What’s Your FBO Story? Why It Matters

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Many well-run FBOs have put together comprehensive marketing plans, developed dynamic logos and brands, crafted mission and vision statements and published their core values.

These are all good exercises to go through, but do these various marketing tactics and the resulting messages they convey truly resonate emotionally with customers? Is a customer more likely to remember a mission statement or a heart-warming, feel-good story? How about when a line service technician used his own metal detector to find and return a customer’s heirloom pin which was lost while walking her dog at the FBO facility?

Every day there are numerous examples of employees going the extra mile and random acts of kindness that occur at FBOs that could be conveyed through compelling storytelling. Stories that serve as a transparent window through which customers can see your FBOs true heart and soul.

Storytelling in the FBO environment is not some whimsical creative marketing gimmick. Rather, it is a powerful relationship building tool that helps bond the customer with the enterprise by creating emotional ties that stand out from the competition and help to create distinction.

Companies from all business sectors are effectively using storytelling as a means to generate trust and to convey purpose. For FBOs, storytelling can help to better connect all stakeholders including customers, employees, vendors, suppliers, airport authorities, communities and banking/financial institutions.  

Mining Story Ideas

Every FBO is rich in stories that can be mined by simply establishing a story discovery committee with representatives from all departments including line service, customer service, accounting, human resources, flight training, aircraft maintenance, parts, etc.

Before the meeting, ask several employees about their experiences in going the extra mile to help a customer solve a problem or to speed them on their way to the next destination. It does not have to be their personal experience as they may have witnessed another employee rising to an occasion. Have these stores in hand and present a few to the committee to help kick-start the idea.

Once the committee members have mined a few stories from fellow employees, have the committee help with choosing which ones to use in building the story-telling library.

These stories can then be posted or used in various communication platforms to include:

  • Social media such as Meta/Facebook, Instagram, etc.

  • Write a blog for your website

  • Use in news releases

  • Create one-page handouts to serve as “take-ones” in the FBO and at trade shows

  • Mail out to your customers, vendors and suppliers, airport authorities, community leaders to include the Chamber of Commerce

  • Send them to local newspapers, television stations and get to know some of the reporters who may be looking for a good human-interest story

In creating and facilitating our Certified Customer Service Seminar series we incorporated a session on Going the Extra Mile and had attendees provide examples in story form. One example we recall was when a customer requested a special dietary meal and the catering company misplaced the order. As the departure time was imminent, the CSR on duty jumped into action and asked a few employees if they could donate some fruit from their sack lunches and subsequently enough was gathered to fulfill the initial request. Problem solved.

Another story emanated from a maintenance technician who was doing a final interior cleaning of an aircraft before the customer delivery and discovered a wedding band lodged in the base framework of a seat. Upon delivering the aircraft, the employee presented the ring to the customer who was almost in tears relating his own story about how he had been searching tirelessly for this ring which belonged to his grandfather. An indelible bond was made.

If you have a story to share, please send it to us via email and we will use it in a subsequent blog post.

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,

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