Airport Experience® News - Customer Service Issue 2023

GAUGING THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE A Q&A With Lise D’Andrea of CXE BY SALLY KRAL Editor’s Note: Lise D’Andre is president and CEO of CXE , a leading customer experience consulting firm that specializes in inspiring organizations to innovate and transform their service culture, ultimately delivering employee and customer experiences that boost employee engagement, spark customer delight and drive organizational success.

Above: In order to create an exceptional workplace culture, Tastes on the Fly provides team and morale building activities and effective problem solving and communication workshops and programs with the goal of building a sense of community among employees.

AXN Contributing Writer Sally Kral spoke with D’Andrea about how airports and operators can measure guest satisfaction and the latest strategies to optimize the traveler experience. KRAL: What are some of CXE’s key methods of measuring customer service? D’ANDREA: When we drill into methodologies on measurement, it really depends where the client is in their current data analytics, including what they’re currently measuring, what they’ve been measuring over time and how they’re using those results—because data is only data until you do something with it. We help them to look at their current data tactics and then build a plan, which really should be a blended strategy of data capture, including both structured and unstructured feedback from sources like surveys, social media reviews and focus groups. In addition to that, many airports and airport entities will look to mystery shopping to test their service standards and training. At CXE, we have a very comprehensive approach to mystery shopping, ensuring that it aligns with our clients’ training tactics and that it aligns with their overall service brand promise, and that we’re able to test and measure and recognize and appreciate those employees who do it well when it happens. Mystery shopping is utilized quite a bit, and we’re seeing more and more requests for it as we’re still rebounding from Covid and coming out into a whole new world in the airport. We also offer operational audits and price audits, which help to identify where there may be misses in terms of pricing or operational approaches in the airport, which ultimately impact customer experience. But again, it really should be a blended approach of different forms of feedback and analytics and it does need to be strategic so that the results are used in a framework for improvement. It’s about getting the data to work for us so that we can improve over time. We see a lot of analytics being captured, but then clients don’t have the bandwidth or the infrastructure to do anything with it. KRAL: What would be an example of a way to put data to good use? D’ANDREA: One of the strategic approaches that we take with our clients is to help them develop a framework to look at data analytics and determine what the steps are going to be for action planning. They actually incorporate the data into an action planning process, and assign the necessary teams to those action plan frameworks, so that overall guest experience improvement is a process that is put in place and followed and that they can be held accountable to it. KRAL: What trends are you noticing right now in terms of how customers are shopping and engaging with brands and what brands are doing to drive engagement? D’ANDREA: Airports have definitely launched into the tech space in order to help streamline the passenger journey, which is important and necessary but there’s been a little lag in adoption rates because not all customers are ready for that. So a trend that we’re seeing is a balance of tech and touch, and making sure that there’s still a human element to some degree. Another trend we’ve noticed evolving over the past three to five years is that airports are really prioritizing service as a function of their brand, and that’s really exciting because it highlights that the airport is a community that needs to be unified. We’re seeing so much great work being done in terms of breaking down silos that may have existed across the airport, with different stakeholder groups now having a communication plan on how they can work better together for the passenger and advocating for the passenger instead of just staying within their silo and saying, ‘that’s not my job.’ The passenger isn’t thinking that it’s all different companies that are providing these services across the airport, they think it’s all one airport experience. Setting ourselves up for success requires breaking down those silos, communicating more and setting strategic action planning that’s going to help us improve guest experience together as a community. I think that’s a huge trend that we’re going to see evolve.

our comprehensive survey collection and review monitoring processes, our leadership establishes annual goals, against which we consistently measure and monitor performance,” says Batten. Word-of-mouth can also help bring such comments to the fore. Garcia says Areas USA doesn’t have a national effort to collect information from ratings websites like Yelp or social media, but if something does pop up on these platforms, executives usually hear about it from onsite management or even sometimes the airports themselves. “Many times, our guests share it with us through our guest email box,” she says. “As we advance our strategy, we will focus on the most effective way to gather and include this data.” An Old School Approach Mystery shoppers or secret shoppers, where reviewers pose as a typical guest then assess the restaurant or store on a variety of customer service fronts, were once the core of most customer service tracking efforts. While still used in some instances, the importance of mystery shoppers has paled in today’s higher tech environment. Ames, for example, notes that Tastes on the Fly’s expansive guest satisfaction survey program was enhanced during Covid as the company steered away from mystery shoppers. Paradies Lagardère has also shifted its focus. “Mystery shopper programs were once a key resource and are still used albeit in situations where a particular need arises,” Tinsley Harland says. Areas USA’s Garcia notes that a few of the airports that they operate in require secret shopping and some are currently in the process of reworking the audits. “I don’t think the secret shopper approach is

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AX NEWS CUSTOMER SERVICE ISSUE 2023