Customer experience is the priority of everything we do in the Brisbane airport (BNE). In fact, this expertise is one of the three key components of BNE's 2025 strategic business plan, which tasks each business area with devising new approaches to further raise the bar on the goal of being the best in the world.
To achieve true excellence, it is necessary to understand our clients from a holistic point of view.
Fundamentally, BAC's Customer Experience Programme (Brisbane Airport Corporation) is about going beyond "good" customer service to "great" customer service: delivering a unique and memorable world-class customer experience in an environment accessible to all members of the community. For everyone who works at an airport, it's ultimately about our customers, airlines, passengers and tenants. At BNE, we are always looking to create an environment where they don't have to worry about anything and just enjoy themselves. This is my philosophy and BAC's Customer Experience Programme consists of be aware of these expectations and do our utmost not only to meet them but to exceed them by far.
To achieve true excellence in this field, it is necessary to understanding our customers from a holistic point of viewWe do this in a number of ways, including: we do it in a number of ways: we do it in a number of ways: we do it in a number of ways. And we do this in a variety of ways, including:
- through a convinced involvement with universities to carry out many pioneering and innovative initiatives and studies;
- by constantly consulting with the relevant community groups to ensure that the airport's developments meet the needs and expectations of travellers;
- cutting out the middleman The BAC is also providing numerous digitalised channels for travellers to provide feedback and communicate immediately and directly with BAC (and by placing them at various contact points throughout the terminals);
- urging BAC staff members from all business areas, including the senior management team, to perform regular customer service shifts with the airport ambassadors in the terminals;
- holding regular meetings with the reference group for the airport accessibility (AARG) in order to discuss the needs of disabled people and frequently inviting diverse groups of disabled people to test and provide feedback on our access systems, in particular any planned new or retrofitted infrastructure; and
- offering specialised training The aim is to provide information on customer service to all customer service staff, including volunteers and security personnel.
Our Customer Experience Programme is complete and is result-orientedWe pay particular attention to the human relationships required in such unfamiliar and bustling environments as airports. Not only do we have resources fully dedicated to initiating and advancing multiple customer experience projects, we also have a dedicated "BNE Care Team" that actively manages passenger traffic during peak and off-peak periods. This team complements the incredible customer service provided by our BNE Ambassadors: a team of 163 volunteers speaking more than 20 languages in total, including ten Chinese-speaking ambassadors, who are distinguished by their distinctive red shirts and are stationed specifically to serve flights to and from China.
At each point of contact, BAC aims to transform the customer experience with complete terminal refurbishments (ITB 2015 and DTB today), award-winning washrooms, Australia's first accessibility facilities (pet toilets, changing facilities for people with disabilities and resources for people with dementia), the introduction of cryptocurrency transaction points, self-service check-in and bag drop, biometric facial recognition, new and expanded concourses and unique terminal upgrades that have transformed every detail from the floor tiles to the food served in our restaurants.
Looking ahead, further improvements are planned in terms of digitalisation, allowing for a more optimised customer experience, as well as greater operational efficiency by saving physical space and infrastructure to support existing staff and resources currently in place for issues such as check-in, baggage drop-off, passenger information, passenger transit between terminals, information desks, staffing, etc. Recently, BAC has partnered with SITA and two international airlines to test facial recognition technology for check-in and boarding gates. The results of these tests have shown a significant reduction in processing times. Soon, we will witness further advances of digitisation in the BNE ecosystem as it eliminates the need for multiple interactions required at different stages of travel.
