Customer Satisfaction & Loyalty and Organizational Complaint Handling: Economic Aspects of Business Operation of Airline Industry

Abstract

The undertaken study examines economic aspects of business operations of the airline industry vis-à-vis organizational complaint handling and customer loyalty. For this purpose, we used a structured questionnaire to collect sample data of 200 respondents from university students and households of Pakistan who are the customers of the airline industry. We employed five independent variables, namely, response time, complaint resolution perfection, executives’ attitude, brand image and responsiveness to complaints. We used the descriptive analysis and SEM-based approaches; namely, confirmatory and exploratory factor analysis for estimation purposes. The findings of the undertaken study demonstrated that the resolution of complaints, timely response, and responsiveness to complaints had a significant and positive influence on satisfaction of customers and loyalty of clients using international airline services, and this leads to the economic prospects of business operation in the airline industry. However, customer relationship, executives’ attitude and brand loyalty do not have significant influence on the customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Thus, it is concluded that the immediate response to customer complaint handling enhances the customer satisfaction and customer loyalty that increases the economic aspects of business operation in the airline industry.