The CX Leader Podcast: “Soaring Above the Crisis”: Audio automatically transcribed by Sonix

Download the “The CX Leader Podcast: “Soaring Above the Crisis” audio file directly.

The CX Leader Podcast: “Soaring Above the Crisis”: this wav audio file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Steve:
The pandemic forced companies to explore new ways of doing business. But when you are a regulated industry that required training to be on site, that posed some real challenges to overcome.

Kara:
When the COVID came about, we quickly focused on our customers who are our number one priority. Because, as you said, we’ll go back to that regulatory issue, if they’re not trained, they can’t fly. So we wanted to keep training and maintaining their safety.

Steve:
Important customer experience lessons learned from a crisis on this episode of The CX Leader Podcast.

Announcer:
The CX Leader podcast with Steve Walker is produced by Walker, an experience management firm that helps our clients accelerate their XM success. You can find out more at walkerinfo.com.

Steve:
Hello, everyone. I’m Steve Walker hosted The CX Leader Podcast and thank you for listening. It’s never been a better time to be a CX leader. And this podcast explores the topics and themes to help leaders like you deliver amazing experiences for your customers. COVID required many companies, including Walker, to rethink how we do business. Some companies adapted well. Others did not. But some unique challenges crop up when your business is highly regulated, say the aviation industry. Regardless of the pandemic, pilots still needed to be trained, ,certified, re-certified, etc. And if the services your business offers is the training to pilots. then some innovative thinking needed to happen in order to continue the important work of keeping people flying. Well, my guest today is uniquely qualified to talk to us about this and tell a story about how CAE, a manufacturer of simulation and modeling technologies and training services, not only weathered the effects of the pandemic, but emerged with new key learnings about themselves and their customers. Kara Gardner is the global customer experience manager. Kara, thank you very much for being a guest on The CX Leader Podcast.

Kara:
Thank you, Steve. It’s a pleasure. Appreciate it.

Steve:
Oh, the pleasure is ours and what a cool business. You know, I visualized the pilots there in the simulators trying to recreate the Captain Sully in the Hudson type of deal. I actually have a really good high school friend that’s been a long time pilot for one of the major airlines. So your company is so cool. Just give us a little bit more background and color on CAE.

Kara:
Absolutely. And you’re right, watching those pilots in the sims, what I say bouncing around and in rough weather or, you know, trying to experience a turbulent episode, if you will, is it’s quite intriguing and makes me appreciate them all the more.

Steve:
Yeah.

Kara:
Sometimes I like to be there when they get out of the sim to just tell them thanks very much and see how they’re doing and bring a smile to their face. CAE is super cool, very high, high technology industry with the sims. And as you said it earlier, Steve, aviation is highly regulated.

Steve:
Yep.

Kara:
Right. And so we had to immediately just just jump and deal with items. COVID19 directly and quickly impacted our ability to deliver the training to our customers. And three of the main reasons are travel restrictions and border closures made it difficult for our customers to get to us. Then of course we had to keep in the social distancing aspect of it. So we had to limit the size of classes and then think about the simulator, a very small space where we have to make sure everybody maintains social distancing, which you can’t because there’s not six feet there that we were able to do that and train safely. But the main thing is, is when the COVID came about, the pandemic, we quickly focused on our customers who are our number one priority, because, as you said, we’ll go back to that regulatory issue. If they’re not trained, they can’t fly. So we wanted to keep training and maintaining their safety. One thing I just want to mention the difference between business, aviation and commercial. When we talk about the market during the pandemic, the global commercial aviation demand fell by 66%. This is your American Airlines, your Delta, Boeing. But business aviation, our market, declined only 12% in 2020, and we knew our customers would continue flying because it’s a safe element and allows them to continue doing what they do. And we didn’t want to let them down.

Steve:
So that… That’s interesting context right there. So you provide services to the private operators, not the airline, not the commercial airlines.

Kara:
Exactly. We have another division that does that.

Steve:
Right. And they were not as highly affected because their demand was, I guess, a little more steady.

Kara:
Right. They could get to places on their air, private airplane that they couldn’t on a commercial.

Steve:
Well, I really want to go into your program and how the pandemic affected it, but I always like to get a little bit more background on our guests and how they ended up to be a CX pro. What’s what’s kind of your background in and what was your course to to becoming the global leader for CAE?

Kara:
Well, I grew up in Wichita, Kansas, so you better be an aviation.

Steve:
Yep.

Kara:
It’s full of aviation in Wichita. And that’s where I started working for an OEM there, spent some time there and then moved to Dallas and got in with CAE. So a different aspect of business, aviation, marketing, social media, that type of stuff and communications, which is really what I like. I just love talking to the customers and going from marketing to CX just makes sense.

Steve:
Yeah, I mean and again in a B2B high touch type of business, which CAE is it’s almost impossible to separate the marketing the communication from the experience. It’s not like a consumer brand where you can project some image of cool because the experience has to match whatever you’re trying to create in the brand or it doesn’t work. In fact, it’ll backfire if it doesn’t. We talk about that a lot. So yeah, you kind of came the classic marketing, marketing communications and and I think actually as CX has emerged, I think marketing is the is the best model because marketing has to be pervasive in the organization. And in the same with CX know, it’s not like a siloed department, it’s, it’s got to touch all aspects of the, of the value because that’s where the customer gets the value.

