Recognize the role of airline frontline service agents

Identify techniques of customer care

Recognize frontline service agents’ behavior

Understand the importance of customer service language

Understand the Karpman drama triangle

What is customer care?

Customer care is one of the main duties of airline agents. It is the responsibility of airline frontline service agents, reservation agents, ground service agents and cabin crew to ensure passengers have a hassle-free experience by offering assistance, resolving their problems, and ensuring their safety throughout the journey. Every airline employee must understand their role and how he or she plays a part in affecting customers’ travel experiences as they meet various airline personnel throughout their journey. It is equally important for all airline employees to understand the big picture of airline customers’ satisfaction goal so that they can work together to achieve these common objectives as they carry out their daily work and interact with their respective internal and external customers.

To deliver excellent customer service, an airline must provide good quality and comparable tangible products. These include a reliable reservation system and check-in system, reliable baggage system, comfortable seats, tasty meals and in-flight entertainment. The airline also needs to ensure that frontline service employees provide high-quality service such as being knowledgeable, offer accurate information, demonstrate teamwork, have a positive attitude, are willing to take on responsibilities, possess excellent communicate skills and the ability to work under pressure.

How a product matches customers’ expectations demonstrates its quality. Each customer has a unique set of expectations and therefore perceives quality differently.

The role of airline frontline service agents

The main responsibility of airline frontline service agents is to provide service to the customers among other roles to ensure the success of an airline’s operation. To do so, frontline employees must be equipped with multiple skills to offer exceptional services to the customers.

Service provider

The main duty of service agents is to provide service and assistance to customers. A service agent must ensure that customers enjoy every single moment of the journey.

Figure 3-1: Different roles of airline frontline agents.

Aim to satisfy the customers—generate happy customers by offering services

Go the extra mile—perform beyond customers’ expectations

Mr. Yee is a frequent traveler who only takes window seats and the staff has assigned him to one before he arrived at the check-in counter. This has demonstrated their proactiveness in terms of satisfying customers’ needs by going the extra mile. Even though customers may be satisfied when they are assigned to their desired seats during check-in, Mr. Yee was pleasantly surprised when he noted that his seat was prepared beforehand, hence creating a strong sense of satisfaction.

Airline ambassador

Service agents represent an airline through their words and actions.

Being the brand of the airline—create the company’s image

First impression—create a positive impression at the first point of contact

Liaison

Service agents can also serve as middlemen by assisting customers to communicate with other airline departments when required.

Help customers to contact the respective person or department to obtain proper assistance

Mr. Yee was confused about his return flight as there was some discrepancy in the flight details. A staff assisted him to contact the travel agent for clarification.

Sales

Service agent may sometimes take on the role of a sales agent by offering and promoting in-flight services and products passengers might be interested in.

Promote airlines’ in-flight services and products

Assist in increasing auxiliary revenue

There was a special promotion for business class upgrades. The check-in staff noticed that Mr. Yee is a frequent traveler and suggested that he upgrades from economy to business class for a special price. Mr. Yee was very pleased to learn about this promotion and he agreed to do so.

Keep promises

This refers to service agents delivering services as guaranteed and ensuring what is promised to customers is carried out in a prompt manner.

Even though a cabin staff was held up with several tasks on a full flight, she remembered the passengers’ requests and fulfilled their needs. She ensured that all the promises made were kept.

Teamwork

Team spirit is important as individuals need to cooperate and work with colleagues and other airline service agents both within and across departments so as to achieve the airline’s goal of building strong customer relationships.

Help other team members—offer help to other colleagues when in need

Everyone plays a part to ensure customers are satisfied with the entire journey

The cabin crew is serving meals on both sides of a wide-body aircraft. Mr. Yee is seated on the last row. After he has been served, a cabin staff noticed that her colleague on the other side of the aisle was still halfway through the service. She immediately went over to help her colleague out.

Give up-to-date information

One of the main duties of a service agent is to deliver updated and accurate information to customers.

It is Mr. Yee’s first trip to Sydney. He asked a staff about the arrival process upon landing in Sydney Airport. The staff explained the immigration and quarantine procedures to him in details.

Problem solver

Service agents also help customers in terms of resolving problems. During times of irregular operations, service agents offer the following:

Give passengers advice that is in their best interest

Offer solutions to problems by identifying multiple solutions and allowing customers to select what best fit their needs and offering a feasible solution after weighing out an airline’s incurred cost and customers’ benefits.

There was an unexpected flight delay. Mr. Yee had a choice of standing by for the next flight or getting a confirmed reservation on another that flight that departs in seven hours. Based on the situation, the staff recommended that he opt to standby for the subsequent flight while holding a confirmed seat on the other one flying out seven hours later to ensure Mr. Yee will be able to secure a flight back home.

Job rotation programs

Some airlines have implemented job rotation programs in order to achieve customer satisfaction goals. These programs allow service personnel to work in various environments and gain experience in different departments. This system helps them to increase their knowledge of the airlines’ product so as to better address customers’ problems on the spot, provide prompt services as well as gain in-depth understanding of customers’ needs at different stages of the air travel process. For example, service agents who are based in the airports undergo a job rotation program whereby they are required to work in different functions such as ticketing, check-in, boarding and arrival.

Job rotation motivates service agents by offering them new challenges and the chance to learn new skills. It also helps to improve communication between departments and for staff to better understand the roles and functions of other departments. Moreover, this increases job mobility as staff who are equipped with multiple skills will be able to take over their colleagues’ tasks in events of an emergency.

Studies have also shown that job rotation leads to increased employees’ motivation and job satisfaction1 as they become more familiar with their jobs and are more confident when communicating with customers.

From corporate culture to service culture

The corporate culture of an airline has a direct influence on frontline employees’ behavior and overall performance as it shapes the way they interact with customers. Southwest Airlines, the world’s largest low-cost carrier is famous for its corporate culture, which is also the driving factor for the airline’s success. The company cares about its employees and seeks to create a favorable workplace for all individuals regardless of their roles. In turn, this is translated into the service culture of the company as employees are motivated to treat their customers in the same manner. When employees are satisfied with a company and their jobs, they are motivated to go the extra mile to ensure customer’s needs are fulfilled and that they enjoy the airlines’ products and services.

The Southwest Airlines Culture

Southwest Airlines’ corporate culture focuses on every person in the company. This includes its employees and the customers. This business strategy has resulted in Southwest bagging the 7th position of Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies.2

A Practical Guide to Airline Customer Service

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