A521.7.4.RB Knowledge Sharing

I worked in the flight department at the Daytona Beach campus at ERAU from 1997-2003 as the Flight Academic Administrative Coordinator.  When I first started in the flight department I had no idea what a private pilot’s license was let alone ground labs or anything else having to do with flight training.  I had on the job training that consisted of about two hours during registration and I was told “you have to the power to close the sections”.  I had to learn my job which I found out later had no real structure to it and it was kind of “make it up as you go along”.

Within a few months I had a better understanding of my job which was to:

·         assign flight blocks to students

·         assign students to flight instructors

·         ensure that ground lab instructors had the correct material to teach

·         ensure that each classroom was properly equipped

·         FAA exams were up to date and accurate

With all these things going on my office was always busy especially during registration because all flight students (approximately 1,000) had to get my signature in order to get into the flight block and ground lab.  This was done to ensure that the students were able to get into their sections without any issues.  It also helped us keep track of how quickly sections filled up so that I could open sections as needed.

            The problem with this was that I would have a line of students outside my office from 6:30am until 6:30pm and there was no rhyme or reason to who showed up and when.  As soon as a section filled up I would have to get up and step into the hallway to inform them of the closures.  You would have thought I was giving away free laptops!  It was not customer freely at all and created a sense of irritation and frustration among the students. After doing this for 2 semesters I realized there had to be a better way doing this.

            I approached the Department chair and the chief flight instructor (CFI) and told them I had some ideas for creating better customer service for our students while having a new system in place for tracking students in each flight block.  My idea was to block out a classroom and set up chairs theater style with screen in the front for movies.  There would be a table set up with various snacks and fruit punch.  I would also have everything in the computer so that we would know right away when a section filled up.  There were three of us working different sections to ensure a fast and smooth process.

I also had a printout of all flight students in order from SR to FR which I broke down with time blocks to come and get registered with the dates and a four hour time frame.  This way everyone had an assigned time.  When a student checked in we would be able to check them out and keep track of how many students were coming in during each allotted time frame.  Letters were sent to all flight students with their assigned time and date.  Both the department chair and CFI thought it was a great idea and said they would let me try it for one semester to see how it would work out.  I brought in movies from home and set everything up on my own with a white board to show all available time blocks and ground labs so the students would know what was still open.

The end result was amazing!  The students were happy and forgot about the wait because they were entertained with movies and free food.  The fact that they had assigned blocks to come sign up for their flight course helped them to be able to work out a time to come between classes and not have to worry about missing class.  There were very minimal complaints and both the department chair and CFI came by and spoke to students and the students expressed their gratitude to them for making it a better process.  After such a successful first run I was told that they would implement this process each semester.  The only thing they didn't continue was the free food because it had to be catered it would not cost effective.  I decided to ask the Flight managers donate cookies and candy so that the students could still get something out of it.  This process continued until I left in 2003.  Once registration became automated there was no longer a need to this process but I was told that students still asked about this service two years after I left.

This experience taught me that it can take the smallest thing to improve customer service because I was looking out for the students and understanding their frustrations.  By listening to them and taking my ideas to the top and then following through I was able to look for ways to “work smarter not harder”.  This has helped me in my current position as a manager.  I always look for ways to improve the customer experience and find that it comes down to being able to actively listen to your audience and figure out a way to make it better.