FBO Best Practices Series #6: Make the Customer Your Fan
/
By John L. Enticknap and Ron R. Jackson, Aviation Business Strategies Group - ABSGgroup.com
Welcome to our blog series on FBO Best Practices. With each blog post in this series, we’ll discuss “Best Practices” in running an efficient and effective FBO operation.
Best Practice #6: Make the customer your fan by building a team environment designed to differentiate your service from the competition.
We all know what it’s like to be a fan. We have certain things we like and we support our choices by voting with our enthusiasm and our dollars. Maybe it’s the brand of car we drive, a favorite restaurant we frequent or a new movie we went to see. It also could be a favorite sports team we back.
But the true test of being a fan is if we recommend something to someone else. It’s like putting our reputation on the line.
And so it is with providing excellent FBO services. Loyal customers are very much like a fan. If they like your service, they’ll keep flying back and vote with their wallet.
So what’s the secret sauce? How can FBOs make customers their fans?
We can sum up the answer this way: Provide a noticeably high-level of service that beats the pants off the competition.
Although consistency is important, the key is to differentiate your brand of service from the FBO next door, across the field or at the nearest competing airport.
The Wow Factor
In past blog posts, we’ve talked about competing on customer service and not on price. That’s just common business sense. We also know FBOs can’t compete or differentiate based on a brand of fuel because fuel is fuel, Jet A is Jet A and Avgas is Avgas. It’s all the same!
The differentiating factor is your secret sauce, the way you deliver the fuel, the maintenance, the parts, the catering, the charter, the flight instruction and even the bill.
And the secret to the sauce are the ingredients: the individual employees coming together, working as a team and providing a noticeably higher level of service. It’s what we call the wow factor.
Customers notice how the entire FBO operation works collectively. They’re either impressed or they’re not. They’re either put into a comfort zone or they’re watching you like a hawk.
Your FBO can have the best, most personable CSR in the country, but if the line service technician and wing walker don’t tow the customer’s $50 million baby just right, all is for naught.
Building a cohesive FBO team can take the human relations skills of being a good coach. The really successful athletic teams all point to a common denominator of having a good environment in which to excel. A good coach will create this environment. A good FBO manager will do the same.
Vince Lombardi, arguably the most respected and revered NFL coach of all time, created a successful environment where his players thrived as a team.
Here is one of his quotes: "Teamwork is what the Green Bay Packers were all about. They didn't do it for individual glory. They did it because they loved one another.”
Good Customer Service Principles
In developing our acclaimed aviation-specific customer service training program, Don’t Forget the Cheese!, we recognized that it’s impossible to separate the requirement for customer service training from the need to build a good employee teamwork environment. One can’t exist without the other.
That’s why we based our integrated teamwork training on discovering the power of ”we.” It’s an interdependent approach to a realization that working together is a lot easier, and a lot more fun, than working individually.
When you combine these two important elements together, memorable customer service training in a dynamic teamwork environment, you truly can create the wow factor.
Here are some basic customer service/team building principles we teach. We hope they inspire you to create your own secret sauce:
- Add something extra … make someone’s day.
- Choose your own attitude; be an empathetic listener.
- Adopt a ‘we’ attitude; play team ball.
- Be consistent; set high standards.
- Be flexible; own your mistakes. Be the person who delivers great customer service.
Tell us what you think—we appreciate your comments and thoughts. Also Like us by clicking the link below.
Send us an email to Ron@thejacksongroup.biz or jenticknap@bellsouth.net and visit us online at www.ABSGgroup.com.
About the bloggers:
John Enticknap
John Enticknap has more than 35 years of aviation fueling and FBO services industry experience and has served as president/CEO of Mercury Air Centers, a network of FBOs he grew from four facilities to 21 locations. He has international FBO experience including opening the Royal Aviation Terminal in Kuwait. John has held executive management positions with DynAir Fueling and CSX Becket Aviation and holds a Bachelor of Science in industrial management from Northeastern University. He teaches the acclaimed FBO Success Seminar for the National Aviation Transportation Association (NATA) and is an NATA certified safety auditor. John is the co-author of the forthcoming book FBO Survival! Keeping Your Operation Lean, Mean & Profitable. He also writes an industry blog titled FBO Connection for Penton‘s AC-U-KWIK Alerts. He is an active ATP and CFI rated pilot with more than 8,100 flight hours; certified in both fixed and rotary wing aircraft. jenticknap@bellsouth.net, Ph: 404-867-5518 www.absggroup.com
Ron Jackson
Ron Jackson is co-founder of Aviation Business Strategies Group and president of The Jackson Group, a PR agency specializing in FBO marketing and customer service training. He has held management positions with Cessna Aircraft, Fairchild Aircraft and Bozell Advertising. Ron developed the strategic marketing communication plan and programs for Mercury Air Centers and consults with numerous FBOs in areas of marketing, promotions and customer service training. He is the author of Don’t Forget the Cheese! The Ultimate FBO Customer Service Experience. and co-author of the forthcoming book FBO Survival! Keeping Your Operation Lean, Mean & Profitable. He is a certified journalist and co-developed NATA’s acclaimed FBO Success Seminar Series. Ron writes an industry blog for Penton’s AC-U-KWIK Alerts titled: The FBO Connection. Ron@thejacksongroup.biz Ph: 972-979-6566 www.absggroup.com