Aviation Customer Service Stories

As mentioned in last week’s article, passengers are more stressed and weary as they travel through America’s airports. Many of the amenities travelers enjoyed on airlines now have to be purchased or they have been taken away completely. The question, “What are airports doing to help relieve this stress and weariness, and make up for the service that has been taken away by the airlines?” was posed. Keep your responses coming to [email protected] (or comment below on this article) and we will report on those over the next couple weeks.

In the meantime, here are a handful of tips from a company (that we all know!) that gives its customers exemplary treatment while creating an experience each time they return:

1. Everybody is customer service- The training for janitors is six weeks in this company. Why? Because “guests” (their word for customers) ask janitors questions, so the folks with brooms must be experts. By the way, the training for parking lot attendants can be as long as eight weeks.
2. Pay attention to details – The trash cans are currently swapped out every two years and repainted every four months.
3. Focus on the right stuff and the money will come- This company’s top three priorities are leadership excellence, cast (their word for employees) excellence and guest satisfaction. The fourth priority is financial results. Their thought is that when the first three priorities are done right, financial success is a natural outcome.
4. Take care of cast members- This company has “team centers” to serve the needs of its employees. These centers provide insurance, discounts, tickets, transportation services and payroll services. The message that this relays is “Be good to your employees and they will be good to your customers”.

It may already be obvious, but this company is Disney. Many may argue that going to a Disney park is an entirely different scenario from going to an airport or other types of organizations who serve customers. But much can be learned from Disney’s way of treating customers (or guests) that can be applied to other service organizations regardless of the service products they provide.

One final tip from Disney:

5.        Everybody should do the “dirty jobs” – The number of people in the park sweeping up trash is very low – about eight. This is because every crew member understands that it is everyone’s responsibility to keep the part clean---not just the janitors.