Qantas Execs to spend time at the coalface
A sign of things to come?
From the Australian 9/12/08 by Steve Creedy
QANTAS executives are being sent back to school and will be required to spend time at the coal face.
The moves are designed to boost the airline's customer service
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce revealed yesterday that senior executives will be required to attend the airline's "Centre of Service Excellence", a new facility designed to bring all customer service training under one roof.
Mr Joyce said the centre would allow the airline to more rapidly deploy training programs and about half of Qantas employees would be put through exceptional service training in 2009.
"The first person to join the training scheme will be the head of Qantas Airlines, John Borghetti," Mr Joyce said.
"All of our executive team will be undertaking the training."
Mr Joyce also revealed the executive team would be spending time each month in frontline customer service areas "to experience the world through the eyes of our people and our customers".
This is an idea he fostered at Jetstar and also has been successfully used by Air New Zealand. Other customer benefits were also expected to stem from the airline's investment of almost $500 million in technology, Mr Joyce said.
A new generation departure system implemented this year was far more intuitive for staff, made customer service consistently better, improved punctuality and ensured that the most loyal customers could instantly recognised and rewarded.
Qantas also wanted to ensure customers could connect to the airline anywhere, any time and using any device.
"In August this year, we were amongst the first airlines in the world to launch a version of our website that is optimised for customers using the Apple iPhone," he said.