more than 135 international destinations in over 60 countries across the globe (Sigurdsson, 2017). Apart from flights, the United Airlines offers complementary products for the customers. The complementary products are dependent on the preferred price limits of the client. Some of the basic complementary products include the United Basic Economy, United Economy, Economy Plus, United First and the premium services. These products have different prices and are awarded to customers of different price ranges. The United Airlines Inc. has in its employ over 80,000 people. This also means that the company is considered a public company (Sigurdsson, 2017). It is therefore listed under the New York Stoke Exchange.

As much as the company has been globally recognized it still faces numerous customer related concerns. The company’s customer services have recently been labeled incompetent in some of their locations. Clients have in the recent past expressed their feelings which qualify the employees at the firm as slow, ignorant and lack the required customer service competencies. Compared to other firms, the employees at United Airlines are reluctant to offering their help and meeting the client needs than other airlines. In the same context, the company has been associated with deviation from social norms such as respect. The employees in some points fail to recognize war veterans who are regarded highly in the US as well as another customer. Some of the customers complain about being abused and insulted at the hands of the United Airlines employees.

Corporate Culture

The company considers diversity and inclusion as a critical pillar which informs and helps build the strong corporate culture within the firm. Diversity refers to the involvement and recruitment of a range of human differences which include but not limited to race, physical abilities, ethnicity, sexual orientation, class, religion and ethics systems among others (Armstrong et al., 2015). United Airlines’ mission statement states that one of the critical and essential components of the firm is to provide an inclusive work environment to the employees. The mission of the firm is governed by dignity and respect which is aimed to empower every worker. This is the primary force that drives the company’s success. A deeper analysis of the mission statement shows that the company allows the employees through empowerment to add to the company’s success (Ross, 2017). However, it is critical to note that it does not feature the customers in this statement. The employees are not mentioned. This also means that the company does do not give a promise to the consumers on matters of employee respect and quality of services which in some aspect allows the customer to have some power and say in the order that services and operations are conducted within the organization. In other words, the firms exclusion of the customers from the mission statement through the exclusion of employees makes them feel critical than the consumers and hence do not feel the urge or necessity to offer good customer service (Sallis, 2014). However, it is important to consider that the through their mission of diversity and inclusion strategies the firm, the firm utilizes this as an innovative and effective solution in their bid to involve the different employees from the diverse cultures and backgrounds. This has been promoted through the company’s strategic plan to achieve a global presence, recognition as an airline and the provision of an environment that leaders use as a platform to embrace inclusion and diversity. This has been a business advantage because the esteems of customers are raised through inclusion and diversity (Armstrong et al., 2015).

In the same context, it is not entirely disadvantageous that the company is more focused on the employees and their diversities. However, this is considered a common belief and keys of success for the industry giants. United Airlines behavior which gives their employees importance is critical and is critical in maintaining the good of the firm. However, when a company gives more power to the employees than the customer, the employee is set to treat the client without the respect they deserve. In other words, the company is set to deviate from the concepts of customer orientation which affects revenue generation, brand image, and awareness (Sallis, 2014).

Areas of Weakness

The primary weakness that United Airlines faces is its business culture. The company expresses a weak organizational culture hence it is reasonable to infer that it is not completely concerned about the interests of the clients. It is critical to note that in such situations the brand recognition and the image of the firm suffer huge damages in terms of revenue and slow sales of tickets. The confidence of the consumers within the company’s target market is of extreme importance. If the firm loses its market share, they suffer a severe issue of liquidating their assets to cover operational costs. This is the exact problem that the company is going through. The lack of confidence in the firm is arguably caused by the top management of the firm. This is because they regard their employees highly more than the consumers (Sallis, 2014).

Another weakness is the diminishing connections between the firm's mission and the values of the company and what the employees portray. It is critical to note the company instructs the employees from a completely different background to what the business mission. It is important that the company lives what they put down on paper (Sallis, 2014). However, it should be a policy that the guidelines of the company are consistent and applied. It is important that the employees observe equity and fairness in order for the customer to access all the aspects of services that are worth their money.

Solutions Proposed

The issue at the company can easily be resolved by implementing several measures; firstly, the firm should admit and assess the behaviors that have resulted in bad customer service. This is important for the top management to design a program that wins back the faith of the clients. Secondly, the firm should conduct marketing campaigns and adverts to show the target market that they are engaged in providing customers with quality services. Most importantly the culture should be shaped to include honesty and fairness. This gives the customer some say into the services they receive (Sigurdsson, 2017).

Another solution is to become proactive rather than remaining reactive. The employees should be subjected to an appraisal program that punishes behaviors that do not promote success such as abusing or mistreating the clients. Such a change in policy would influence the faith and trust of the customers.

Executive Summary

United Airlines is an Industry giant within the US ranking third. However, the company has in the recent past been portrayed to have a weakened organizational culture which is shown by how the employees have impacted the reactions and perceptions of the clients. Many customers have been complaining about the poor customer management and low quality of services. This has seen the company lose a large percentage of its turnover due to clients moving to other service providers. It has become important for the firm to concentrate on resolving the problems that affect its largest asset. Customers are the key to the success of any company. The company should, therefore, invest in policies that are based on ethics and fairness.

References

Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., & Brennan, R. (2015). Marketing: an introduction.

Ross, J. E. (2017). Total quality management: Text, cases, and readings. Routledge.

Sallis, E. (2014). Total quality management in education. Routledge.