SOMETHING IN THE AIR Bombardier’s Customer Response Team is on call wherever, whenever, and forever adapting with the times. by Christopher Korchin | photos by Donny Colantonio
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he AOG board looks something like a stock market ticker, and the information it contains is just as vital. The large monitor at Bombardier’s Customer Response Center in Montreal, Canada, displays a profusion of codes, aircraft numbers, location names and projected service completion times. Each entry tells a story about an “Aircraft on Ground,” i.e. a situation that comes up outside of scheduled maintenance, one that employees who specialize in different technical platforms – Learjet, Challenger and Global aircraft – can promptly address. A s Ray Godon, Director of the Customer Response Team (CRT) at Bombardier Business Aircraft points out, this is just a small piece of a much bigger, more complex picture. AOGs are the exception, not the norm, only representing about 10 percent of all calls received. The other 90 percent can be fairly routine – say, replacing a faucet in a crew lavatory. Still, as the Montreal-based Manager of the CRC, André Poulin, notes, even when the situation isn’t urgent, with a client base that includes royalty, “customer expectations are always high.” The CRT is equipped to coordinate with multiple teams, whenever they’re needed, wherever they are in the world. With some 3,000 available technicians, Maintenance Control Centers in Wichita, Kansas, and Linz, Austria, a growing global fleet of over 20 mobile response trucks and a service center network that includes new facilities in Tianjin, China, and Biggin Hill, UK (with more expansions planned), the CRT can assign mobile help at a moment’s notice.
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EXPERIENCE
“ We’re 24/7, 365,” says Godon. The approach of the center is inspired by the military-derived principles of Flawless Execution, with a maximum 24-hour turnaround time from the initial call to Return to Service. Afterwards, Godon explains, every event is followed up with data analysis – including an end-of-month “deep dive” – to see where improvements can be made. When a specific event occurs, though, speed is a top priority. So it was emblematic that when the sprawling new Customer Response Center (CRC) was unveiled in 2015, legendary race car driver, pilot and Bombardier brand ambassador Niki Lauda toured the Montreal facility. He later commented, “They know the airplane inside and out. You can train the basics, but knowing what happens when, and what affects what, is experience.”
Expansion and Expertise
High expectations involve not only responding to calls swiftly and efficiently, but evolving alongside modern technology. Both Godon and Poulin recall the days of carrying oversized cellphones, paging their technicians and studying faxes sent by customers with aircraft issues. Now, innovation is affecting both the way problems are reported and the very nature of the problems themselves. “If the internet isn’t working, planes don’t fly,” states Godon, referring to increasingly sophisticated satellite technologies vital to private aircraft. Poulin adds that this issue extends to customer convenience, especially for clients who use their aircraft as a mobile office: “If you’re going to fly for 10 or 12 hours, several days in a row, and you can’t connect to the internet, well…”