20071538

British Airways’ new route to

customer service

A TQM case study in service sector

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 BRITISH AIRWAYS
 Every 2min a BA flight takes off
 Working 24×7
 4th largest airliner in the business
 Fiercely competing Lufthansa,
Singapore Airlines, American Airlines
 25 million passengers

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 CHANGE IS GOOD
• Shoddy airline , indifferent to
passengers

• World class, financially well, a

trendsetter indeed!
• TQM – the route 2 transformation
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 scenario in BA (1990s)

Under a crisis
Previously a nationalized corporation
Shedding jobs worldwide to stop
making loss
Merging of BOAC & BEA
Restriction of operating routes

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 public to private
Prepared itself for privatization
Regained its financial wealth
After £5 million worth advertisement,
sold itself
Began to repair and restructure

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 Start of the TQM
implementation
Leaner to fitter
‘PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST’ program by
Collin Marshall
Customer Employees
30,000 employees
Behavior breeds behavior
employees

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 know your work place better
 ‘CUSTOMER FIRST’ team program
 In effective attitude of employees
 Employees treated as internal customers
 ‘We fly to serve’ motto
 ‘A Day in the Life’
 ‘gold in the hole’, ‘engineering
excellence’, ‘money matters’

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 organizational & cultural
change
 Pattern Breaking
 Experimenting processes
 Visioning
 Bonding

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 pattern breaking stage
 ‘Demanning’ from 59,000 to 29,000
 Dismissal letters to opposing managers
 New, new, everywhere new
_______________________________________
 Experimenting & visioning stage difficulties
 Pathetic business attitude, absence of good
managers, underachieving education system
 Effective motivation- hope of gain not threat of
being fired from job

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 deep into cultural change
 Senior & middle level management
 ‘Leading the service business’
 Offsite meetings
 Recording feedback from the down
level management
 Participative management style
 Bureaucratic, militaristic
service oriented , market driven.
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 act as you preach
 BA offered MBA degree! to its employees
 Established permanent training centre
 Created emotional support
 Organizational hierarchy was flattened
 profit sharing bonus schemes
 Performance appraisal system introduced
 Performance based compensation system
 data driven feedback system on management
practices

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 treat employees as
potential customers
 Introduction of ‘world traveler’ to
economy class
 Advertising it to employees before to
customers
 ‘Internal commitment’
 ‘Internal marketing’

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 advertise yourself
 Apart from usual ad campaign, brand
product theme was introduced
 Club world , first class , super shuttle ,
leisure, world traveler(economy class)
 Modification of seats, accessories ,
catering services
 A single ad costs £1 million containing
emotional dramatic exp

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 Food served has a power full effect
on the memory of a flight
 Analyzing different aviation routes,
adjusting food recipes in accordance
with different geographical places
 Gained competitive edge

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 show down – a moment to
celebrate
13 % increase in profit
Another 12% increase in each subsequent
yrs
Became fourth largest airliner
160 destinations, 90 countries, 25 US
cities
41 % share in North Atlantic market
 235 aircrafts, advanced fleet strength
than competitors
Enormous customer care programs
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 REFERENCES

• John Bank, The Essence of TQM,

©Prentice-Hall International (UK) ,
2002.

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