All successful organisations understand the importance of providing a great customer experience. They know that without customers who come back and recommend them to others, they’re fighting an uphill battle to survive.
A week ago, I had just such an experience.
I’d settled down into my seat, the doors closed and the plane backed away from the gate.
Singapore Airlines SQ 234 was on its way and I was looking forward to 22 hours in the air flying to Zurich.
Over the years I’ve been on a lot of planes and used a great many airlines and been subjected to varying degrees of service or lack there of.
I’ve been on flights where it was painfully obvious that the passengers were an inconvenience – heaven forbid, we might actually want something. And others where the planes were so old, I thought they were tied together with string.
We judge the airline on their “service”, the food, entertainment systems etc.
The SQ staff impressed me.
Nothing was too much trouble. They continuously strode purposfully up and down the aisles, were very attentive to details and immaculately groomed.
Having been on many a flight where as soon as the plane takes off, flight attendants, take their ties and jackets off, I noticed that SQ staff kept everything on.
I commented about this to the gentleman sitting next to me. He happened to be a soft skills and leadership consultant who’d been involved with SQ training over the years.
“Oh, it’s a requirement… it’s about presenting a good image to our customers”.
Girls aren’t allowed to wear hair that drops below their shoulders, hence the buns you see. Men can’t have hair covering their ears – so they all have short hair.
And if you’ve ever boarded a plane and struggled to get your hand luggage into the overhead locker, while the crew stand by and watch, SQ makes it a job requirement that staff actually put your luggage up for you.
Coupled with brand new planes and state of the art entertainment systems, it made flying a very long distance almost a pleasure.
But it certainly wasn’t always like this.
Many years ago, I had a very bad experience with SQ. And dealing with the inscruitable, unhelpful staff didn’t endear me to them one little bit. So much so that it took over 25 years before I flew with them again.
So it’s a testiment to their training and commitment to being one of the world’s best airlines that they completely changed the way they do things, learnt from their mistakes and are able to create raving fans like me.
Great customer experience doesn’t happen by accident. It takes dedication, training and a commitment to quality. Every person in your organisation must be customer focused and genuinenly want to be of service.
What’s it like in your business? Do you have systems in place to train your staff, continuously improve and create raving fans?
If not, or if you feel they could do with some updating, we run customer service improvement programs where we work with you and your staff to create a culture and systems where great customer service is the norm, not an accident.
Interested? Call me on (02) 9499-7958 and we can discuss how to move forward.
Rashid.
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