Guidebook on Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research (2021) / Chapter Skim
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Conducting Customer Research P A R T I Introduction Airport managers undertake research to address a wide variety of questions about airport customers and other members of the airport community, and a broad assortment of research methods is available for these purposes. Some research concepts are applicable to nearly all of these customer research efforts.
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and disadvantages of these methods and then describes four key study types: focus groups, individual depth interviews, observation, and mystery shopping. Chapter 7: Monitoring and Enhancing Customer Service Chapter 7 explores the concept of monitoring and enhancing customer service at an airport.
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Customer Research Methods 2.1 Introduction This chapter provides a brief overview of the range of customer research methods available. Each of these methods is discussed in more detail in the subsequent chapters, as indicated in the following sections.
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12 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research In any quantitative application of customer research methods, but especially of airport user and other surveys, the issue of statistical confidence arises. Are the results suggested by the analysis statistically valid, or could they just have occurred from chance?
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Customer Research Methods 13 subsets of the overall customer population being surveyed. Issues of how to determine required sample sizes are discussed in Chapter 4.
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14 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research impact studies or information on visitors' activities while they are in the region. Although visitor spending and activities while in the region are distinct from spending on air travel, airports may be a convenient location to conduct such surveys.
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Customer Research Methods 15 In recent years, the ASQ program has added an airport employee survey to the range of surveys that are offered to airports. Conducting surveys of airport employees, particularly those of other organizations, can be more challenging than conducting surveys of air passengers due to dispersed job locations and the different shift patterns employees work to provide coverage for their duties up to 24 hours per day and seven days per week.
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16 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research manual. They can include monitoring comments on social media and programs to record and analyze complaints as well as comments received via email, telephone, or in person to airport staff or volunteers.
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Customer Research Methods 17 promote the airport. Airports use social media as one of several platforms for disseminating customer surveys.
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18 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research to cooperation; because people are not being asked to participate, they are not offered the option to refuse. The major disadvantage of observation research is that it is limited to behavior; motivations and attitudes are not captured.
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Customer Research Methods 19 out to these stakeholders at the conclusion of a study for input into the implications of the results as well as the appropriate actions to be taken is also customary and could be considered a best practice. Outreach to external stakeholders, such as airlines, government agencies, and local business organizations, is less common but may be helpful in a variety of circumstances.
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20 3.1 Introduction Thorough planning is essential to the success of any research effort. Unfortunately, this task is often allotted insufficient time and attention, resulting in inadequate or inaccurate data.
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Research Planning 21 An error of commission has occurred when the research does not obtain the information that the designer intended. An example would be asking air passengers, "Where did you begin your trip to the airport today?
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22 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research • Other studies are scheduled to take place in the future that might conflict with the planned study or cause an undesirable respondent burden on smaller groups of airport users. • Inclusion of additional questions that would not conflict with the planned research design but would produce substantial added value might be desirable.
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Research Planning 23 3.4.1 Survey Method One key step in planning a survey is choosing the most suitable survey method. The survey methods discussed in this guidebook include passenger intercept, mail, telephone, and online.
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24 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research frequently used for air passenger, employee, and tenant surveys. The key advantage of this approach is its relatively low cost because one interviewer can hand out a large number of questionnaires in a given time period.
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Research Planning 25 research findings to consider the extent to which the methods used in conducting the underlying study yielded representative and hence useful results. Other issues that need to be considered when selecting a survey method include the following: • Speed.
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26 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research 3.5 Schedule Ultimately, the research schedule will be determined by the date when the results are needed in final form by those commissioning the study and intending to use its findings. The planning team will then need to work backward from that date to select a start date that will accommodate all of the research tasks involved.
