ACI-NA Airports Learn of Dubai’s Customer Service Secrets

By Tom Smith
The North American airports at the ACI-NA Customer Service Seminar on Thursday got insight as to how one of the world’s great customer service airports, Dubai International Airport, creates its customer service ambiance.

Rimzie Ismail

With the goal of being the world’s busiest airport by 2020, Dubai Airports is positioning its current airport and its second airports, which will have the capacity to handle 160 million passengers, to win, said Rimzie Ismail, its customer service manager.

Dubai considers the traveler as its secondary customer while the airlines are its primary customers. The airport has pioneered a one-stop shop system to sign a new carrier within a week.

The first stop for good customer service for a carrier is air traffic control. Ismail said the airport survey pilots on the function of control tower to improve a carrier’s operations and reduce delays.

Turing to the traveler, Ismail said airports cannot be mere infrastructure providers. The key is service, service, service, which has to be ingrained in every single employee.

Since 60 percent of Dubai’s passengers are “global homo sapiens,” Ismail said it is important to understand different cultures and then find a balance on a common platform. She noted that 157 different nationalities are found among the Dubai employees.

It is important to understand and recognize passenger segmentation – what are the customers looking for – and to look at the customer’s psyche at each touch point between curb and boarding.

Ismail said the senior management must be committed and practice that commitment. She noted that the airport’s CEO will pick up paper off the floor.

As part of the management’s commitment to customer service, Ismail said the CEO receives a daily report on how the airport is functioning, including customer complaints.

Service recovery begins immediately as 600 customer care employees are “empowered” to do whatever they can to make a customer feel better. She added that she receives on a daily basis any customer complaints so she can work to change the process that caused the problem.

No Comments
by on January 25, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Airport management, Airports
Posted by Tom Smith on January 25, 2013

http://www.aci-na.org/blog/2013/01/25/aci-na-airports-learn-of-dubais-customer-service-secrets/

American Airlines Shares Insights on its Social Media Efforts

By Tom Smith
To kick-off the 2013 ACI-NA Customer Service Seminar, Jonathan Pierce described American Airlines’ use of social media channels in its customer service program. Over the course of his hour-long presentation on Wednesday, Pierce outlined his thoughts on “being social” and offered advice to the assembled airport customer service managers.

American Airlines puts the customer at the center of its social media operations, he said. His 15-person team is organized so they can answer any customer problem in one place without passing the traveler onto another airline employee. When a customer reaches out to the airline on a social media channel they expect to get service.

“You can’t have a credible relationship without credibility in customer service,” said Pierce. “The customer has a voice and they want to be heard. We will try to continue conversations which will build advocates because these people will talk positive for you.”

Social is a conversation not a transaction, if you have credibility you are engaging in the longer term relationship, he said.

American treats each social media channel as separate with different missions and strategies. The uniform goal, Pierce said, is to develop content that inspires travel. And, something you want to put your name on and share it with friends.

In his advice to others, Pierce said, you need to be authentic, pro-active and real. Nurture advocates and give them access to insights and behind-the-scenes. “They will love it and become stronger advocates for you,” he said.

He suggested that the airports create “shareable, interactive content.” The rule to judge social media content: “Why will they care and will they share?”

Along that line, Pierce said American has formed a Pinterest board on airport art and encouraged airports to post their art to this digital scrapbook.

No Comments
by on January 23, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Airlines, Airports
Posted by Tom Smith on January 23, 2013

http://www.aci-na.org/blog/2013/01/23/american-airlines-shares-insights-on-its-social-media-efforts/

Collaboration Essential to Customer Service in Airports

By Christine Cusatis, Centerlines Editor
When it comes to customer service at airports, you could say it takes a village.

During a panel on Building Bridges for Customer Excellence, Pat Hogan, Minneapolis-St. Paul, said his airport utilizes a customer service action council to bring together the airport authority, airlines, concessionaires and service providers to jointly improve the customer experience. The council meets monthly to identify issues, develop action plans and review measured results.

In addition, customer service training is provided through an airport-wide effort to encourage employees to meet defined service standards.

“More than 1,600 people were trained in 2012,” Hogan said.

Dennis Tracy, Visit Jacksonville, echoed the importance of team efforts with an overview of the convention and visitors bureau’s joint marketing efforts with the Jacksonville Airport Authority.

