AirAsia, once hailed as a game-changer in the Southeast Asian aviation industry, has been facing significant backlash due to its deteriorating customer service. As the region’s largest low-cost carrier, AirAsia gained popularity for its affordable fares and extensive network. However, recent incidents and mounting customer dissatisfaction have tarnished the brand’s reputation and raised concerns about the company’s future prospects.
Customer service woes
AirAsia’s customer service has come under scrutiny for various reasons, leading to a negative impact on the brand in Southeast Asia. One of the primary complaints from passengers revolves around the difficulty of reaching AirAsia’s customer support channels. Many customers report long waiting times on the phone, unresponsive email communications, and inefficient handling of complaints through social media platforms. These challenges have left passengers feeling frustrated and unheard.
Flight delays and cancellations have become another major area of concern for AirAsia’s customers. While these issues are not unique to the airline industry, the frequency and handling of such incidents have contributed to the erosion of trust in AirAsia. Passengers have expressed their dissatisfaction with the lack of communication, minimal compensation, and inadequate assistance during these disruptions. As a result, many travellers are turning to alternative airlines that provide better reliability and support.
AirAsia’s customers have also voiced frustration over the airline’s unclear policies and hidden fees. Many travellers have experienced unexpected charges for services that were not clearly disclosed during the booking process. Additional fees for seat selection, baggage allowances, and in-flight amenities have caught passengers off guard, leading to a sense of deception and a perceived lack of transparency. Such practices not only harm customer trust but also discourage repeat business.
Another aspect impacting AirAsia’s brand in Southeast Asia is the perceived lack of accountability when addressing customer complaints. Dissatisfied passengers have reported instances where their grievances were not adequately addressed, with limited or no compensation provided for inconveniences caused by the airline’s mistakes. This lack of responsibility further fuels negative sentiment and discourages loyalty towards the brand.
In the digital age, dissatisfied customers have found a platform to voice their grievances and share their negative experiences with a wider audience. Social media channels, such as Twitter and Facebook, have become hotbeds for disgruntled AirAsia passengers to vent their frustrations and publicly criticise the airline. These negative sentiments can quickly spread, damaging the brand’s reputation and influencing potential customers’ decisions.
Impact on the brand
AirAsia’s declining customer service has had a notable impact on its brand in Southeast Asia. The once-lauded reputation for affordable travel and convenience is being overshadowed by growing dissatisfaction and mistrust. Travellers who were once loyal to the AirAsia brand are now actively seeking alternatives, opting for airlines that offer better customer experiences and support.
The future of AirAsia
AirAsia must recognise the significance of customer service in maintaining and enhancing its brand image. By addressing the concerns raised by passengers, improving communication channels, and ensuring transparency in its policies, the airline can begin rebuilding trust and regaining customer loyalty. Additionally, investing in training programs for its staff and adopting modern technologies to streamline operations and enhance customer interactions could help elevate the customer service experience.
Regaining trust is not easy for AirAsia after all these issues. However, it is not impossible. Probably the airline should start with their communication channels, making them better. AirAsia should invest in improving its communication channels, ensuring prompt and efficient responses to customer queries and complaints. This can involve hiring human-based customer service agents, implementing live chat support on their website, and actively monitoring and responding to social media messages.
To make this happens, transparent, clearly defined policies are a must. These policies must not be one-sided too. AirAsia needs to review and revamp its policies to ensure transparency and clarity. All fees and charges, including those for seat selection, baggage allowances, and in-flight amenities, should be clearly communicated during the booking process. Any changes to policies should be promptly and clearly communicated to customers. The airline must replace its presently one-sided policies such as refunds with fairer ones for both AirAsia and its customers.
Talking about refunds, this is one of the weakest elements of AirAsia. They need to revisit their compensation policy and make it way better. There is an urgent need to improve the present compensation policy for passengers affected by flight disruptions, outlining it clearly the compensation process and providing fair and reasonable compensation options, such as cash refunds, in-kind refunds, rescheduling, or alternative travel arrangements.
Another thing the budget airline needs to work on is the notification system by making it more proactive. Perhaps the present system isn’t robust enough to cater for the current load, so AirAsia should deploy a better and more robust system to proactively notify passengers about flight delays, cancellations, or any changes to their itineraries. Timely updates with enough time for the passenger to prepare such as through SMS, email, and push notifications are badly needed as they can help manage expectations and reduce customer frustration.
Since AirAsia is known for being terrible at listening to customers, they need to turn this around. Perhaps having a customer feedback mechanism will help. Rather than focusing on getting more business and opening up more routes, the airline must instead focus on establishing a customer feedback mechanism first to gather insights and suggestions directly from passengers. This can be done through post-flight surveys, online feedback forms, or dedicated customer service hotlines. Analysing and acting upon customer feedback can help identify areas for improvement and enhance the overall customer experience. Strengthen this first before you work on acquiring more routes or buying new planes.
To start working on establishing better communication with customers, AirAsia needs to empower and train human-based customer service representatives first to support their online or digital customer service. At the moment, their online service is seriously the worst in the world. AirAsia should invest in hiring the right talent and deploying relevant training programs to empower its customer service agents with the necessary skills and knowledge to handle customer inquiries and complaints effectively. Training should focus on empathy, problem-solving, and conflict-resolution techniques, ensuring agents can address customer concerns in a professional and satisfactory manner.
And one more thing, proactive social media management is badly needed too. AirAsia should be brave enough to actively monitor social media platforms for customer feedback, complaints, and inquiries. Be ever-ready to respond to negative feedback timely and personalised responses should be provided to customers publicly, showcasing the airline’s commitment to addressing customer concerns and resolving issues as soon as possible.
Bottom line
AirAsia’s declining customer service has become a pressing issue that has negatively impacted its brand in Southeast Asia. The airline must acknowledge these concerns and take proactive steps to address them if it wishes to regain customer trust and loyalty. By prioritising the customer experience, AirAsia can rebuild its reputation as a reliable and customer-centric airline, securing its place in the competitive aviation industry of Southeast Asia.
Tony Fernandes and cabin crews | Image by LAT Photographic
Instead of just taking care of their personnel known as Allstars, they need to keep things balanced by taking good care of their customers too and making them Allstars customers. The Allstar is a term that describes AirAsia’s employees or new recruits. The reason they call their employees Allstar is that they want them to feel much more special and unique working at AirAsia because each of them plays a unique role in the company.
I believe once the budget airline starts to take care of their passenger as if they are Allstars, I am sure AirAsia will come back stronger than ever before.
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