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Research Planning 27 Other factors that should be considered include: • Whether there are internal committees or other groups from which approval will be required but that meet only periodically; • The extent to which seasonal representation is important to the results and, if so, how this will be accommodated; • Whether other planned research might interfere or conflict with the study; • How flight delays, flight cancellations, and gate changes will be handled in terms of survey sampling and interviewer reassignment; • The degree to which particularly hot, cold, or otherwise inclement weather could have an effect, such as for surveys conducted curbside; • Whether there are special events at certain times of year that could skew the results; • Whether there are planned training exercises that might result in terminal evacuations or abnormal passenger movements and could, therefore, skew the results; and • The extent to which periods such as the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays might be unintentionally included when they should be avoided. 3.6 Budget The final step in the planning process is the preparation of a research budget.
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28 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Tasks Direct Expenses General Considerations • Planning meeting(s) , including travel • Questionnaire design and review • Project management • General administration/coordination • In-house planning • Security clearance/badging, including travel • Technology procurement • Interviewer training, including travel • Interviewer briefing • Pretest/pretest debriefing, including travel • Pilot test/pilot test debriefings, including travel • Sample design • Interviewer scheduling • Programming/program testing • Interviewing and supervision of interviewers • Client contact/progress reports • Data entry (if applicable)
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Research Planning 29 Tasks Direct Expenses General Considerations • Planning meeting(s) , including travel • Questionnaire design and review • In-house planning • Pretest/pretest debriefing • Sampling • Interviewer briefing • Interviewing • Client contact/progress reports • Codebook development, coding, and checking • Programming/program testing • Data cleaning • Data tabulation and analysis, including initial data runs and full tabulations • Report preparation, proofing, and editing • Presentation preparation, proofing, and editing • Presentation to client, including travel • Planning meeting travel; may include mileage and parking, per diem, airfare, and hotel • Translation services (if applicable)
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30 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Tasks Direct Expenses General Considerations • Planning meeting(s) • Design participant screening questionnaire • Design moderator's outline • Review and revise instrument • Review recruitment effort • Travel to focus group site (time)
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Statistical Concepts 4.1 Introduction An understanding of the concepts of sampling and statistical accuracy is fundamental to an understanding of such issues as the size of the sample to be used in a survey and the accuracy of the resulting findings. This chapter is intended to introduce statistical concepts for those who may not have had any formal statistical training or may wish to refresh their understanding of the topics addressed.
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32 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research The key concept here is the idea of the likelihood or probability of the sample results reflecting the true proportions (or average value in the case of a numerical response, such as the length of time before flight departure that an air passenger arrived at the airport) of the population.
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Statistical Concepts 33 The likely accuracy of an estimated statistic (such as the average value) for a set of sample data can be expressed as the standard error of the statistic.
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34 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research the members of a population from which a sample is drawn is termed the "sampling frame." This can be an actual list (such as a list of all airport employees) , or it may simply be a definition of the population (such as all air passengers originating their air trip at a given airport during a particular time period)
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Statistical Concepts 35 The standard deviation of the estimated average value of any particular characteristic determined from a sample is termed the standard error of the estimate (SEE) and is a measure of the accuracy of an estimate.
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36 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research the probability of the estimate being within a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points is 0.95, or 95%. The results could also be described as having a 95% confidence interval of plus or minus 3%, where the term "confidence interval" refers to the margin of error for a specified confidence level.
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Statistical Concepts 37 In practice, in addition to the sample size and variation in the values of the attributes being estimated, the accuracy of the estimated mean values of the attributes of the population also depends on the sampling method, the level of non-response to a survey, and the characteristics of those who did not respond (nonrespondents)
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38 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research limited budget, to improve the accuracy of survey results for different subgroups. Often multistage sampling is appropriate.
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Statistical Concepts 39 Because variation in the characteristics of the population over time or across different subgroups will not in general be known until the survey results are obtained, designing a controlled sample means making assumptions about subsets of the population with different characteristics and ensuring that each subset is sampled in proportion to its occurrence in the population. If it turns out that two subsets of the population that were expected to have different characteristics in fact have similar characteristics, the results for the two subsets can be combined.
