Avoiding Issues Before They Occur
In this article, I will explore what we can do in private aviation to avoid service issues before they occur. Anyone who’s worked in business aviation operations, as a charter broker, as a pilot, or in a corporate flight department has dealt with picking up the pieces and recovering from “service occurrences” be it things within our control or things outside of our control. An excellent piece on this subject was recently written by Doug Bryan who many aviation professionals know from his time at XO Jet and Stellar Labs. Well worth the read: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/customer-service-excellence-when-things-go-wrong-doug-bryan?trk=prof-post. But I want to discuss what we can do as aviation professionals to avoid service occurrences before they happen. It may be cliché but, “the best defense is a good offense” holds true in war, sport, and the private jet business!
Safety
The difficult part in the private jet world is that the cost of “making it right” can be so high. We are essentially an ultra-high-end service business (with daunting regulations and safety hurtles!) and we are expected to behave like the Ritz or Four Seasons following a service occurrence spending any amount necessary. The problem is we simply are not high enough margin businesses to consistently swallow the cost of our guests’ expectations when errors within or even outside of our control occur. Here are some suggestions based on my years in aviation to address the root cause, and prevent service occurrences before they happen:
1. Build a Culture of Service
In aviation, safety will always be number one but any successful (and I would argue profitable) private aviation business must make service the number two priority. One problem is that, like most of our teammates, I personally don’t frequent high-end businesses. I don’t stay at the Ritz or eat at Michelin three-star restaurants, and your coworkers probably don’t either, at least not often! Most of us don’t have hands-on experience or training in high-level training. Senior leadership needs to consistently discuss the importance of service and find ways to expose all team members to what high-end service looks like. Introduce the concept of providing options of what you CAN do instead of saying, “No, we can’t do that.” Reward examples of exceptional service and have in-depth discussions about what anticipating the customers’ needs really means using concrete examples.
2. Language
Think about what you say and how you say it. I was recently at Net Jets global headquarters in Columbus, OH, and quickly picked up on the fact that all team members refer to their customers as “owners.” This matters. How we discuss our clients with our teams is every bit as important as how we address them in person, on the phone, or in email. Decide on the appropriate terminology for the people you serve, be consistent, and expect the same from your team. I love referring to the clients I serve in aircraft management and charter business as “guests” because at the end of the day, they are our guests in the air and I want to treat them the same way I would if they came to my home.
3. Training, Training, Training
Any service driven aviation organization will have formal service training as part of new hire indoctrination and ongoing recurrent training. Obviously customer service team members, pilots, and other customer-facing team members will need this kind of training but should all departments attend? Even those who typically don’t directly interface with guests? Think hard about that question in your organization and the potential benefits versus time lost to conduct training for employees like accountants and mechanics – it might very well be worth the time to train.
4. Establish a Formal Customer Experience Management System
How will you know how you are performing if you don’t track it? There are a host of software tools and procedural systems for you to choose from. If you don’t have a CEM in place, you probably have it available to you in a system you are already using, or if all else fails start a spreadsheet! Think about what you need to track and make sure your system doesn’t devolve into an internal “tattle tale” mechanism. Effective CEMs identify and mitigate root causes over time and make it easy to track every issue through to resolution. Don’t forget to track examples of great service the people you serve point out to you. This is often overlooked and every bit as important as tracking your failings.
5. Lead by Example
If you want others to do it, you must live it. The easiest way to make this happen is for your teammates, reports, superiors, vendors, and anyone else you come in contact with professionally to see you work in service to others. Don’t just say, “What can I do to help,” but actually take action to assist. Make time to lend your help and expertise to others outside of your chain of command and watch this trickle down to your “guests.”
Conclusion
If you want to reduce service occurrences start tomorrow building a strong offense. Build key performance indicators your executive team tracks to measure your service and alert you of emerging trends. Reward your team for meeting service-level goals, lead by example, act in service to those around you, and watch your business grow and prosper. If you don’t do it, someone else will!
Read other blogs from Tern Jet Sales at www.ternjetsales.com/blog.
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