How NZ Aviation Security Service is providing service

How New Zealand Aviation Security Service is providing a world class passenger experience one smiley at a time.

New Zealand Aviation Security Service (AVSEC) AVSEC is the official provider of aviation security services in New Zealand, operating at all of the major airports. AVSEC wanted a simple solution which would allow them to monitor passengers satisfaction with their service across the different airports. After a successful trial of the smiley face HappyOrNot devices in Wellington airport they have now been rolled out to Queenstown, Dunedin, Christchurch with Auckland to come. Through HappyOrNot’s global benchmarking AVSEC are ranked in the top 10% of worldwide airport security services.

Introduction
Avsec’s quality management policies and procedures are under constant review and are tested on a continuous basis against well-defined and measurable performance measures. One of those performance measures is passenger satisfaction. The HappyOrNot service is the first customer survey tool AVSEC has implemented and although it is still early days, the results are definitely providing insight and input in to a greater understanding of the customer experience of their service. They wanted an easy, simple means of capturing large volumes of feedback that would identify trends and themes of service delivery experienced by the travelling public to better understand where opportunities for improvement could be applied.

In July 2017 AVSEC implemented a trial of the award winning HappyOrNot service at their Wellington airport to identify how passengers and employees react to the customer satisfaction service at the security check points.
Passengers passing through security before boarding a flight interact with the AVSEC staff.

Results
AVSEC have been able to use HappyOrNot to measure overall passenger satisfaction but also compare with 160 other airport security services throughout the world. Initial feedback was exceptional putting AVSEC and the NZ airports in the top 10% of the worlds airports. Interestingly, globally, security is the area in airports that passengers are most satisfied.

Figure 1Global HappyOrNot Satisfaction benchmarks at Airports
While not all travellers can be satisfied with every part of their journey, AVSEC were also able to validate that their service level was better than the expectations of their passengers. Asking passengers their expectation of the service before joining the queue and then asking them about their experience afterwards, validated the service levels during the trial in Wellington.
AVSEC are also able to compare the same locations throughout the day and week to see if service levels are dropping at certain times as well as comparing across locations.
As part of their continuous improvement approach AVSEC have also been able to use the HappyOrNot devices to validate the use of Body Scanners, asking passengers if the use of body scanners made them feel more secure.
The flexibility of the HappyOrNot Service means that they can operate a specific question during a trial phase of new equipment with both customers and staff as well as continuing to operate their standard service level question at other terminals. This is because the data received is specific to each unit deployed.
The Solution
Passenger satisfaction is recorded with a single question to which passengers respond by pushing one of four smiley buttons (green smiley face, light green semi-smiley face, light red semi-frown, or red frown). Responses are recorded along with the date and time and uploaded to the HappyOrNot cloud-based Reporting Service each day. Reports are automatically generated, demonstrating overall customer satisfaction levels, helping to isolate specific days/times of dissatisfaction and making the facilitation of implementing corrective actions more quick and easy.

The Road Ahead
AVSEC have now implemented HappyOrNot at all five locations they serve nationally across both domestic and international terminals. Ongoing monitoring ensures that the position and location of each unit is optimal to encourage as much response from customers as possible. Only a few months post implementation, they are expecting that with another few months of ratings, trends and themes will start to emerge at each location and from a national perspective. This may then inform further work to establish opportunities for improvement initiatives.

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