Kara:
So right. And it’s become very, very collaborative at CAE, which again just plays into who we are and one inclusive group team. But working with the digital team, they realize the value of the customer experience. Yeah, we can throw an app out there, but without the team being involved and being able to speak for the customer, it makes it we’ve we’ve really enhanced our digital experiences through that in the marketing team.

Steve:
Yes. So let’s go back to the CAE case and sort of how what happened when the pandemic occurred. You know, our our business translated very quickly to remote and hybrid. And I have often reminded my colleagues that a lot of businesses weren’t so lucky. You know, and, you know, the easiest one is first responders. You know, there’s no way you could do that job sitting at home on your computer. Right, or health care folks or something. But you’re in a high touch business, too, and there’s no way you can train a pilot in a simulator…

Kara:
At home.

Steve:
…at home. So take us back to those days. What what was the first couple of weeks like and trying to sort this all out because you really had no option other than to continue to operate.

Kara:
Right. So a lot of running around, a lot of fun conversations and everybody just trying to figure out and throwing ideas out there, really. But we did have to make a change. Right. And you mentioned that remote training. So we worked very closely with our regulators and define the vision and and resource and an action plan for a new live remote training so our customers could take ground school at home…

Steve:
Yep.

Kara:
…with with a live instructor. So it’s not like it was computer based training. They were on video with their other classmates, if you will, learning from the teacher who was in the classroom. Then they would come into the facility to take the test, if you will. They’re on site and then spend time in the SIM. So we had to quickly adapt to that. And that, again, is it stands for… We had to have good relationships with the regulators. Right. And strong communication because this was something brand new that we haven’t done before. They were on site. We had people on site. That funniest thing that we all laugh about that causes us the most laughter and happiness is how we all reached out. And everybody was borrowing video cameras from their kids, their neighbors, you know, we’re video using iPhones, whatever it took, until we could source all of the equipment. So then we could do this training.

Steve:
Yeah. Necessity is the power of invention, right?

Kara:
Exactly.

Steve:
That’s a great story. So you mentioned earlier that that the private aviation didn’t decline like the commercial aviation did. So that was probably a blessing. But, you know, nonetheless, you still had to do a lot of things differently. Did you have anything that was kind of in place? Did you have any kind of contingency plans or kind of disaster recovery type of things that you could go to?

Kara:
No, unfortunately, we really didn’t. But we do. We do now. But I’d like to just talk about some of the safety protocols, though, that were put in place for it. You know, formal entry to exit processes. You know, we talked about that simulator, right, how we had to get in and out. And when we had customers in there, we did unit directional mapping on the floor so they could we could try to keep people going in the same place in the same direction. New uniform cleaning and disinfecting policy. We did that. We had the facility, the SIM… inside the SIM sprayed with a material that kept away germs. We removed a lot of things in the in the cafeteria as far as got rid of the make your own salads, did boxed lunches so everybody could eat. One thing, though, Steve, I have to tell you that’s super important to our pilots is their coffee. And it’s… we have coffee all over that facility now. [laughing] I know we both have our our hot cups here, don’t we?

Steve:
Yeah.

Kara:
And so we’ve continued to leave the coffee where it is. Instead of coming to one one area in the cafeteria, you can find it pretty much around any corner. So if we run out of hazelnut, just walk a few more feet and you’ll have you’ll get your French vanilla.

Steve:
Do you like free stuff? Well, me too. I like it, too. Well, if you want a chance to get your hands on some CX Leader Podcast swag, go to cxleaderpodcast.com/feedback and complete a short survey on how you think we’re doing. We’re always looking for ways to improve and your input will help us do just that. Again, that’s cxleaderpodcast.com/feedback for some CX Leader Podcast swag.

Steve:
Hey. My guest on the podcast this week is Kara Gardner. She’s the global customer experience leader at CAE. And we’re having a fascinating discussion about how they continue to deliver their services during the pandemic when there really was no option. You know, you talked a lot about the culture of the company. And I think you actually have branded your program, have you not?

Yeah, One CAE. That’s Who We Are.

Steve:
Yeah. And that that probably served you well through this process. But just talk a little bit about the culture and leadership and and how that worked as you as you work through the difficulties of the pandemic.

Kara:
You know, at CAE, we want to make sure our customers are ready and what we say ready for the moments that matter. And we want to provide our pilots with the training. We want to elevate their safety, their efficiency and their readiness. It’s ingrained in everything that we do. It’s our goal to make the world a safer place.

Steve:
And Kara, how did the customers respond and what were some of the things that you did for the customers through the crisis?

