service

The implications of intangibility to the service offered by AirAsia and communication strategies to address problems created by intangibility of services.

Services have four characteristics namely The intangibility of services is one of its unique characteristics which makes services different from products. Intangibility refers to the state whereby services do not exist as a physical thing but is still valuable.

Intangibility makes it hard for any service providers to manage their quality control as services have no physical attributes which could be seen and evaluated by neither the customers or the service providers. It is a very important characteristic that brings a lot of challenges to the service providers including AirAsia. According to the Macquarie Research, AirAsia derived 66% of its income from the passanger seats sale. This means that, most of AirAsia's revenue comes from the flight service they offer to the customers. Thus, it is very important for AirAsia to improve their service from time to time. However, the intangibility characteristic has made it difficult and challenging for AirAsia to measure their performance in terms of their service quality. According to Bebko (2000), service quality can be measured by the level of discrepancy between consumer expectations or desires and their perceptions of what they received. This means that the customers will rate the services that they received based on what they have expected from the service provider. As for AirAsia, the company has provided a medium for the customers to provide their feedback or reach AirAsia for any compliments and complaints. The customers who wish to do so can visit AirAsia website and write or lodge a feedback or complaint by simply clicking o...

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...eir formation of judgement about the services. For AirAsia, the aircraft is the physical evidence which facilitates the service production while other physical evidence such as the flight attendants, flight seats and in-flight magazines are used to enhance the service consumption. AirAsia has taken a few initiatives in improving its customers in-flight experience including providing the fliers with the Travel 3Sixty magazine and other in-flight entertainments.

To conclude, service intangibility is a challenge for every service provider. However, if the service providers know how to deal with this problem then they will have a competitve advantage and gain more customers. The most important thing that all service providers should be doing is they must determine the level of quality expectations which consumers have for their service industry and attempt to meet them.