Putting customers first

Luckily, you already have the tools at your disposal: policies, checklists, and syllabi.

Greg Brown’s The Savvy Flight Instructor argues that you should structure customer service into your flight training system. Using basic policies and checklists, and by expanding your flight school syllabus to support customer satisfaction, “you can distribute accumulated wisdom throughout your team,” Brown says. “That gives customers a better training experience, makes them happier, and helps keep them flying until they complete their current certificate, and the next one, and the next one.”

How, exactly? Start with establishing client success policies. They need to be in writing, and they should be reviewed weekly with your flight instructor staff. These policies extend beyond flight training, such as:

• A uniform ground instruction billing policy. (Wipes out confusion among CFIs and customers.)
• What CFIs should do if a client is at a risk of quitting.
• What CFIs should do when a client encounters a training challenge or a learning plateau.
• What the process is for smoothly reassigning clients when an instructor leaves. (Now more than ever, you need to have a policy for this.)

Moving on to checklists—and we’re all familiar with those—compile lists for the process-oriented customer service and sales aspects of your business. This reminds you and your employees of what tasks should be accomplished in what order. For example:

• When new prospects phone or visit, what questions should be asked, and what key points covered with them? How will you explain piloting benefits and return on investment?
• What is the follow-up sequence for keeping new prospects engaged, and who will perform each step?
• New client enrollment checklist (add to content management system, send thank you card, subscribe for e-newsletters, add to event invitation list; follow-up call in one week with intro lesson invitation, and invitation to monthly flight school cookout).

Finally, the syllabus. Brown suggests scheduling regular customer satisfaction checks with each customer. These should be conducted by the flight school owner or manager and should be programmed into a student’s schedule, just as stage checks are.

“It’s a mark of good service when company management periodically meets with its customers for purposes of quality control,” Brown says. “Even when all’s going well, a ‘How’re things going?’ meeting with the flight training manager tells each customer that ‘we care,’ and opens channels of communication should future problems occur.”

There’s a lot more to unpack in this chapter, and you can read it all in The Savvy Flight Instructor. The book is available from ASA in paperback or e-book format at the website. www.asa2fly.com.