Achieving Excellent Service

In this issue you will find our roundtable discussion on what constitutes excellent customer service (see Aviation Maintenance Roundtable). During the discussion we talked about other industries and how aviation maintenance service providers compare. I told a story about a customer service experience that I had that could have ended in disappointment but didn’t. Here is what happened.

Community, trust and integrity must exist to truly achieve excellent customer service for aviation maintenance providers.

I took my car, a Toyota Prius, to the dealer to get a 15,000-mile check. I also needed a state inspection sticker. Where I live in Virginia they require an inspection every year. I took the car in and the service rep and I talked about all the things they were going to do. Since my sticker was expiring, I said, ‘Oh, by the way, I need this inspection sticker, you can do that, right?’ He replied that yes, they could do that, and he added it to the list we had just gone over.

Near the end of the next day I got a call that the car was complete and ready for pickup. I arrived to pick the car up at around six o’clock in the evening, the end of the workday. There weren’t many people left in the service area at that time. The service rep and I went through the whole bill. Everything looked good and I paid. I hopped in the car and saw my inspection sticker. It was the old sticker. They didn’t do it! They didn’t change the sticker.

Now, I had timed the visit so that my inspection would be completed on the day it was due. So the day I’m picking it up, it’s expired. Legally, I can’t drive the car. I hop out of the car and go back up to the counter to speak to the service rep. I told him that they didn’t do my inspection and now my sticker is expired. A strange look came over the guy’s face. I couldn’t tell if it was a look of concern or disgust or irritation. But the next thing that happened surprised me. The guy literally leaped over the counter and ran out of the service bay. I was a bit shocked and wondered to myself, will he be back? I watched him run down the street a ways. He came back in about five minutes with another guy.

Here is what he told me. The only guy who had the authority to do the state inspections had just left for the day to catch his bus. The service rep had run down the street to see if he could catch him and bring him back. He did catch him and the inspector agreed to come back and do the inspection.

That was good customer service as far as I was concerned. They made a mistake — they forgot to do it; but they made it right at considerable effort including having the inspector delay his departure, miss his bus and clock back in. When neighbors ask about the service at that dealership, I often tell that story as an example.

In the aviation industry, and in particular in aviation maintenance, the opportunity to build or ruin a customer relationship exists at every turn. What we learned from our roundtable discussion is that the relationships built between service providers and the users of those services are paramount. In no other industry will you find the level of trust that exists in ours.

A key element to excellent customer service is the cooperation of all involved. The pilots, maintenance staff and service providers (both OEMs and independent shops) all must work together to achieve the goal: keeping the multi-million dollar asset viable, safe and departing on schedule.

In the roundtable you will read about having a point of contact at a service provider on speed dial and always getting a friendly response; calling at 11:30 at night and getting the right person and the answer needed; technicians working through the night to ensure an early morning departure; calling at 30,000 feet from a satellite phone with worries about a bird strike, and more.

We heard stories of unsurpassed efforts to get aircraft ready to go on schedule. We heard stories of disappointment, too. What stands out most to me, is the sense of community, trust and integrity that must exist to truly achieve excellent customer service in this unique industry.