CZECH REPUBLIC. Airports Council International (ACI) has stressed the importance of cultivating a culture of customer service excellence across the airport community at the second Airport Service Quality (ASQ) Forum of 2017.
The event took place on 13-15 September, hosted by Prague Vaclav Havel Airport and sponsored by Lagardère Travel Retail.
Over 110 delegates from 58 airports and civil aviation authorities, stemming from 35 countries, gathered in Prague for the event.
Under the umbrella of ‘Cultivating a customer experience airport community’, the 2017 ASQ Forum theme stressed the importance of putting the passenger first.
“Airports have learned that to gain this continuous service improvement the entire airport community must be engaged,” said ACI World Director General Angela Gittens. “Customer service excellence is generated by all staff, from every company and agency in contact with the passenger customer, and from those behind the scenes setting the policies, procedures and the physical and digital environment for the interactions to occur. The 2017 ASQ Forum content helps airports ensure that staff have the tools required to offer the best possible service to their customers.”
The ASQ Forums are a series of annual meetings organised for airports that participate in the ASQ Survey, and for those that are considering joining the ASQ programme. ACI said the purpose of each forum is to help airports get the best from the ASQ survey and results to “effectively and efficiently manage passenger satisfaction, improve the quality of their airport services, and exchange examples of best practice in airport customer experience”.
Key session topics of the ASQ Forum Prague included: developing the ultimate customer experience by connecting with airport employees and the community; understanding arriving passengers and their expectations through the new ASQ Arrivals Survey; optimising customer service through ASQ products and services; and, introducing the new ASQ Employee Survey for Customer Experience and ASQ Arrivals Survey.
Delegates heard from keynote speaker Rohit Talwar, Chief Executive Office of Fast Future, who spoke on the topic of ‘service in the age of continuous disruption’.
The ASQ team also offered a complimentary full-day training session before the start of the forum. Presentations during the forum covered the ASQ Sample Plan Management Tool; ASQ Reporting Portal; fieldwork dos and don’ts; practical guidance on data collection; and audits, while an interactive team exercise workshop was held.
“ACI would like to thank Vaclav Havel Airport Prague for hosting the event,” Gittens concluded. “I would also like to congratulate them on their 80th Anniversary and their recently released long-term strategy to accelerate their infrastructure development to accommodate future passenger traffic growth and to meet and exceed customer service excellence through the ASQ programme.”
The third ASQ Forum of 2017 is scheduled to take place in Detroit, Michigan, from 2–4 October.
