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A Toolkit for Improving Airport Customer Service

Posted by Jill Donnelly on March 31, 2014

There are various motives for an airport to embark on a service improvement journey. Perhaps it’s differentiation within the market, maybe it is to kick up service delivery a notch and improve the passenger experience, or another tack is to create more teamwork and efficiency within an organization to reduce costs.

At CSE, we often get inquiries from airport leaders looking for more information on how to embark on such a service improvement initiative. While each situation is different, the general concepts and approach remain the same. To this end, we have set out to provide the following "toolkit" full of advice and resources as a general starting point for those ready to start on the journey.

customer service differentiationDifferentiation

Perhaps it is differentiation that you are seeking. While most other items remain constantespecially in a commoditized marketpeople are your greatest asset and the greatest opportunity for differentiation. To derive the most success form your journey, your initiative must:

            • Be consistently delivered
            • Make sense for the customer
            • Have the support from whole organization- verbal support, communication support, the proper tools and processes, etc.
            • Be delivered by the team not because they HAVE to, rather because they WANT to.

Customer LoyaltyPassenger Experience

It is imperative that a broad vision/purpose or goal is identified for your improvement effort, i.e. identify: “What will success look like?” rather than simply initiating a list of tactics.  Connecting with the “why” and the broader vision will garner:

            • Engaged employees
            • More genuine actions
            • Further development of ideas from the field
            • Buy-in from the teams across a property

Reduce CostsReduce Costs

If you are trying to improve what you already have, to create better teamwork and greater efficiencies, then the same support and behaviors must be enacted with the internal teams that support the front-line teams.  For example, a culture of service or more personalization in the field is hard to sustain when the field teams receive a different level of support from their HR Manager and Regional Manager than that which the front-line teams are required to deliver.

RESOURCES

Take a look at these resources as a source of inspiration, or to better understand the spectrum of tools available to help your airport program thrive!

All in all, we hope this information is helpful and not overwhelming.  Bottom line, if you are considering embarking on an airport service improvement program, be sure to provide your teams the support, tools and knowledge they need to deliver a great passenger experience every time!

 

Tags: Organizational Development, Service Culture, eMapping, Employee Survey, Service Mapping