Monday, May 30, 2011

Customer-centric snapshot of American Airlines [3 of 4]

D When you’re first hired as an agent… [F: and is it just agents?] …well, my group of people that I manage… [F: oh, I see] …are agents, but every department has training, as far as pilots and flight attendants, I’m not sure what the… [F: even baggage handlers, I’m sure] …period of time is, right, and in the computer, every 45 days you have some type of lesson due. [F: Wow!] It’s either learning about triggers in the baggage, or how to, let’s say, something unfortunate happened and the person is looking for compensation, you could look here, look there, deciding what to give the customer because we failed at some type of service… [F: whatever’s high-lit at that time] …right, right…


F Do you folks get acknowledged on your anniversaries or birthdays… [D: yes, absolutely; on the 10/20/30 years…] …on your frequent flier or repeat customer base, does American send them out a post card or anything, an e-mail, happy birthday, or…

D That’s a good question, I’m not sure, for a platinum and executive platinum’s and gold’s… [F: I’m thinking that would be an easy, extremely low cost marketing…] …that’s a good question, I’m not sure, I mean locally, with our agents here we post them, and we have cake and whatever, but, I would sure hope so, but…

F …and if not you can bubble it up. Supervisor on duty, thank you so much for your time. [D: you’re welcome] …I’m grateful… […sorry we’re a little stressed down here today (there was a baggage back up issue she was staying behind to handle), so…] …no, I’m extremely grateful you took a few moments for me, [D: yeah, no problem] I do appreciate it. I think I’ll get three pages out of this easy.

D …okay, alright…we appreciate everybody’s business, and we… (recording ends).



Evaluating the airline’s customer service quality.

Any institution that gifts its employees support training every six weeks is already aces in the mind of this researcher. That the Supervisor on duty kept cycling back to her agents as the base of responsibility for the consumers’ positive experience speaks volumes. Therefore, rather than looking at the customer, the majority of this customer centric conversation rightly settled on maintaining the high spirits and excellent training of those who would serve.



How marketing plans incorporate service quality.

One senses that the transcript speaks for itself. It would be ridiculous to presume that what we just shared as experienced by this dialogue was not a byproduct of marketing woven through the organization. Clearly, this conversation was the result of the marketing plan of high strategic caliber.



Concluding thoughts

This author reiterates again his deep appreciation to the Supervisor on duty. It was an honor to meet her. A privilege to have had the dialogue we did and that there is some confidence as we imagine American Airlines has a right to be proud to be represented by someone who has thoroughly integrated the AA way.

Ordinarily a document such as this carries with it an effort to embrace as much as possible. Taking this different approach yielded fresh insight, speaks to the topic in a way ordinary research would not have allowed and yielded something of a snapshot of exactly what we are talking about.

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