Paul Adom-Otchere (3rd right), Board Chairman, GACL, being assisted by other workers of GACL to launch the Airport Behavioural Standards Booklet.
A GOOD experience keeps the promise of good service to customers and strengthens the brand. It is a significant way to stand out in the international competition between airports, since a third of passengers choose their flight route based on the reputation of the transfer airport.
Factors such as reservation and ticketing procedures, in-flight services, class of travel, baggage handling and collection, on-time flights, good in-flight entertainment, more (and better) snacks, and more leg room may be the obvious contributors to a good experience and more loyalty.
Different departments of airports must, therefore, not lose sight of the relevance of one another to be able to keep an airport on the mind of travellers.
It is against this background that the Board Chairman of the Ghana Airports Company Limited (GACL), Paul Adom-Otchere, has called on staff and stakeholders to appreciate one another’s roles and collectively embrace service excellence as an airport community to place Kotoka International Airport (KIA) on the global map.
He explained that KIA had come a long way in airport service delivery and had been the proud recipient of the Airport Service Quality Customer Experience Awards on three consecutive occasions (Best Airport by Region and Size; 2-5million passengers for 2019, 2020 and 2021).
This, he said, was testament to the many years of consistent effort to enhance service delivery at the airport.
Mr Adom-Otchere said this at the launch of the 2022 Global Customer Service Week celebration on the theme “Celebrate Service”.
This year’s celebration also witnessed the launch of the Airport Behavioural Standards Booklet.
The board chair expressed appreciation to the staff and stakeholders for their dedication and contribution to the successes chalked up.
He indicated that the giant strides made in the customer satisfaction journey over the years could not have been possible without the support and commitment of staff, stakeholders and customers.
Airport behavioural standards booklet
Launching the airport behavioural standards booklet, the Board Chairman reiterated that the overall objective of developing a general standard behavioural guideline was to improve customer experience at the airports, regardless of who provides the service.
He further added that the first edition of the handbook highlighted excellent service standards that had been developed in partnership with cherished stakeholders.
“This handbook is part of GACL’s performance enhancement strategies towards improving performance in the ACI Airport Service Quality Programme and delivering enhanced customer experience at our airports,” Mr Adom-Otchere said.
He urged staff and stakeholders to put their shoulders to the wheel in delivering outstanding customer experience in line with the defined service standards at the airports.
The celebration
For his part, the Customer Service Manager at KIA, Mr Eric Prempeh, affirmed that the celebration of the customer service week was to highlight the essence of customer service while recognising the people who serve and support customers daily.
He urged stakeholders to come together to offer a bouquet of world-class service experiences in a manner that would leave passengers with no choice but to select KIA over and over again.
Service pledge
Another significant highlight of the launch was the signing of the service pledge by management, staff and stakeholders present at the event.
The service pledge is basically a commitment by all stakeholders to work together as a team to deliver outstanding customer experience to passengers and stakeholders.
The customer service week, expected to be observed at all GACL operated airports in the country, will feature activities such as airport service quiz, GACL goes sporty, photo booth session with passengers, departmental customer service awareness forum and management’s visit to agencies operating at the airport, among others.