5 HR Strategies for Customer Service Excellence

Nothing epitomises good customer service more than the helpful airline hostess or steward, and no industry is more dependent on keeping customers on side than the aviation industry.

A recent article by Professor Jochen Wirtz on NUS Think Business looks at how Singapore Airlines (SIA) has become a model for service excellence, both within aviation and in other industries, and highlights five essential human resource strategies SIA use to enhance its customer service model. This is an extract:

1. Hiring the right people

Recruitment is an important first step in SIA's HR strategy. Therefore hiring at the airline involves a rigorous and strict selection process.

There are group and one-on-one interviews and an English language competency test. SIA looks for recruits who can empathise with passengers and are cheerful, friendly and humble.

Each year the airline receives around 10,000 applications to join its cabin crew, of whom only around 900 are eventually hired.

A common challenge facing service organizations is a shortage of labour. As a result of this and the competitive nature of the service industry there is a temptation to hasten the hiring process.

That however would be a false economy. Think of it this way: Hiring should be a carefully considered process. Taking on the wrong people will quickly turn into a liability for the organization.

2. Training service champions

Once accepted into SIA, the newly recruited cabin crew take part in an intensive 15-week training course - the longest and most comprehensive in the airline industry.

Hiring should be a carefully considered process. Taking on the wrong people will quickly turn into a liability for the organization.

This training focuses on enabling cabin crew to provide gracious service with confidence and warmth. The course modules cover not only safety and functional areas, but also appreciation of gourmet food and wine, and the art of conversation.

An internal SIA initiative, known as Transforming Customer Service (TCS), aims to build team spirit among staff in key operational areas such cabin crew, engineering, ground services, flight operations and sales support. This serves to remind staff of their importance in the overall business and that everyone has a role in customer service.

With suitable people in place, investment in training can create outstanding service champions. Successful service organizations tend to show a commitment in words, dollars and action towards training.

3. Creating esprit de corps

With the many services that need to be attended to on board an aircraft, the nature of the working environment requires people to work effectively as a team to deliver service excellence.

SIA creates esprit de corps among its cabin crew members by grouping them into 'wards'. Each ward, consisting of about 180 crew members, is led by a 'ward-leader' who acts as counsellor to guide and develop them. The ward leaders issue newsletters, organise face-to-face sessions and activities with their ward members.

These activities, designed to promote team spirit, include inter-ward games, overseas bonding sessions and regularly scheduled full-day engagement sessions on the ground.

In addition, SIA organises activities that reach out to the wider crew population. The management staff have frequent interactions with crew members at the Control Centre (where crew report for work) over food and drinks. The senior crew members are invited for full-day engagement sessions with the airline's management.

Recognising the value of balancing work and play, SIA supports its cabin crew members who set up interest groups. Currently, there are 30 diverse groups whose activities cover arts, sports, music, dance and community service. These interest groups provide an avenue for crew members to come together to pursue their passions outside of work. This helps crew members to further develop a team spirit.

4. Empowerment for quality service

The story (quoted in the full article) of the arthritis-stricken passenger is a clear example of employees being empowered to engage in discretionary efforts.

However, empowerment is a challenge that many service organizations have difficulty implementing in practice.

First take the approach where staff are given a clear concept of the boundaries of their authority, and secondly, make it a responsibility of the management to communicate and explain the empowerment limits to the staff.

5. Rewarding excellence

With the right people and training in place, the next step is to ensure the teams can deliver service excellence. Here rewarding strong performers is not just a powerful motivation tool, but also an effective way to retain people.

SIA uses several forms of reward, including symbolic forms of recognition, performance-based share options, and linking variable pay components to individual staff contribution and the company's financial performance.

To encourage appropriate service behaviour, SIA's evaluation system covers a wide range of areas, assessing the crew member's grooming, passenger handling capabilities, product knowledge, safety knowledge and working relationship with team mates.

Crew members are recognised and rewarded for going the extra mile in passenger service. SIA makes sure these award winners receive great publicity within the organization. And to further promote a teamwork culture, SIA also recognises the teammates of the awarded crew member for their efforts.

Communications is another important motivating tool. This ensures that the staff are aware of what is going on within the organization and gives the employees a sense of pride in what they do.

Many service organizations struggle when they are not flexible in their rewards system. Utilise the full range of available rewards effectively.

Read the Full article: An HR Strategy for Service Excellence