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CASE STUDIES
Client Testimonial
Chief Operating Officer,
Signature Flight Support
The Client
Signature Flight Support, a division of BBA Aviation Services Group (LSE:BBA), is the world's leading network of Fixed Base Operations (FBOs) for business aviation services. Signature operates out of more than 75 locations in North America, Europe and beyond, with significantly more locations at high-volume, high-profile airports than any other FBO chain. Signature's facilities and 1,700-plus professional customer and line service professionals oversee more than one million aircraft movements per year, providing industry-best safety and security measures in fueling, hangar and office rentals, ground handling and passenger services.
The Situation
Signature has staked a great deal of its corporate identity on the
superior level of service and superior customer experience delivered
at Signature facilities as compared to the competition. Phrases such
as “our commitment to five-star service” and “achieving
a consistently high level of service…is never left to chance” are
peppered throughout company marketing literature. In 2003, Signature
convened its Customer Advisory Panel – a diverse group of customers
representing the range of Signature customer segments. The panel felt
it would be wise for Signature to back up these claims by benchmarking
its performance not only against its FBO competition, but against other
world-class service organizations.
The Solution
Shortly after that meeting, Signature engaged LRA Worldwide to design
and deploy a web-based customer satisfaction and loyalty tracking
survey tool. The decision to work with LRA was based in no small
part due to LRA’s diverse client base and ability to benchmark
against a variety of industries, hospitality and otherwise.
Initially, Signature viewed the program as a more efficient replacement for its incumbent paper-based comment card program, hoping only to gather data that would support its brand promise and enable the company to respond to customers in a more timely fashion than the six-month turnaround that existed at the time. It immediately became clear to Signature leadership, however, that the feedback generated by the program, both in its immediacy, detail and overall capture of the customer experience, would serve as a far more powerful business tool than anticipated.
In particular, Signature focused on the “Real-Time Alert” (RTA) function, whereby email alerts are generated at the corporate and property level when a customer expresses any dissatisfaction with their experience at a Signature facility. In the first year of the program, the tool generated approximately 120 alerts, and Signature was thrilled with the opportunity they provided to immediately recover with the customer and delve into the root cause of the problem. As the program has grown, Signature has adjusted the alert “trigger” to generate more immediate feedback – now an alert is sent whenever a customer indicates that there was a problem in their experience, regardless of their overall satisfaction level. The influx of customer “complaints” has been a real boon to Signature, allowing for a level of intimate dialogue between the customer and the company that had never existed previously. In addition, the managers at the individual FBOs (and their corporate supervisors) use the RTA Management System to track the action taken, response time and resolution for each RTA.
“The online survey and its Real-Time Alert feature provides us with the ability to engage in immediate customer recovery whenever there has been a problem and start a meaningful dialogue with our customers,” explained Steve Lee, Signature’s Chief Operating Officer. “Plus, I can see trends develop as they are happening, which allows us to proactively deal with issues on the run before they become problems.”
The Results
The benefits of this program are measurable in any number of ways – cultural,
operational and in overall business outcomes.
Cultural: If nothing else, the survey tool and usage of the Real-Time Alerts has created “a real culture of accountability,” according to Signature’s Corporate Vice President for Customer Relations, Mary Miller. “Each facility knows that we are looking at the data on the corporate level, are aware of problems that occur and are committed to fixing those problems,” Miller continued. “There is a dual focus on a.) making sure each customer issue is thoroughly addressed and resolved, and b.) ensuring that our facilities have the best resources and tools to do so effectively.”
Operational: In several instances, the feedback has resulted in a change in company policy and procedure. Signature has adjusted training curriculum, aircraft handling protocol for certain plane models, and customer service touches based on data from the online survey. “The pilot community is small and talks to one another,” Lee said. “We’ve been able to nip some criticism in the bud via a swift and concrete response to what were very relevant and sensible issues raised by our customers.”
Business Outcomes: Signature places more facilities in the top 50 of the annual Professional Pilot magazine PRASE survey than any other FBO chain, with seven of the company’s locations making the list in 2006. As a reflection of this accomplishment, Signature’s customer loyalty scores have grown continuously to the current level of 83-percent, enabling the company to weather the fallout from significant oil industry cost pressures in 2005 and 2006. “When you respond to a customer comment– either good or bad, and I’ve written customers plenty of notes to thank them for positive comments – it really cements the relationship with that customer,” said Lee. “I’ve been on the phone with a customer and tangibly felt them become more loyal. This is a great tool to not only measure loyalty but truly drive loyalty.”