Consumer Decision-Making in Airline Services

Consumer Decision-Making in Airline Services

1.0 Introduction
Consumers are faced with purchase decisions nearly every day. But not all decisions are treated the same. Some decisions are more complex than others and thus require more effort by the consumer even consumer want to purchase or using airline services. In a research article (Sproles & Kendall, 1986, as cited in Maznah, Mohd Noor, Zaliha and Hasni, 2009, p. 27) a consumer decision-making styles is defined as a mental orientation characterizing a consumers approach to making consumer choices. This means consumer decision making will help consumer to choose what kind of airline services that they want.

2.0 Consumer Decision-Making

The consumer decision making is the important factor that influence consumer to purchase or using airline services. Purchases could involve habitual decision making or extended problem solving or anywhere in between these two extremes. The purchase of airline tickets should be considered at the higher end of this continuum. Boom (2011) tell that consumers are individuals and therefore not identical; their cognitive skills and indeed their subjectively felt need for cognition may differ: whereas some may spend much time and effort in processing information before making decisions, others may not bother so much and rather resort to their fast and frugal short cuts to speed up the decision-making process. Perhaps the concept of consumer thinking and deciding should be considered as a sliding scale between two opposites at the far ends. According to (Park & Gretzel, 2011) the comparison shopping is usually associated with finding the desired product for the best price. Time spent comparison shopping might serve as an important factor influencing a consumers perception of decision quality. Whether great emphasis is placed on decision quality or not and whether decisions are mostly driven by price considerations depends on a consumers decision-making style. As one of the factors that influence consumer purchasing GT 20303: Research Method

Consumer Decision-Making in Airline Services

behavior, decision-making styles have received significant attention from consumer behavior researchers. Decision-making style research suggests that consumers approach shopping with certain decision-making traits that combine to form a consumers decision-making style. Purchases could involve habitual decision making or extended problem solving or anywhere in between these two extremes. The purchase of airline tickets should be considered at the higher end of this continuum. Airline consumers not only seek to reach their destination safely, but also want to do so in comfort and style. This is essentially the core value and benefit of airline services. Each of the several components of airline services and the travel experience offer different levels of benefits depending on the relative importance the passenger gives to each of them and the type of passenger he or she is. We shall divide them broadly into business and economy class passengers. In a research article by (Vohs, Schmeichel, Nelson, Baumeister, Twenge and Tice, 2008) found that decision making and self-control are both prominent aspects of the selfs executive function. It is therefore useful to recognize that they draw on a common psychological resource and that one may affect the other. In particular, making many decisions leaves the person in a depleted state and hence less likely to exert selfcontrol effectively. The common resource needed for self-control, active initiative, and effortful decision making may deserve recognition as an important aspect of self and personality. When consumers make decisions, a more realistic approach may be to use linguistic (natural language) assessments to express thinking and subjective perception (Chiang, Lee, Miaoli and Tzeng, 2009). Carey, Shaw and Shiu (2008) tell that the impact of a changed family environment, combined with the consideration of often complex ethical issues, highlights the potential for significant changes in consumer decision-making. A communal slant including societal pressures and worklife balance issues, and a

GT 20303: Research Method

Consumer Decision-Making in Airline Services

familial approach including family structure, the marital role and the level of childrens influence on the decision-making process

3.0 Airline Services

Airline routes have been on a very rapid rise. The number of airlines and choices has also increased steadily. The evaluation of alternatives entails the greatest amount effort in the purchase decision, and the ranking of criteria involved in narrowing these alternatives down depends on the extent of problem solving the consumer undertakes. Asif and Abd. (2007) tell that in the airline industry context the problem is whether management can perceive correctly what passengers want and expect. Moreover, expectations serve as standards or reference points for customers. In evaluating service quality, passengers compare what they perceive they get in a service encounter with their expectations of that encounter. Assessing passenger expectations is not a static exercise as passengers are becoming increasingly sensitive to quality. In a research article (Huang, 2009) found that in the past decade, as the air transportation market has become even more challenging, many airlines have turned to focus on airline service quality to increase service satisfaction. Service quality conditions influences a firms competitive advantage by retaining customer patronage, and with this comes market share. Delivering high-quality service to passengers is essential for airline survival, so airlines need to understand what passengers expect from their services. Liou, Yen and Tzeng (2009) found that the previous studies in airline service quality used surveys to look at the disparity between expected service and perceived service received by passengers. Their study using the data mining technique called Dominance-based Rough Set Approach (DRSA) to analyze a survey on airline service quality. A set of if antecedent, then consequent decision rules are induced from the passenger preference data that express the relationships between attributes values and the overall service ratings.

