Gareth Kirkwood and David Noyes at BA made the papers in a way that any operations or customer services director would prefer not to. Terminal 5’s launch may have been a disaster, but could it have been avoided? What could they have done differently?
Yes, listen to what your staff are saying – according to the papers.
It appears that many staff were saying they weren’t trained, rehearsed or just plain didn’t know their way round. And they had told management so. Then with a feeling of lack of transparency growing, customers and the newspapers went to town on the issues.
Backed up by word of mouth, a whirlwind developed. I only know 2 people who got held up or lost bags or both. But interestingly my daughter said there was nowhere to sit, too many shops (and that’s a first for her…) and many shops didn’t have stock – that being 2 weeks after launch.
As a customer, evidently it isn’t part of BA’s culture to listen. I’ve tried giving feedback a couple of times at the airport. The staff direct you to the website. When I say I don’t get a response that way, they have no options or alternatives.
And if you’re from Virgin, don’t feel smug. They’ll take the feedback but it doesn’t change anything e.g. the staffing of desks for self service check in or premium economy haven’t changed over time.
So the incoming replacements may want to consider how they can implement systematic listening as a process…..cue what our customers are saying
