Whether you are looking to provide exceptional service in your aircraft maintenance company or you want to exceed all standards of the maintenance team you have on board, there are a lot of things you can do.
Providing the right service level that meets the safety requirements and the client’s expectations can be incredibly challenging.
While it might highly depend on your crew’s skills and training, a fully functioning team can be crucial as well. Imagine what will happen to a plane if one part doesn’t work well with the rest?
However, trying all of them can take quite a lot of time, and your company might suffer from harmful practices.
5 Tips to Have an Exceptionally Functioning Aircraft Maintenance Team:
1. Get the Aircraft Back on Its Feet
You might be well aware that the aircraft in your garage isn’t making any money or serving its purpose as long as it stays grounded. The more time your maintenance team spends working on it, the more frustrated its owner will be, and the chances of them returning might lower.
Try to think like the aircraft owner and make it your duty to get your aircraft maintenance team to bring it back to good condition as soon as possible.
You must also consider being upfront and provide an accurate answer to how long it will take to get the aircraft back in good shape. Then, your clients will be patiently waiting for the deadline you gave. If your team is efficient and finishes early, you have a happy and most likely a returning client.
The client will be happy when they feel like you understand their sense of urgency and their needs.
2. Motivate Your Team and Treat the Aircraft Like Your Own
If you look at why teams sometimes perform very poorly, you might find that it’s because of the employees’ mindset. They sometimes look at every aircraft as simply a job. Sometimes, it gets even worse, and they think about the jets as only a way to make money or some problem they are stuck with.
Maintenance, or any team, can perform much better when they work with the right mindset. It would help if you tried to get your team to work on the aircraft as it belongs to them. A great way to encourage that mindset would be to ask them what they would do and wouldn’t do if the jet standing in front of them was theirs.
When they get into this mindset, they may make more of an effort. This could mean using the aircraft maintenance software like Aviation InterTec to fix the main issue and identify anything else that may be causing or could cause an issue. Preventative maintenance can be incredibly crucial for aircraft, and their owners will be delighted to find out you caught something that could cause problems.
With this simple mindset, you can ensure that your maintenance team provides the best service for every aircraft that rolls into your company.
3. Proper Internal and External Communications are Crucial
For a team to function correctly, there needs to be clear and efficient communications. But not just internally. You need to communicate with your clients to have a successful business as well.
Even if you have skilled employees with good experience working for you, it’s not nearly enough. They might indeed be able to get aircraft ready properly and in time, but what about client communications. Having people skills can be essential to have a profitable business. Sometimes, people will agree to pay more for better customer service just to be treated better.
You should try your best to keep an open line of communication with your clients. Give them daily status reports on the work being done on their aircraft and let them know how much is left.
Since they will be anxious to get their jets back up and running as soon as possible to make money, they will appreciate this simple effort on your side. It will make it seem like you are doing it as fast as possible.
4. Give Kudos where It is Due
People work hard at places where they want to get ahead. They don’t do it because they just got up one day and felt like it. So if their hard work only gets them a pat on the back or an atta boy, then they might stop doing it.
You need to identify the strong performers in your team and give kudos. That means you should try to provide promotions or raises when you see an employee is ready or worthy of it. They shouldn’t have to ask for it themselves, but that doesn’t mean you can’t interview or talk to them before.
The technicians nowadays are not simple-minded at all. Many of these professionals have personal and professional goals that they want to reach. Whether it’s a raise or promotion, they are looking to move up in life. It’s your job to spot the potential and give them opportunities to get ahead.
5. Train Your Team and Improve Efficiency
Even if you do all of the four things above, you still might not be able to deliver by your deadline or provide good services (lacking proper training or skills).
Sometimes, the problem is efficiency. Some processes or operations in your business might cause unnecessary problems, such as slow repair times or higher costs.
To fix this, you need to proactively keep an eye out for the operations that could be improved. Since you might not be included in much of the daily processes, you can take some time out and ask your team members for their input. They can point out a couple of issues and even give you ideas to help you solve it.
When you increase the operations’ efficiency, you can have a more smooth-running business and provide quality service.
