APEX EXPO 2016 Education Day: Strategies and Insights
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APEX Insight: Education Day’s Track A sessions offered insight into optimizing the passenger experience through product differentiation, cabin innovation, the introduction of agentive technology and more.
Customer Experience Strategies and Insights
“People are our brand,” said Ryanne Van Der Eijk. As senior vice-president, Customer Experience for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, she helped redefine KLM’s approach to customer service. To start, she scrapped the priority of procedures and schedules. “Everyone wants to differentiate and we’re all focused on differentiation.” But to score points with the passenger, she said results come with authenticity and building customer intimacy into the airline’s strategy.
The Importance of Passenger Well-Being and Health
Lantal Textiles, a company with more than 130 years of experience in manufacturing textiles for transport, swept the dust off airline upholstery, presenting cabin textiles as more than something pretty to look at. “Functional textiles are no longer only important in sportswear. It is now brought into the passenger cabin,” said Dr. Urs Rickenbacher, CEO, Lantal Textiles. From curtains to carpet, cabin textiles contribute to passenger well-being and aircraft ambience.
One of the latest innovations in this field is lighting. “Light is becoming more and more important,” Rickenbacher said. Light and technology can be woven into fabric, providing multiple ways to illuminate the cabin and passenger experience – through fabric finishes, which make for easy cleaning and maintenance, and sensors, which allow passengers and airlines to track health statistics.
But when it comes to aircraft seating, comfort is still the main talking point. “Customization is key,” said Thomas Steiner, VP, Lantal Textiles.
Streamlining Passenger Experience Across Multiple Platforms
On a panel about the airline passenger experience moderated by Éric Lauzon, manager of Multimedia Entertainment, Air Canada, the airline industry echoed a need to improve consistency across platforms and service.
Megan Worley, program manager, American Airlines, said creating a seamless experience, across the various in-flight entertainment systems on American Airlines’ fleet was a challenge. Meanwhile, Piia Karhu, Finnair and Rossen Dimitrov, Qatar Airways, both SVPs in Customer Experience for their respective airlines, spotted the same challenge within service. For Qatar, challenges include ensuring that dialogue among their crewmembers was consistent on the ground and on board, a problem the airline aims to solve by flying their flight attendants on dedicated routes. And from the airframer’s perspective, Christine De Gagné, cabin marketing manager, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft, said keeping up with the constant evolution of technology is an ongoing challenge.
Your Customers and Narrow Artificial Intelligence Platforms
Chris Noessel, global design practice manager, Travel and Transportation, IBM, presented ideas on artificial intelligence and what he calls, agentive technology, a term that refers to robot vacuums and driverless cars. “To put a label on it, these things are all persistent background assistants,” Noessel said. “They do the thing for you and then constantly watch for when they need to do it again.” So what does this mean for the airline industry? “User expectation is going to go through the roof,” said Noessel. In the future, there will be no excuse for dumb services. Passengers will expect their “agents” to know everything about them.