Airport Lynx ensures quality service with mystery shoppers

Airport Lynx prides itself on a high standard of service but wanted to be sure these standards, including safety, courtesy, timeliness, comfort and cleanliness were being met. Steve Russell, Managing Director, was already confident that his team was doing a good job, but wanted to be sure they were living up to the standard expected - not just the drivers, but also the bookings team.

Steve wanted to find out how well his drivers and booking team treated their customers, and adhered to these criteria:

The drivers should always be on time (or a few minutes early) but never late, but more than that, they should offer the high degree of courtesy and attention promised by 5 Star standards of business travel:

  • The luggage should be taken to the car, doors opened, complimentary paper and bottle of water offered as well as Wi-Fi.
  • Once underway the customer should be kept warm enough, and the driver must judge if the customer wants to talk, or be quiet when appropriate. 
  • The ride must be smooth and the driver make sure that where possible any traffic problems are avoided.
  • On arrival on a journey to the airport, drivers should get as near to the airport entrance as possible, open the door for the customer and get the
    luggage ready to go.
  • On pickup from the airport, drivers should have a clear sign with the customer’s name
  • Drivers should wear the branded Lynx tie and of course be smart and presentable. 

The bookings team should be able to take a booking, whilst at the same time watching out to help customers avoid booking errors; double checking the details to ensure the booking ‘makes sense’ before concluding the call – always remembering that travellers from different time zones may get confused.

To test his teams, Steve implemented a solution usingShopper Anonymous:  14 journeys were set up to evaluate the customer service provided by 14 different drivers. 

Mystery shoppers travelled to Stansted with one driver and were then picked up by another. The journeys had to be aligned with real flights, since drivers check flight schedules when dropping off and picking up. Mystery Shoppers posed as business people being taken to and then returning from Stansted. 

Shoppers had to find innovative ways to emerge from the arrivals area – without of course officially ‘arriving’! This was an interesting challenge, as they were required to appear as if they had just arrived from a business trip – complete with packed bag and laptop!

To evaluate booking personnel, a number of bookings were made.

The experience reports for the journeys were written to track the entire customer service experience:  right from arrival at the customer’s home, or meeting at the airport, getting into the car, the journey, the drop off at the airport, or home. To create the experience, Shopper Anonymous used Lynx’s standard driver operating procedure, mapping this to the reports to ensure all aspects of the journey, to and from an airport were included.

On the whole the team performed exceedingly well, largely meeting the desired customer standards.  However Lynx want to get 100% compliance by all drivers of all standards, so whilst in general these were good experiences for the customer, in most cases one or two things could have been better on each journey. So whilst in general the performance was good, it wasn’t the 100%  Lynx strive for.

The journey reports enabled Steve Russell to have meaningful staff reviews, pointing out where they did well (this was very motivational), whilst being able to point out where improvements were needed.   He was also able to remind all drivers of the need for diligence, highlighting the facts that even the most experienced drivers can miss something. 

Steve Russell MD said “We will continue this exercise and as a result, be able to demonstrate to potential new customers that we have real systems in place to monitor our customer service performance.  This was an extremely worthwhile exercise.  In addition it helped me understand exactly how each driver needs to improve.  We are also going to continue to use Shopper Anonymous on a monthly basis, to keep existing staff on their toes and evaluate new drivers and staff.”

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Client contact:   http://www.airportlynx.co.uk/   

info@airportlynx.co.uk

@AirportLynx1

01223 440040

Airport Lynx, 1c, Flintbridge Business Park, Flint Lane, Ely Road, Waterbeach, Cambridge, CB25 9QZ

Nick Siragher – Shopper Anonymous Cambridge 01223 316 973

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