As I write this, I’m flying from Newark, New Jersey, to Las Vegas
on a major airline, sitting in the first-class section. Trish, a flight attendant,
approaches me after takeoff, smiles, and says, “Hello, Mr. Giannetto, will you
be joining us for lunch?” She turns to the two women with Russian accents
across the aisle and asks them both the same question, also addressing them by
name. Perhaps because I spend a great deal of my life working with companies
to help make them customer-centric, information-driven, highly integrated
enterprises, I notice that Trish is doing everything she can to make sure she
personally connects with each passenger. She addresses all of us by name and
seems genuinely interested in every passenger to whom she speaks.
When I ask Trish about her personalized approach, she explains that it’s a
result of her training and she takes it to heart. No doubt, her employer recognizes the value of customers in first class having a positive experience. Frequent
flyers take the service they receive seriously, but they usually don’t call the airline’s customer service department when they have a complaint.
They don’t have to—not anymore.
The most senior of travelers—the Global Alliance or 1k travelers—will
receive a text from the airline asking about in-flight service before they even
make it up the airplane’s exit ramp. And they’ll respond. If Trish doesn’t address
them by name, they may well report this omission, and a complaint will be
logged in her file and she’ll be counseled next time she checks in for a flight.
Training attendants to personalize service and retraining them when they
don’t are not new processes. What’s new, though, is the use of technology to
make the process happen in real time to improve the customer experience. This
airline recognized that when these customers didn’t have a good experience
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