Northwest Airlines, still recovering from labor strife and fiscal retrenching, is asking its workers to rededicate themselves to focus on customers.

By Liz Fedor, Star Tribune

Last update: October 27, 2007 – 9:10 PM

Stephanie Stodieck, a Northwest Airlines customer service supervisor, says she is optimistic that a customer service program begun by the airline after months of turmoil will yield positive results.

Maria Palmer, a 10-year Northwest Airlines employee who helps passengers find lost luggage, was intrigued when she heard that management was developing a customer service training program for its employees.
“We all love our jobs. It’s just that we’ve been beaten down a little bit,” Palmer said, citing the double-digit pay cuts and stress that employees endured during the airline’s 20-month bankruptcy.

The strain from the bankruptcy was only the latest chapter for a company that has developed an industrywide reputation for contentious labor relations.

Now Northwest is beginning a far-reaching training program for front-line workers that it hopes will be the first step toward revamping its company culture and winning itself a better image with customers.

Roy Bostock, Northwest’s new board chairman, said he wants to create a better environment for Northwest’s employees and customers and develop more sophisticated techniques for measuring customer experiences.

“I want these folks to know that this board of directors cares about them and is hell-bent on changing this culture and changing the attitudes in this company to make it more productive for everyone,” Bostock said in a late August interview.

Palmer, a customer service agent, volunteered to be part of the initial testing for the new training program, called “the Northwest Experience.”

She said executives demonstrated respect for employees during the sessions, and workers from different departments talked about how they could do a better job of communicating and cooperating with each other instead of trying to assign blame for service problems. “I think this will bring a sense of pride back,” she said.

Mixed record

In customer service surveys, Northwest has often garnered mixed reviews from travelers, getting high ratings for safety and efficiency, and lower marks on subjective service measures.

Northwest had the best operational statistics among the big network airlines in 2006, according to the Airline Quality Ratings study. For the first half of 2007, it had the fourth-best record among 20 carriers for baggage handling.

But a pilot shortage this summer caused Northwest to cancel thousands of flights, forcing many passengers to abruptly change their travel plans. And in a J.D. Power and Associates report that was released in June, Northwest ranked last among big network airlines for customer satisfaction. The carrier got low marks for service by flight crews and in-flight amenities.

Crystal Knotek, Northwest’s senior vice president of customer service and airport operations, said management believes that a better customer experience starts with a better work experience at Northwest.

“We want to make sure that we are treating our employees so they feel valued, because then they will treat the customers better and we will meet our goals,” she said.

Kevin Griffin, president of the Northwest branch of the Association of Flight Attendants, said management faces some hurdles in trying to persuade workers that it wants a new atmosphere within the airline. “There’s a lack of trust out there,” he said. Many attendants felt forced to ratify pay cuts and work rule changes just before Northwest left bankruptcy.

While Griffin is “undecided” about the likely impact of the new training program, he said that attendants need “proper staffing and tools” to do their jobs well.

Stephen Gordon, a key official with the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), said he hopes that management uses the training to support ground workers who can make decisions on the front lines “that will benefit the customer.”

John Budd, a human resources professor at the University of Minnesota, said the danger for Northwest management is that some employees will view the training program “as a feel-good exercise to cover up the fact that they are working harder for less pay.”

Front-line workers

Beginning next month, the first group among 14,000 Northwest employees will take part in a day-and-a-half seminar designed to give workers a forum, so they can share ideas with their peers and tell executives what changes would help them improve their customer service.

Employees who have direct contact with passengers — customer service agents, flight attendants, reservation agents and WorldClub employees — will be required to take part in the sessions and be paid for their time.

Julie Hagen Showers, who served as a management negotiator during the bankruptcy, acknowledges that employees have “been through a lot and there’s a little bit of skepticism” about the training program from some workers. But Showers, senior vice president of inflight services, said she has seen a desire on the part of many employees to “focus on the future” instead of reliving the past.

Knotek, who began her Northwest career 22 years ago as a reservations agent, said there is a strong link between an employee’s job satisfaction and the worker’s ability to deliver excellent customer service.

“They want to feel valued. Everybody does,” Knotek said. Beyond wages and benefits, she said, workers want “a sense of community and family, and [that] they work for a purpose.”

Knotek and Showers acknowledge that effecting a culture change will take time. “We don’t want it to be a culture of the month,” Knotek said.

Showers said she and Knotek “have been very clear and repetitive about not wanting to see this collapse to a day and a half of paid training.” They view the training as just one large piece in the drive to move toward a workplace in which management and labor work more effectively as colleagues.

The success of the training program will be judged, in part, on whether the airline sees a decrease in customer complaints and an increase in employee commendations written by customers. The company also will continue to track its progress on standard metrics, such as luggage handling and flight arrivals.

‘One degree’ changes

The training program was developed after interviews with about 300 employees and help from outside experts. One of the workshop presenters is leadership consultant David McNally of Bloomington, who has stressed how a small, “one degree” improvement in service can have a major impact on customers.

Northwest CEO Doug Steenland and all officers of the company will go through the training program. ( Something new ! )

A Northwest executive will speak at each of the training sessions to thank employees for the work they’re doing and give a presentation about where the company is headed.

There also will be small-group sessions that give workers an opportunity to reflect on how they can take better control of work situations.

“It’s the employees coming up with the ideas and talking about obstacles that are getting in their way. We find that things rise to the surface that we can solve right there,” Knotek said.

The sessions also help employees become more aware of the ripple effect that their behavior has on their co-workers, Showers said. For example, a customer service agent might find herself dealing with 100 passengers on a first-class upgrade list at a gate for a flight that has only 16 to 24 first-class seats.

If she responds to an insistent passenger that he should just “give it up,” Showers said, the passenger could later vent his anger toward a flight attendant on his flight.

Management also recognizes that the airline needs to do a better job of communicating with customers, so it will be installing more monitors at airports so passengers can learn at a glance whether they will make it into a first-class seat.

Tammy Lee, vice president of corporate communications, said Northwest also is investing in information technology that will allow the airline to do a better job of communicating with passengers affected by weather delays or cancellations.

In addition, Lee said, some employees may have felt policies and procedures inhibited them from being clear about flight options for customers who encountered problems.

Now, she said, management is doing even more to encourage employees to communicate “frequently” and “openly” with passengers about the status of delayed flights.

Stephanie Stodieck, a customer service supervisor, said she views the training program as a “beginning” in the process of changing the company’s culture.

Stodieck, a union employee represented by the IAM, sees it as an extension of the employee involvement teams that have sprung up in recent months to solicit input on running the airline and improving morale.

Stodieck said, “We can’t take any more negativity. There’s nowhere to go but forward.”

Liz Fedor • 612-673-7709

Liz Fedor • lfedor@startribune.com

PS: NWA is short help to saved money. Your Agent is busy working flights at the gates or helping folks check IN at the counter.

Call reservations and ask to speak to Roy Bostock, Northwest’s new board chairman - Leave a message !
I’m sure He’ll get back to you .