Sitting in the airport preparing to board my flight to Dallas, Texas where I’ve been invited to speak at this year’s CCNG Executive Summit #CCNG, I can’t help but indulge in a bit of people watching.
My attention is quickly captured by the load angry sounding voice of a female airport or airport vendor employee, whose job is to provide wheelchair assistance to the passengers boarding and disembarking the airlines. Her frustration it appears was focused on the repeated calls over her radio for additional chair support at the very gate she had just arrived at. Unfortunately, the individual calling for the added support was unaware of her arrival. In her fit of frustration, the employee could be heard verbally berating her peer over the radio saying in an angry rude tone, “I wish you would call me one more time”. The implication clearly being some harm would follow the additional request. Now the thing to keep in mind is this was not a private conversation, remember I heard it over all the other terminal noise while sitting some 40-50 feet away, and believe me, my hearing isn’t that good!
Once the entire show was over, and all passengers had been wheeled away my attention quickly focused to how uncomfortable the airline’s guests (passengers) must have felt. I couldn’t imagine this poor woman sitting in her wheelchair hearing the employee’s obvious frustration with her job. Her job at that moment was to transport the passenger point A to point B. I wondered to myself what the CEO of the company employing her would think if he witnessed this behavior, would it be in line with the culture of his organization? Was it part of his/her sales presentation to the airport when bidding for the contract? Did the training received by the employee accurately explain the culture, what is expected, and how to deliver exceptional service?
A Customer Centric Culture is one that constantly reinforces the message of how customers are to be treated, how their journey or interaction with your organization and all its employees is to look and feel like. Alignment of Who you are, What you do and How you do it is essential to delivering an exceptional customer experience.