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40 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research individual from the first n individuals. An example of sequential sampling is to survey every fourth passenger in a check-in queue.
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Statistical Concepts 41 With proportional stratified sampling, the proportions of individuals surveyed in each group are equal. This form of sampling is often used to ensure a more representative sample than simple random or sequential sampling.
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42 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research A common example of cluster sampling in airport surveys is the use of individual flights as clusters, with the flights to be surveyed being selected using random, sequential, or stratified sampling. Then, either all passengers on each selected flight or a sample of passengers on those flights is surveyed.
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Statistical Concepts 43 for example, must design a survey that takes into account the fact that only a small proportion of passengers will have actually visited the retail concessions. The passengers visiting the retail concessions are a subgroup of all passengers, and so the required sample size is found in a similar way to that for a survey with any subgroup of interest.
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44 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research the sample size for an accuracy of ±a percentage points can be calculated for a 95% confidence level using the following expression: n p p a p p N ( )
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Statistical Concepts 45 For large populations of over 50,000, the required sample size for a 95% confidence level is given approximately by: ( ) = −40,000 1 2 n p p a p Thus, for a population in excess of 50,000, if the proportion of some characteristic of the population is 5% (p = 0.05)
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46 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research people do not spend any money and some spend a lot. Thus, large sample sizes are required to produce estimates to within 10% of their expected value.
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Statistical Concepts 47 where Wi is the proportion of the total population in stratum i Ni is the population in stratum i ni is the sample size in stratum i A given confidence interval can be obtained for varying combinations of ni. However, if ni is selected to be inversely proportional to the variance of X within each stratum (i.e., ni = k/σ2Xi)
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48 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research • Stratified sampling by flights (which has a strong relationship with the variable of interest) reduces the sample size required by 15%, but stratified sampling by day of the week (which has a weak relationship with the variable of interest)
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Statistical Concepts 49 Consider the case where the characteristic of interest accounts for only a small proportion of respondents, say air passengers using transit to access the airport, which from past surveys is estimated to be approximately 5%. The proportion using transit is to be estimated for a subgroup that composes 20% of the population (e.g., air passengers from a particular part of the region)
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50 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Similarly, for cluster sampling, the numbers found in the sample for each cluster must be expanded separately, dividing by the sampling fraction for that cluster (if not all individuals in the cluster were sampled) , then the sample cluster numbers expanded to population estimates.
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5.1 Introduction This chapter describes the process of designing and implementing a survey after the initial steps and planning decisions that were discussed in Chapter 3 have been completed. Each part of the survey design and implementation process needs to be given careful consideration because the way in which each is addressed will affect the quality of the results as well as the costs of performing the survey.
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52 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research a survey performed over a fairly short period will provide a reasonable representation of average annual conditions. If information on average annual conditions is desired, it will be necessary to perform the survey over a number of different periods throughout the year to account for seasonal variations.
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Survey Design and Implementation 53 This information will enable development of a more detailed sampling plan, as well as provide an indication of the extent to which the survey results correspond to the distribution of characteristics within the population. This in turn will allow appropriate weights to be assigned to the individual survey responses to correct for any sampling bias or so that the survey results can be extrapolated to the population as a whole, where it is determined that weighting of the survey results is necessary, as discussed in more detail in Section 5.3.4.
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54 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research of seats on departing and arriving flights and make assumptions about load factors and the percentage of through passengers. Where passenger data at the level of individual flights are not routinely reported, it may be possible to obtain this level of information for the period of the survey from airline staff or by counting boarding passengers for surveyed flights.
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Survey Design and Implementation 55 5.3.2 Minimizing Bias The two main sources of bias in airport user surveys (followed by measures to reduce their occurrence) are: • Use of non-random sampling procedures.
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56 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research whether to use these values or some others, those planning a survey should ask the following questions: • What accuracy is needed for the answers to each question in the survey? • How confident do those planning the survey need to be that this accuracy has been achieved?
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Survey Design and Implementation 57 Thus, for example, if the survey had only sampled half as many respondents with a particular set of characteristics as would have been expected from a truly random sample, the weight for those respondents would be two. Calculation of survey weights requires the development of control totals, such as the number of enplaning air passengers by day of the week and time of day, or the total number of airport employees by employment category.
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58 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research rate and the number of incomplete responses, and also reduce the number of interview surveys that the field staff can perform in a given time period, thereby increasing the cost of the survey to obtain the same number of responses. Another consideration with long surveys is that respondents may get fatigued, bored, or anxious to get on with some other activity and unintentionally give incorrect answers or give less care to their answers, leading to poorer-quality survey results.
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Survey Design and Implementation 59 In addition to being easier to analyze, categorical questions have the advantage that they are generally quicker to answer because they typically involve just checking one or more boxes or selecting the appropriate option(s) displayed on the screen.
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60 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research There are two broad categories of questions: • Factual questions • Opinion questions Factual questions ask for factual information that the respondent should be able to provide (such as how many bags they checked or how they got to the airport) , while opinion questions seek the respondents' views on an issue.
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Survey Design and Implementation 61 Biased questions or response options. Biased question wording invites a particular response; for example: What type of seating do you prefer in the boarding gate area?
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62 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Putting "conference or convention" first and following this with "other business purposes" would avoid this potential bias. This also avoids the ambiguity of whether "business" includes attendance at a conference or convention.
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Survey Design and Implementation 63 Placement of non-substantive response options. Response options such as "don't know," "not sure," "no opinion," and "not applicable" should always be listed after the specified options.
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64 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research The choice of label wording (if used) for interior values of rating scales should reflect a steady progression in the evaluation from the lowest value to the highest, as would be the case with a numeric scale with labels only at the end values.
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Survey Design and Implementation 65 Another less technical suggestion is that the questionnaire should start with a clear introduction to the purpose of the survey and be followed by a question that is easy to answer and non-threatening, such as: "Did you travel to this airport by ground transportation to take this flight or are you connecting between flights? " This will help in getting the respondent's cooperation for the survey.
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66 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research • Refusal rates -- affect the number of potential respondents who must be approached to obtain a completed response. Collection rates differ significantly depending on these factors, but a rough guide to the expected average survey completion rate per hour per interviewer is as follows: • Intercept interviews: – 6 to 10 per hour for a 3- to 4-page survey with about 25 questions – 10 to 15 per hour for a short questionnaire (10 to 15 questions)
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Survey Design and Implementation 67 the physical environment of the airport terminal, which is often crowded and noisy. Surveys in airport terminals involve a lot of standing, and those conducted in airline gate lounges usually involve quite a bit of walking from gate to gate.
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68 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research be identified and reserved. Ideally, the field office would be a place where interviewers can rest during breaks away from the noise and crowds.
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Survey Design and Implementation 69 provide water. In the cold or rain, provision needs to be made for shelter and possibly for extra breaks for team members to warm up.
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70 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Qualities to look for when selecting interviewers include: • Professional and educational background. • Experience in conducting airport surveys.
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Survey Design and Implementation 71 such basics as work hours and days, shifts, pay rates, and the like. Once they know what they are going to get out of participating in the survey data collection, they will be more likely to pay close attention to what follows.
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72 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research It may then be necessary to take corrective action, either by coaching an interviewer who missed something during training or by retraining the entire group if the trainer failed to convey a point well enough. The survey planning team would be wise to budget for both of these occurrences, particularly if the questionnaires or procedures are complicated or difficult.
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Survey Design and Implementation 73 illogical responses, or incorrect skips. In particular, responses of "other" to categorical questions, where the respondent has provided an explanation, should be examined to identify any misunderstanding of the categories or commonly occurring responses that should be added to the designated categories.
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74 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research The results should be examined for data quality, including missing or incomplete information, apparently illogical or inconsistent responses, and difficulty interpreting answers to openended questions. Where addresses or other location data are collected, these should be examined to ensure that the location can be identified.
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Survey Design and Implementation 75 personnel should be clearly identified as performing an officially approved function by wearing identification badges (these will be necessary anyway if the survey is being performed in the secure part of the airport terminal) and professional attire.
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76 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research should be accompanied by a cover letter explaining the purpose of the survey, preferably signed by an appropriate official of the sponsoring organization, such as the airport director, and indicating how the survey benefits the recipient and the requested response date. In the case of airport employee surveys, it may be preferable to have the cover letter issued on the letterhead of the employer and signed by an appropriate official, at least for large employers.
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Survey Design and Implementation 77 • Those where the respondent terminated the survey before the end, for reasons such as the need to board a flight or undertake some other activity, but the survey was complete up to that point. • Those where the survey was largely completed but some questions that should have been answered were not.
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78 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research many languages, but if most passengers who cannot speak English speak a common language, a translation in this language could be developed. One important consideration with international passengers is what proportion of foreign visitors from a particular country speaks enough English to easily understand the survey questions and give appropriate answers.
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Survey Design and Implementation 79 destruction of paper questionnaires before the data have been extracted from them. Modern EDCDs are quite robust and preserve their data if they lose power.
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80 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research The ability to tailor questions on the basis of prior answers can also allow the introduction of questions that are only applicable to some respondents by skipping those questions that are not applicable without increasing the chance of interviewer error with the skip logic. Also, with printed questionnaires, the questionnaire may appear very long to the respondent and adversely affect the response rate, but the length of the survey is not evident to the respondent when using EDCDs.
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Survey Design and Implementation 81 of time while standing; therefore, compactness and light weight are distinct advantages. On the other hand, a small screen limits the font size and the number of response options that can be displayed on one screen, while a compact keypad is more awkward to use and more likely to lead to mistyping.
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82 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research with the link to the survey website, and not spend time conducting the survey itself. It also significantly reduces the number of EDCDs required compared to handing out EDCDs to survey respondents, although it may be appropriate to have a few available for respondents who do not have, or do not wish to use, their own devices.
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Survey Design and Implementation 83 • Are there limits to the number of questions? • Does the software work appropriately on a tablet or other EDCD whether the device is held vertically or horizontally?
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84 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research allow data downloaded from the units to be transferred to a central database on a regular basis. Because the units themselves are not inexpensive (several hundred dollars each)
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Survey Design and Implementation 85 • Availability of survey staff with experience in the use of EDCDs • Surveys that are likely to be repeated frequently (spreading the cost of programming over several surveys) On the other hand, surveys with the following characteristics may be more appropriately performed using printed questionnaires: • A fairly simple questionnaire with limited branching • A relatively small sample size • Straightforward questions that do not require data consistency checks • Respondents with limited time to answer questions and who may need to be given a printed survey questionnaire to complete and mail back later • Respondents needing to enter information or complete the questionnaire themselves • Lack of staff with appropriate experience in performing interviews using EDCDs • No plans to repeat the survey in the near future The widespread use of smartphones offers the possibility of survey respondents using their own phones for a self-administered survey if Wi-Fi service is available to allow them to access an online survey.
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86 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research 5.11.2 Timing of Data Entry When the survey takes place over a relatively long period, such as several weeks, it is highly desirable to start the data-entry and verification process while the survey is still in progress. This can help identify any problems with the survey questions or procedures while there is still some opportunity to correct them during the remainder of the survey.
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Survey Design and Implementation 87 Data verification can be time-consuming if done thoroughly, but the overall quality of the survey data is greatly improved by devoting adequate resources to this task. The majority of the required effort lies not so much in identifying apparent errors in the data, which is fairly straightforward, but in the research necessary to determine what the correct response should have been.
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88 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research In the case of groundside surveys, discussed in Section 10.12, there will be one weight assigned to the interview record based on the vehicle count at the facility and a second weight assigned based on the passenger volumes. The analysis may use either of these weight factors depending on the focus of the results -- passenger versus vehicle.
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Survey Design and Implementation 89 5.12.5 Report Preparation and Presentations The primary reports and presentations must be directed toward the goals and purpose of the survey. A formal report is generally required and will be a substantive document that fulfills the requirements of the survey project.
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90 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research In some cases, the survey contractor or (less commonly) the survey sponsor may decide to copyright the questionnaire.
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Survey Design and Implementation 91 It would not be necessary to ask each question in every case, but the questions could be varied across the sample of respondents. 5.14 Documenting the Survey It is important to record as much as possible about the survey.
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92 Qualitative Methods 6.1 Introduction Most of the material in this guidebook has focused on quantitative research methods. These are methods that yield primarily numeric results and are based on the principles of large numbers.
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Qualitative Methods 93 6.3 Concerns About Qualitative Research While qualitative research is popular for the insights it yields, its relatively low cost, and its ability to showcase the customer first-hand, there are notable concerns about these methods. Qualitative sample sizes are small, and participants are often purposefully rather than randomly selected, both of which qualities violate key statistical principles.
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94 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research qualitative. A single group will have little meaning by itself because it represents only a few opinions.
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Qualitative Methods 95 One potential disadvantage of this interactive approach to understanding the customer is the possibility that individuals with strong personalities or opinions will influence the manner in which others respond. Taken to extremes, this can lead to a group in which there are essentially leaders and followers, with the actual perspectives of the latter being represented inaccurately or not at all.
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96 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Also, as a general rule, focus group observers should always be cautious about drawing conclusions from what they have heard before reading the full report. Professional moderators will generally recognize what is solid enough to be reliable in a group's discussions and be able to advise end-users about what should be regarded seriously in terms of potential action.
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Qualitative Methods 97 structured is not clear. In all probability, this varies from airport to airport and perhaps even from project to project.
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98 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research One possibly unique observational study was undertaken to evaluate an airport's pilot food-scrap recycling program. The airport's overall goal was to increase recycling of waste from 23% to 50%.
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Qualitative Methods 99 added to ensure that opportunities for positive feedback and areas needing improvement are clearly articulated. Mystery shopping can be conducted with a single shopper for purposes of consistency or with two shoppers (over time)
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100 Monitoring and Enhancing Customer Service 7.1 Introduction Many organizations, including airports, emphasize customer service as a central objective. Accordingly, a variety of programs designed to enhance customer service have been developed and adopted across many industries.
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Monitoring and Enhancing Customer Service 101 and is used to drive large-scale management actions. For the purpose of closing the outer loop, it is critical that the feedback be an unbiased, representative description of how those large groups of customers evaluate the quality of their service.
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102 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Random sampling supports outer-loop processes well but is problematic for inner-loop processes because it identifies only a small proportion of all dissatisfied customers. In contrast, collecting lots of self-selected voluntary feedback from multiple channels (for example, social media, comment cards, and online feedback forms)
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Monitoring and Enhancing Customer Service 103 baseline is useful because some experience factors are consistently rated as more satisfactory (for example, helpfulness of airport staff) than other factors (such as time required to clear security)
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104 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research 7.3.2 Dashboards to Communicate Monitoring Results Dashboards are a particularly effective way of communicating the results of monitoring studies. They provide a condensed summary of the most important results, usually in the form of multiple data visualizations such as bar charts, trend lines, and gauges.
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Monitoring and Enhancing Customer Service 105 7.3.3 Monitoring Surveys and Actionable Results Monitoring surveys drill down from overall satisfaction to a range of more specific experience factors. From there, key-driver analysis is an important tool to identify the factors that should have high priority for management action.
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106 Targeted Studies of Specific Issues 8.1 Introduction Airport user studies can be classified into two general categories: (1) monitoring research that is conducted on a regular schedule, and (2)
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Targeted Studies of Specific Issues 107 Such indications may be insufficient to support an actionable diagnosis of the issue's root cause. Imagine a customer satisfaction survey that shows low satisfaction with the "comfort of the gate areas." Such a result is important but incomplete.
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108 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research Targeted studies may also produce inaccurate results if insufficient survey staff resources are available for the study, an insufficient number of potential study subjects meet the desired criteria for participation, or too few respond to a survey conducted as part of the study. 8.4 Preparing to Conduct a Targeted Study The success of a research study depends on defining a good research question.
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Targeted Studies of Specific Issues 109 exercise may identify multiple information needs that require research. The best course of action can then be determined by assessing which combination of research questions must be answered to direct management actions.
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110 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research passengers, such as crowding in the VIP lounges, may be much more common in some openended feedback channels than issues that are annoying for virtually all passengers, such as how noisy the gate areas are. Prioritizing management action based on the relative prevalence of those issues may not produce the optimal improvement in passenger satisfaction.
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Targeted Studies of Specific Issues 111 action is obvious. Even when research is called for but cannot be conducted due to a shortage of time or resources, the extent to which the airport is making a decision based on expert judgment will be clarified.
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112 New and Developing Data-Collection Techniques 9.1 Introduction One of the key objectives of updating ACRP Report 26: Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys was to include information on new and emerging data-collection methods being used by airports and provide examples illustrating the use of highlighted practices. To achieve this goal, the project team conducted telephone surveys, case studies, and focus groups of airport representatives.
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New and Developing Data-Collection Techniques 113 9.3 Content Analysis of Social Media Posts Multiple airports are using social media as sources of research information. Typical ways include: • Monitoring what customers are saying about the airport to identify potential issues, • Interacting with customers to address issues and identify employees for recognition, • Communicating with customers to promote the airport, and • Conducting surveys.
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From page 114... ...
114 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research We watch our reviews, our ratings, we flag those who are frequent travelers and people who comment frequently, and we'll do things like reach out. We had one frequent business traveler who was really down on the airport [and]
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From page 115... ...
New and Developing Data-Collection Techniques 115 9.4 Wi-Fi Micro-Surveys At many airports, it is common to ask customers to answer a few short questions when they access Wi-Fi. Multiple airport representatives reported success with using micro-surveys that pop up on Wi-Fi, although four airports noted that they had discontinued requiring Wi-Fi surveys to log on due to negative reactions from passengers.
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From page 116... ...
116 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research 9.5 Real-Time Customer Monitoring Given that airport checkpoints and restrooms are key drivers of customer satisfaction, airports use a variety of tools to monitor the status of these areas of the airport in real time. These tools include devices placed in restrooms, baggage claim areas, at the end of TSA checkpoints, and other areas of interest.
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From page 117... ...
New and Developing Data-Collection Techniques 117 of the more interesting applications of cell-phone data within a travel context was related to a study that was conducted for Destination Canada in British Columbia based on cell-phone data from Rogers, a Canadian phone company. Destination Canada is an organization that promotes tourism in Canada.
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From page 118... ...
118 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research connectivity to the cell-phone network over a limited area. He noted that the ability to track passenger movements along a concourse depends on how far apart those microcells are and how accurate the geo-positioning is along the airport concourse.
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From page 119... ...
New and Developing Data-Collection Techniques 119 Wi-Fi Location Data Similar to GPS-based data, Wi-Fi data provide a less-expensive alternative than cell-phone data for locating and tracking the movements of individuals within a building. Steve Hornyak, an entrepreneur who previously worked for a company that processed Wi-Fi data, notes that in the past he worked with airports that were "trying to figure out how to use Wi-Fi data to study traffic flows and how much time people spent in different terminal locations.
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From page 120... ...
120 Guidebook for Conducting Airport User Surveys and Other Customer Research customers, use of the findings for decision making and action run the risk of underrepresenting these travelers. A major caveat with the use of many of the data sources covered in this chapter is the extent to which the data are de-identified.
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Key Terms
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