“We are both in the same business, and that is to bring more people to Jacksonville,” he said.

Becky Huckaby, Metropolitan Knoxville Airport Authority, provided a look into the Aviation Academy that was held as part of the 75th anniversary of McGhee Tyson Airport.

The four-night educational event provided community leaders and the media with transparent, “behind-the-scenes” access to the inner workings of the airport. Speakers included representatives from the airport authority, NSSA, TSA and FAA, among others.

Huckaby received extremely positive feedback after the event, which proved successful at building a stronger community network.

“It’s a way of opening people’s eyes,” she said.

No Comments
by on January 23, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Airlines, Airport concessions, Airports
Posted by Tom Smith on January 23, 2013

http://www.aci-na.org/blog/2013/01/23/collaboration-essential-to-customer-service-in-airports/

Wings for Autism to Expand

By Christine Cusatis, Centerlines Editor
Jennifer Robtoy of The Charles River Center said Wednesday that the Wings for Autism program, designed to familiarize autistic children with airports, will expand to four airports outside of New England through a grant from Autism Speaks.

Click for video

The grant also will fund production of a training video to provide TSA with awareness of the interpersonal communication skills needed to accommodate children with special needs.
Robtoy, along with Brad Martin of Boston Logan, spoke about the program during a session on Accessibility Beyond Government Requirements at the ACI-NA Customer Service Seminar near Jacksonville.. A joint effort of Boston Logan, TSA, JetBlue and The Charles River Center, the program has hosted 220 children and 920 family members to date in four sessions. Another session is scheduled for the Spring.

Though designed for autistic children, the program accommodates children with a variety of disabilities, guiding them through check-in, security and boarding. Robtoy said the children are “like snowflakes—no two are the same.” In this regard, the program provides an invaluable learning opportunity for children, parents and airport employees.

President Greg Principato said ACI-NA is fully supportive of efforts to expand Wings for Autism to airports nationwide.

For more information on Wings for Autism, contact Robtoy at jrobtoy@charlesrivercenter.org.

No Comments
by on January 23, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Airlines, Airports, Training
Posted by Tom Smith on January 23, 2013

http://www.aci-na.org/blog/2013/01/23/wings-for-autism-to-expand/

Cyber Security, Why Should You Care?

By Liying Gu
The ACI-NA Risk Management Committee kicked off the New Year with its 14th annual Risk Management Conference held in the warm and sunny Las Vegas with close to 140 attendees, very close to setting another new record.

The first day of the conference covered multiple risks airports are facing, from safety risk, wild life risk, environmental risk, cyber risk, event risk, construction risk, to enterprise risk and offered suggestions of risk identification and mitigation in a systematic manner.

Of all the risks covered, cyber security and the liability associated with the risk exposure is gaining more and more attention as the impact of mismanaging this risk can lead to significant consequences that includes regulatory actions, lawsuits and defense costs, and reputational damage.

According to the findings from the CyLab 2010 report by the Carnegie Mellon Governance of Enterprise Security, $214 per record is the average cost of a data breach, with an average total per-incident cost of $7.2 million in 2011; negligence is the leading cause of a data breach, at 41 percent of all reported cases; and 96 percent of breaches could have been avoided if reasonable data security controls had been in place at the time of incident. Data breach could lead to leakage of important information such as personal identification, financial account, patient healthcare, and corporate confidential information.

The two speakers Pam Townley, AVP of professional liability division of Chartis, and Jennifer Bolling, of Arthur J. Gallagher, recommended risk mitigation at the enterprise level. There needs to be commitment from senior level management. The company should use the most recent technologies and limit access to sensitive data. The company should understand the changing regulatory environment and implement plans to respond to a breach in a timely and compliant manner. There needs to be proper vetting of third party vendors and contract management. The company human resources should deploy proper hiring and termination techniques and provide employee training on how to classify and handle data. There needs to be safe and secure methods of disposing of data. The company should use a combination of physical security, written security policies and risk transfer to a third party such as insurance solutions to control the risks.

No Comments
by on January 11, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Committees, Training
Posted by webmaster on January 11, 2013

http://www.aci-na.org/blog/2013/01/11/cyber-security-why-should-you-care/

« Older Posts
Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes