By John L. Enticknap and Ron R. Jackson, Principals, Aviation Business Strategies Group
Listen to the rhythm of your FBO. How does it sound? Do you hear many instruments playing in harmony? Or rather a rag-tag hodgepodge of many different departments, working independently and making an awful racket?
From line service and customer service to accounting and maintenance, every department and every employee touches a customer in some way. One bad towing job, one dirty restroom, one inaccurate invoice or one late maintenance delivery can move customers out of their comfort zone and motivate them to take their business, and their multi-million dollar aircraft, to a competitor.
For the premise of this blog, let's think of and visualize each department as a section of a well-tuned orchestra.
In the typical FBO organization, we have several departments or musical sections that make up the orchestra. They include fueling/line service, customer service, maintenance, avionics, parts, refurb, charter, flight school, aircraft sales, accounting, etc.
In consulting with many FBOs with which we've come in contact, several managers have lamented that departments often don't communicate well with each other and have tended to work more and more in isolation. In other words, they're tapping out a rhythm to their own beat, not in concert with the rest of the orchestra. In a way, they've created their own ensemble and aren't playing the same music.
When the customer spends some time at an FBO, they begin to develop a sixth sense with regard to the working environment. Their antennas are up and they can sense when there is discord. They begin to hear many drums and many instruments playing haphazardly instead of in sync as one sound, one orchestra, one FBO.
So how can FBOs pull the orchestra together, make many departments move and sound as one, and create an operating environment for delivering the ultimate customer service experience?
In the next blog, we'll discuss the four steps to creating inter-departmental harmony and discovering your FBO’s natural rhythm.
About the bloggers:
John Enticknap has more than 35 years of aviation fueling and FBO services industry experience. 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. Visit the biography page or absggroup.com for more background.
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