GT 20303: Research Method

Consumer Decision-Making in Airline Services

According to (Chen, Peng and Hackley 2008) the service quality and marketing of the airline industry also changed rapidly. In the early days, airlines placed a heavy emphasis on service quality because it was a luxurious leisure pursuit. Then, it became a secondary focus when it entered the oligopoly stage. During this stage, price and price wars were the primary concern of the travellers and the airline companies. In a research article by (Harcar and Yucelt, 2012) the use of the Internet as an airline ticket purchase channel is not fully developed, because consumers use the Internet for research of airlines and airfare not for purchase of tickets as like many product and service categories. Consumers pull for online content they decide when, where, what, and how much commercial content they wish to view. Airline service however, may be experienced and perceived at a highly individualistic level, and unless one is strictly looking for the best value for money involving the balancing factor of price. Consensus reveals that the official reporting of incidents is often forgotten, undertaken incorrectly or, in some cases, actively downplayed by airline managers who do not wish the airline to be notorious for disruptive passenger incidents (Rhoden, Ralston and Ineson, 2008). Oyewole, Sankaran and Choudhury (2007) tell that to realize the corporate objective of any air transport organization, the style of operation of every wing of the airline has to be cut out properly. That the customer is the important person to any business undertaking is a fact that needs no overemphasis. Liou, Tsai, Lin and Tzeng (2010) in their studies found that the analysis provides airlines with summaries of their weaknesses and suggestions for improvement. They have isolated important items on which airlines may wish to focus and those in which airlines have already done well and can reduce their efforts without affecting the overall service level.

GT 20303: Research Method

Consumer Decision-Making in Airline Services

(Berry, 1992, as cited in Ciliberto and Tamer, 2009, p. 1806) showed that firm observable heterogeneity, such as airport presence, plays an important role in determining airline profitability, providing support to the studies that show a strong positive relationship between airport presence and airline fares. The outcome of the inflight experience and whether a consumer is satisfied or dissatisfied is closely linked to repeat purchase and long-term loyalty. In todays modern world, social class and status are not portrayed through ones travel preferences. A lot of top business executives and celebrities or sportspersons deliberately travel economy class to portray a down to earth, thrifty or simplistic living attitude.

4.0 Conclusion
As a conclusion, for marketers it is important to understand how consumers treat the purchase decisions they face. If a company is targeting customers who feel a purchase decision is difficult, their marketing strategy may vary greatly from a company targeting customers who view the purchase decision as routine. Consumer decision making can be heavily influenced by advertising and personal attitudes formed, especially after a positive or negative experience. The implication of buying behavior for marketers is that different buying situations require different marketing efforts especially in buying the airline ticket or using airline service.

GT 20303: Research Method

Consumer Decision-Making in Airline Services References Asif, Z.Z., & Abd., R.R. (2007). The Truths of Service Quality (Passenger Handling) in Airlines Industry: A Descriptive Exploration Between Malaysia Airlines and Air Asia. The Journal of Global Business Management, 3 (1), 1.

Boom, W.H.V. (2011). Price Intransparency, Consumer Decision Making and European Consumer Law. Journal of Consumer Policy, 3, 361. Carey, L., Shaw, D., & Shiu, E. (2008). The Impact of Ethical Concerns on Family Consumer Decision-Making. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 32 (5), 553. Chen, A.H., Peng, N., & Hackley, C. (2008). Evaluating Service Marketing in Airline Industry and its Influence on Student Passengers Purchasing Behaviour-using Taipei-London Route as an example. Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, 25 (1), 2. Chiang, C., Lee.C.C., Miaoli, I.L., & Tzeng, G.H. (2009). A Non-Additive Model for the Evaluation of Portal Website Service Quality. Journal of the Chinese Institute of Industrial Engineers, 26 (5), 356. Ciliberto, F., & Tamer, E. (2009). Market Structure and Multiple Equilibria in Airline Markets. Journal of The Econometric Society, 77 (6), 1806. Harcar, T., & Yucelt, U. (2012). American Consumers Attitudes towards Different Airline Companies Channels: A Comparison of transaction Methods. Special issue, 10 (2), 60. Huang, Y.K. (2009). The Effect of Airline Service Quality on Passengers Behavioural Intentions Using SERVQUAL Scores: A TAIWAN Case Study. Journal of the Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies, 8. Liou, J.J.H., Tsai C.Y., Lin, R.H., & Tzeng, G.H. (2010). A modified VIKOR multiplecriteria decision method for improving domestic airlines service quality. Journal of Air Transport Management, 17 (2), 5.

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Consumer Decision-Making in Airline Services Liou, J.J.H., Yen, L., & Tzeng, G.H. (2009). Using decision rules to achieve mass

customization of airline services. European Journal of Operational Research, 205 (3), 4. Maznah, W.O., Mohd Noor, M.A., Zaliha, H.H., & Hasni, A.R. (2009). Decision Orientations towards Shopping and Buying among Young-Adult Malays in the Universities. International Journal of Business and Management, 4 (7), 27. Oyewole, P., Sankaran, M., and Choudhury, P. (2007). Marketing Airline Services In Malaysia: A Consumer Satisfaction Orientation Approach. Innovative Marketing, 3 (1), 56. Park, Y.A., & Gretzel, U. (2011). Influence of Consumers Online Decision-Making Style on Comparison Shopping Proneness and Perceived Usefulness of Comparison Shopping Tools. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, 11 (4), 342-343. Rhoden, S., Ralston, R., & Ineson, E.M. (2008). Cabin crew training to control disruptive airline passenger behavior: A cause for tourism concern? Tourism Management, 29, 539. Vohs, D.K., Schmeichel, B.J., Nelson, N.M., Baumeister, R.F., Twenge, J.M., &Tice, D.M. (2008). Making Choices Impairs Subsequent Self-Control: A LimitedResource Account of Decision Making, Self-Regulation, and Active Initiative. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94 (5), 897.

GT 20303: Research Method