Customer Experience

A QANTAS DELIVERED REMINDER

On Saturday the worlds longest continuously flying and safest airline, Qantas, took the extraordinary step of grounding its entire global fleet and locking out workers from three unions in effort to bring to a head a long running industrial dispute.

While Qantas returned to the air today the dispute is far from over and the public debate on the action taken by Qantas and the Unions has kept the 24 hour news cycle busy. Everyone of course has an opinion on what needs to happen and some are even calling for the airline to be nationalised again so that they can compete with other international carriers owned by foreign governments.

I am not going to get in to a debate on this blog about the various options but I ask you to consider for a moment what the biggest lesson we can take from the challenges that got Qantas to the point it is today and I say that lesson is one about the constant need for a company to innovate, evolve and transform itself pro-actively.

Transformation is an ugly word, it’s ugly because it instantly conjures up thoughts of change, uncertainty and in turn fear in people. However if we look across the world those companies in any industry that have continued to evolve themselves have continued to be strong resilient companies.

IBM, for example, started as a computer hardware company and is now helping deliver “smarter thinking” through its global services company and is ranked the 18th largest company in the world. Their hardware business is no longer their core business and maybe in the future consultancy won’t be.

Within the airline industry I think of Virgin Atlantic and Southwest Airlines two companies that have fought to shake up the airline industry and proven that you can win by doing things slightly differently.

Southwest wins through a number of approaches and one of them includes having the fastest aircraft turnaround times in America. In 30 years of operations they have never posted a company loss have won numerous awards for customer service and employee excellence. A great example of what can be achieved with strong employee and customer engagement.

Today Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said that Qantas has 14 to 15 maintenance engineers per plane compared to the 2 to 3 that their major domestic competitor Virgin Australia has. Joyce was using this as just one example of why Qantas is struggling to compete in the market place.

The problem I have with this comparison is that improvements and efficiencies in engineering, maintenance and all areas of business didn’t happen overnight, Virgin and others don’t have some magic dust that makes things easier to fix.

The only difference is that Qantas is plagued by legacy issues, issues that undoubtedly in some instances go back generations but issues that should have been considered and acted upon by an engaged focused leadership team.

Qantas needs to invest heavily in innovation, it needs to make some difficult decisions and it needs to embed a culture of continuous innovation, employee and customer engagement.

The key here though is engagement and a good dose of reality from both the executive and the employees of the company. Qantas can’t expect not to have to spend money in modernising its operations, staff can’t expect to continue to outpace industry benefits or staffing levels.

Both parties, in my opinion, need to find a common goal and work together to achieve it. The reality is I actually think both the employees and executive already have that goal – to have the best airline in the world, the only problem is they are poles apart in how to achieve it.

So if you are a business owner or a business leader don’t wait for things to get to the do or die level, engage with your staff, inspire your staff and deliver month on month (day on day if you can) improvements to your business so that whatever “storm” hits your industry you are prepared for it.

I would love to hear about how your company has weather storms and continues to innovate, leave a comment – or leave a comment on how you would fix the Qantas challenges.

PROACTIVE SERVICE

Around the world the airline industry has been complaining about how hard it is for them to operate profitably. To over come these pressures most airlines introduced a range of new chargers, reduced flexibility and removed as many service elements as they could get away with.

I am happy to say though that not all airlines have lost the human touch and still appreciate the value of providing a great experience.

About 4 years ago I first flew on jetBlue, a low-cost airline in the USA. The service and inflight experience was great but what impressed me the most was that before my bags even arrived at the baggage carousel I had an email from them apologizing that not all inflight TV channels were available and to say sorry they provided me with a gift voucher.

This doesn’t appear to be a once off gesture by the airline, recently I received an email saying that they were waiving all change and cancellation fees due to inclement weather forecasted for a range of destinations.

What a great experience to have an airline contact me proactively to tell me that the forecast for my destination was inclement weather and if I wanted to change my flight as a result it wouldn’t cost me a thing.

When was your airline, or any other service provider, this proactive in looking after you?

I encourage you to look for ways to proactively delight your customers, you will have them for life if you do.

ATTENTIVE & DELIGHTFUL HOTEL EXPERIENCE

Over the last 6 years I will have easily spent over a year in a hotel rooms. So while I may not be an award winning travel journalist, my experience coupled with my passion and determination to deliver award winning customer experience gives me, I think, some ability to comment on hotels.

If you have been been following my updated site you will know that I am currently on a great adventure and am spending a lot of time in hotels and traveling for professional and social reasons so it seems an opportune time to review hotels as I stay at them.

So I thought I would kick it off with my review of my stay at the Intercontinental Melbourne, Australia.

In July 2011 I had to quickly do an overnight trip to Melbourne and I stayed at the Intercontinental because it had recently been renovated and was in a great location for my needs

The booking process was simple and some enquiries I made online via twitter and email were responded to quickly. I had requested an early check-in which they didn’t guarantee but did provide.

My taxi pulled up to the hotel, I was greeted by the bell boy and from that moment to the moment I left the front-of-house staff were attentive, “Sir may I have your name as I help you with your luggage.” Followed quickly by “Mr Bradshaw welcome to the Intercontinental and if I or any of the team can help during your stay please just ask, if you proceed through these doors and to the left you will be able to check-in and I will take care of your luggage”.

I proceeded to check-in which was equally as attentive, helpful and timely. The room was also well prepared with a clear attention to the smaller details. The room itself was well appointed and quite comfortable.

So from arrival at the hotel to arrival in my room the experience was great, attentive and importantly for a regular traveller hassle free.

The rest of my stay continued with this theme, room service, directions to a location I needed, anything and every requests was expertly and attentively dealt with.

I had to go looking for areas for improvement and all I found was one small led light bulb in a service light that was blown. Seriously that is the only thing I found in the room that needed attention and for all I know it may have blown just as I turned it on. The important thing if that it didn’t impact the experience of my stay once.

So if you are traveling to Melbourne and want a hotel that delivers a solid 5 star experience I encourage you to consider this little gem.

Experiences build lasting memories, deliver positive memories daily.