In our last blog we talked about insights we’ve developed for effectively hiring pilots for business aviation companies. Today, we’d like to look at other crew members, specifically flight attendants. After all, these team members are the most visible face of your customer service model. A business Client might fly with you multiple times without ever meeting anyone from your management team or spending any meaningful time with the pilots, but they will almost certainly interact with the flight attendants. Their conversations and memories of service delivered are directly affected by the presence and poise of these in-flight experts.
We’ve learned that there are 4 core elements that help us make the right hires when it comes to flight attendants. Here they are:
- Performance Memory. What we mean is, like muscle memory, it’s obvious they’ve done this before and can move seamlessly from one task to another while keeping customer service, mission and brand at the forefront of their priorities. Experience and maturity add to this.
- Nomadic Comfort. These are people who like to travel. They enjoy the entire process of being constantly on the move and approach it all with a sense of adventure. They are comfortable with being away more often than they are at home. They are just built that way and they love it.
- The Professional Trifecta. The best flight attendants have developed a professional presence that covers three visible attributes – demeanor, attitude and appearance. They strike the right balance between when to engage in conversation and when to concentrate on service and safety tasks. They make customers feel welcomed and that they are being looked after by a professional who would be as good at handling an emergency situation as they are at pouring a cocktail. They are impeccably dressed and avoid extreme make up and body art.
- Worldy and Knowledgeable. The most successful flight attendant candidates are comfortable in any kind of conversation, often in more than one language. They are educated, well read and well travelled. Business travelers enjoy their conversations and appreciate that these crew members are well trained and carefully selected to make their travel safe, comfortable and enjoyable.