Virgin America's Guide to Not to Screwing up Customer Service
How do you promote a new, discount airline? If you're Virgin America, brainchild of the British billionaire and provocateur Richard Branson, it's easy: You take five of your most glamorous flight attendants and build a reality show around them. ("Fly Girls," the docu-drama, debuts in March.) A risky marketing move? Perhaps. But you'd expect nothing less from the Branson empire.
Sir Richard's U.S. offshoot isn't just selling cheap tickets; it is selling an experience — and one that few other domestic airlines are trying to match. When Virgin America launched in August 2007, it promised to make "flying good again," by offering, among other perks, in-flight live concerts, Wi-Fi, MP3 players, mood lighting, music in the bathrooms, and even absinthe on the menu.
But trendy amenities can only do so much. Virgin's bigger selling point — and its hardest ongoing challenge — is the customer service. So far, Virgin is doing something right: In 2009, it ranked first in Zagat's annual global airline survey of midsize carriers and won best cabin staff in North America from the World Airline Awards. So how does the company get hundreds of flight attendants and ticket agents to keep their cool in the face of unruly passengers, inevitable flight delays, and the everyday drudgery of their jobs? Virgin's solution is twofold: Hire people with an independent streak, and then stress test them with one of the most rigorous training programs in the industry.
Find the Independent-Minded Extroverts
The ideal hire, as described by the company’s website, possesses no fewer than 19 qualities: “creative, compassionate, patient, visionary, spontaneous, articulate, a good listener, ambitious, fun, humble, brave, sympathetic, cool under pressure, dedicated, curious, passionate, energetic, inspiring, and trustworthy.”
Finding people who fit that description requires more than the standard screening process. Virgin invites promising candidates to take an online assessment where they might, for example, have to describe how they’ve handled difficult customers in the past. Recruiters pluck out the applicants with sharp customer service instincts and a demonstrated ability to think for themselves, and then sends 30 to 40 prospective hires to headquarters in Burlingame, CA, where they’re put through a series of group activities to test, say, how perceptive they are and how they tackle problems.
When Benjamin Eye, now manager of internal communications, interviewed, he and two other prospects had to write down, anonymously, something unique about themselves. Each participant then had to guess which fact went with whom. (Eye used to be an opera singer.) Often Virgin also puts people into small groups and asks them to address a problem scenario, such as how to handle two loud talkers in a movie theater. “If somebody totally dominates the group interview session, or doesn’t listen to others, that’s all part of the interview process,” says Frances Fiorillo, senior vice president for people and in-flight services.
Build a Culture of Resourcefulness
New hires go through a two-day orientation process, a good chunk of which they spend on the streets of San Francisco in a frantic scavenger hunt to find city landmarks, Virgin America billboards, and other destinations. Often the top score goes to the teams that find Mayor Gavin Newsom. The exercise not only introduces new staffers to Virgin’s creative problem-solving ethos, but also teaches them the kind of diplomacy required to handle VIPs they might run into on the job. The teammates have to research the Mayor’s schedule, persuade his office staff to help them, and when they do track him down, e-mail a group photo to headquarters. “Three out of four teams do find him.” says Eye.
Stress-Test Your Employees and Let Them Break the Rules
After orientation, flight attendants (Virgin calls them “in-flight teammates”) spend four and a half weeks in training — considerably longer than the two and half week FAA minimum, and the three weeks required at Southwest and JetBlue. Sure, they learn the standard safety lessons and how to wield the heavy drink cart. But the bulk of Virgin’s unique training program is more like a mini-course in psychology, conflict resolution, and emotional intelligence.
New hires practice dealing with the kinds of problems that make passengers irate, which also helps them identify their own emotional hot buttons. “We push our role playing to the limits,” says manager of in-flight training Patrick Cournoyer, who often plays the role of the prima donna who won’t store a designer bag in an overhead bin, the “screamer,” and the overburdened passenger who refuses to check a large suitcase.
Coping strategies vary, but Virgin’s trainers emphasize empathy above everything else. “We ask everyone to talk about a conflict they had recently and how they handled it,” says Cournoyer. “We want them to be aware of their own reactions to other people.” To elicit a smile, or at least acceptance, from an angry flyer, trainers encourage employees to use humor and err on the side of over-communicating. If words don’t suffice, they have free drink coupons, free upgrades, and free flights at their disposal — no corporate sign-off required. Training sessions even push crewmembers to bend some policies, such as letting late passengers make a run for the plane, rather than telling them to get on another flight.
Employees must also develop their own creative strategies for dealing with customers, especially during flight delays and other situations beyond their control. It’s not uncommon to see Virgin agents try to distract grounded passengers at the gate with impromptu games of bowling, basketball, ring tossing, or volleyball.
Of course, no amount of training will ensure flawless service all of the time and Virgin is keenly aware that it needs to be on guard (meaning, online) 24/7 to triage the slip-ups as they happen.
And it’s a good thing, too, because folks like Jessica Gottlieb, a popular and hyper-networked “mommy blogger,” have the power to do some real damage. Last November, Gottlieb and her husband saw their two young children board a flight from New York to Los Angeles, only to hear that bad weather delayed the flight on the runway. Gottlieb says four gate attendants ignored her pleas for more information, so she sent a Tweet requesting a call from the airline: “Dear Virgin Air,” she wrote. “My children have been on the tarmac for one hour with 90 more minutes to wait. I am at JFK gate b25. Pls RT.” (That’s the signal to her thousands of followers to “retweet” or pass along the message.) Virgin has dedicated staff monitoring Twitter feeds, so within two minutes, Gottlieb received a call from someone at headquarters. “They called the flight attendants, called me back, and told me my children were fine and it would be about a 90-minute delay.”
Gottlieb vows she will fly Jet Blue from now on, but her children are Virgin America converts. To pass the time during the delay, the flight attendants took them to first class to visit with another stranded passenger: the rapper LL Cool J.
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