Over the years I’ve spent a lot of time teaching customer service within the aviation industry. This blog will provide examples of how not to provide customer service:
Watch the medical industry—especially hospitals. Now let me say up front that the people who work in hospitals are hard-working people who provide wonderful service—once you get to them. Getting to them, however, is unadulterated hell!
You know the routine. They leave you sitting forever without knowing how long it will be or if they have lost you. (Wife Gail will confirm that they really did lose me once.)
The problem—it seems to me—is that those who are employed in hospitals are overworked. They are dedicated, proud and hardworking people. But they can’t get to everyone right now.
I wonder if hospitals would profit from hiring someone who is devoted to explaining delays, keeping in touch, and—most of all—telling the truth about how long your wait will probably be. Just knowing that someone does know that you’re there would help a lot.
If that person could send a few patients home bragging about—rather than complaining about—the service, that would help a lot.
Could airports profit from such a service? Most probably. And—to tell the truth—many airports do have such a service because they have found it to be profitable.
I wonder how many airports could benefit from an intro trip to the airport to take the mystery out of flying, parking, TSA, and the myriad of other details that seem ordinary to us. You might arrange for your local senior citizen facility to plan trips. Senior citizens are growing in numbers and some are just flat confused about airports. Wife Gail talked with one today. Her late husband handled everything and she is just overwhelmed with the idea of doing it herself.
The Smithsonian tours, cruise ships and many other travel groups make a lot of money dealing with senior citizens. Is this a group to which we should market aggressively?
