FBO Insight: Use Three Legs to Build a Strong Customer Experience Platform

Getty: Sam Bassett

Multi-Part Series on The 7 Immutable Elements of Building Equity in Your FBO Enterprise
The last element in building equity in your FBO enterprise is developing a consistent customer service experience.

Think of a three legged stool where each leg represents a primary component that helps support the entire customer experience platform. The three legs must work in concert with each other. If one leg fails, the stool will collapse, causing a breakdown in delivering the best possible customer service experience.

The three legs are:
1: Customer Engagement
2: Customer Centric Culture
3: Employee Empowerment

For this blog post, we’ll discuss the first leg: Customer Engagement.

The first step in building a consistent customer service experience is employing tactics to establish a meaningful customer engagement dialogue. Top of mind should be instilling a strong, positive image about your organization to deliver a precise and thoughtful service experience.

There are a lot of ways that FBOs can engage with potential customers: trade shows, over the phone, social media, advertising, email or in person when the customer flies in for the first time. Once you’ve engaged the customer, be ready to take the relationship to the next level.

The first contact with a customer can say volumes about your FBO. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and think about the image you are trying to project. Are the messages you are sending (both verbal and non-verbal) thoughtfully crafted and practiced by your service team?

Research has shown that customers, pilots and crew, tend to navigate towards FBOs that project a sense of trust and confidence in the way they go about their business. From the moment they lay eyes on your facility, they want to feel good about their choice.

Is the line service technician punctual, waiting to guide the aircraft in? Is the technician wearing proper PPE and are the hand signals crisp and sharp?

Is the ramp in good order with the auxiliary equipment lined up properly, safety cones and chocks clean, neat and orderly?

Are your line and customer service employees warm and friendly, cold and indifferent, or somewhere in between?

FBOs that control their narrative have an advantage because they are being proactive, not reactive. Controlling the narrative starts with having everyone in your organization on the same page.

A natural place to start is with a strong set of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) that are enhanced by FBO industry best practices. In addition, programs like NATA’s Safety First and the International Standard for Business Aircraft Handling (IS-BAH) are time-tested programs that are designed to build a strong internal safety culture and help project images of trust and confidence.

A healthy exchange of ideas and sharing with other FBOs, to include industry best practices, are good business practices. There are numerous opportunities to share best practices at trade shows and symposiums hosted by NBAA and NATA.  In addition, there are “20 groups” that have formed in the FBO industry that are comprised of up to 20 various FBO members who meet regularly to share operational information to include best practices.

In an FBO setting, customer engagement is all about developing long-term profitable customer relationships. It begins with building trust with your brand.

In our next blog post, we will discuss the second leg of the customer experience platform: Building a Customer Centric Internal Culture as a major component of The 7 Immutable Elements of Building Equity in Your FBO Enterprise.

Please leave any comments you have about this blog post below. If you have any questions, please send us an email: John Enticknap, jenticknap@bellsouth.net,  Ron Jackson,  ronjacksongroup@gmail.com.

ABOUT THE BLOGGERS: John Enticknap is the founder of Aviation Business Strategies Group (ABSG). He has more than 35 years of aviation fueling and FBO services industry experience and is an IS-BAH Accredited auditor. Ron Jackson is co-founder of ABSG and president of The Jackson Group (TJG), a PR agency specializing in FBO marketing and customer service training. Visit the biography page or absggroup.com for more background.

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