A Renfrewshire (Paisley) based human resource company is sharing the secret to its success in helping Glasgow Airport launch its customer charter – the first of its kind in the UK.
An expert team from Rainbow HR was brought in to support the International airport’s desire to stand head and shoulders above its counterparts and become the mode of transport of choice in west and central Scotland and the best airport in Europe in terms of customer service.
In 2010, Glasgow Airport undertook a customer survey asking passengers what was important to them when travelling through the airport with results providing the management team with the fundamentals to develop a customer charter.
Working with Glasgow Airport’s management team, Rainbow HR held a series of staff focus groups from a cross section of employees to understand what great service looked like to them and this formed part of the training programme.
Fiona Irvine, Director at Rainbow HR said: “Following the customer survey and the development of the charter, the Airport implemented customer service training which Rainbow HR facilitated. Our job was to ensure staff displayed behaviour in line with the charter’s key commitments which were to be efficient, friendly, helpful and knowledgeable in a clean litter free environment.
“Ultimately, the training was designed to educate staff on how their actions could make or break the customer experience and therefore tarnish the airport’s image – and it was effective.”
To enhance the training experience Glasgow Airport and Rainbow HR then went onto to design a DVD, which focused on staff attitudes. The film, which is based on real life customer experiences, showed a good and bad scenario. The DVD followed two passengers from the moment they were dropped off until they boarded the aircraft. While the scripts were identical, the attitudes employed by staff were incredibly different.
Lesley Malcolm, Rainbow HR consultant and training facilitator said: “The customer experience is greatly influenced by staff attitude. Behaviour influences experience. The DVD encouraged staff to put themselves in the customer’s shoes and understand the impact of poor service on the customers experience within the airport and that this is all down to individual staff attitude in delivering that good or bad service.”
The impact of the training showed a positive shift in the ratio of compliments to complaints with customers reporting 7:1 in favour of their visit.
Amanda McMillan, managing director of Glasgow Airport, said: “Our customer charter clearly outlines our commitment to our customers and in making such a public commitment, we fully recognise we will be held to account at all times. We believe this approach will enable us to build upon current standards and ultimately lift Glasgow Airport to a new level in the eyes of our customers.”
As part of the customer charter’s commitment to improve service at the airport, an interactive feedback station has been installed in the security hall, which captures instant feedback from every person travelling through security. The station is the first of its kind for any UK airport.
Following on from the success of the initial customer training programmes, the airport is rolling out its training plan by working with the remaining 4,000 third party employees based at Glasgow International Airport to ensure that every customer at the airport has a great experience no matter who they come into contact with during their visit.
Craig Martin, head of HR for Glasgow Airport, said: “We are extremely proud of our customer charter and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the team at Rainbow HR for the continued dedication and commitment in helping to develop the charter and for the first class support in the delivery of the employee training too.”
For further information on Rainbow HR visit www.rainbowhr.com. And for Glasgow Airport visit www.glasgowaiport.com