Kara:
Yeah, well, we are driven by that One CAE spirit, a boundaryless, inclusive team. We all work together for the success of our customer. We work together to resolve those barriers with how to get there, how to train, be able to train remote, and then be able to make a shorter trip to the center right for safety and to enable our customers to continue flying. And the one thing I’d like to mention here is we have five training centers across the globe that are committed to the same level of safety. So when you came to Dallas or if you went to Dubai or if you went to London, Burgess Hill, they were all the same. All the regions and all the countries varied with restrictions. But together as One CAE, we didn’t have one training center that had to shut down due to COVID.

Steve:
And how many do you have altogether? How many training centers?

Kara:
We currently have five. Dallas, Montréal, New Jersey. We talked about London, Burgess, Hill and Dubai, and we also have Las Vegas opening in the fall and Savannah in 2023.

Steve:
Yeah, nice. So they’re all near pretty heavy places where it’s pretty easy to get to. Right. And big airports.

Kara:
Yes, exactly.

Steve:
Yeah. Really cool. Well, some things probably have never gone back to the way they were, but we have restored some sense of normalcy. So compare and contrast, kind of like where are we today versus at the height of the pandemic versus where you were before the pandemic?

Kara:
Well, we really are pretty much back to business now.

Steve:
Yep.

Kara:
We no longer do the live remote training. That was a temporary a temporary approval from all of our regulators.

Steve:
Yep.

Kara:
And we also know that our customers like to be in the classroom. They like the camaraderie, they like the conversation with each other when they’re in person, the ability to share their experience is really invaluable to them. They just truly enjoy that. It’s priceless. The one thing, though, that we have continued since the pandemic was the surfaces. We continue to ensure that all of our surfaces are very clean. Our janitorial crews and I think I’ve heard a lot of people say this, you see the janitorial crews now all day long. You know, they used to come in in the evenings and cleaned. But our janitorial crews are visible all day, wiping down surfaces, making sure the disinfecting is doing is still being handled to kill all germs on contact. At tradeshows we always gave away hand sanitizers and everybody thought that that was such a great thing because you’re always shaking hands. And so now we just we give out hand sanitizer at every classroom so that I think if we look overall as a society, we may have become a bit complacent with simple things to stop the spread of germs. And I think now that we are a lot more cognizant now of that.

Steve:
Yeah, I think we figured out how not to spread diseases. But, you know, some of the some of the cost benefit ratio there is still under question. I think, you know, personally, I still want to go to sporting events or concerts or theaters. It’s been a weird thing to live through. But, you know, again, the spirit of the human to kind of continue to figure out a way to do it has been really remarkable. And so as demand come back for for business, aviation, as it come all the way back, probably even more.

Kara:
Even even more. Yes.

Steve:
Yeah. You know, actually, I bet you the business aviation is growing faster than commercial.

Kara:
You know, I haven’t had time to check, but I can I can almost guarantee that that it is just it’s become you know, there’s just you can charter you have your own plane, you can continue business. You know, it’s it’s all been out there, right? It’s busy.

Steve:
Yeah. And people really still do want to travel and you know, like example for your business, people have to travel, so.

Kara:
Right. Right.

Steve:
Well, actually, that’s good. We’re talking a little bit about the future. What do you think you guys learned about this? That’s going to inform. Obviously, you’re still a you know, the business is growing. You’re opening to more locations. What do you think that this experience is going to inform and help you prepare for the future? And God forbid we have another pandemic. But what ways do you think you’re better prepared for one, if it should happen?

Kara:
Well, we now have a global leader of risk management, security and business continuity. And he and his team worked diligently, are working diligently on a crisis management framework and a business continuity framework. In between the low levels of activities with COVID and, of course, the Russian Ukraine crisis, and he and his team will be kicking off a crisis management plan, which has been supported both by our senior leadership and our board. So we realized we we could have done better and we’re acting on that.

Steve:
Yeah, I think a lot of companies formalize their approach following this to to risk management. And that’s a that’s a good thing. There’s actually a lot of good things that came out of the pandemic. Really.

Kara:
There are. There are. You’re right. We need to stay positive.

Steve:
Yeah. Kara, you know, we talked a lot about how you guys responded and stuff, but what was some of the feedback from the customers? I assume you were monitoring the customer experience throughout all of this. And what did you see in your in your results?

Kara:
You’re exactly right. And overall, it was a very positive experience. You know, we talked about there is good that comes from it. Most of our customers appreciated the level of effort that we went to to ensure their health and their safety and their well-being. They were able to get the training they needed. Right, because their livelihood depends on it. And we were able to keep everybody healthy and they were able to continue to do what they love. And this was apparent in our in the survey remarks on our survey. And we like to look at our net promoter scores and our numbers we feel speak for themselves. In 2020, business aviation’s NPS score averaged 74.

Steve:
Wow.

Kara:
And through the lingering crisis and COVID fatigue, we our NPS scored at a 67 through 2021. So we feel like we did a good job.

Steve:
Yeah, you definitely did. And again, that for our CX pros out there, you know, this is exactly why you want to have a longitudinal metric that’s going so that you can monitor those things because there obviously are trade offs, particularly in that situation. But the fact that you were able to keep it within 10% of of the high level is phenomenal. So thanks. Thanks for sharing that. I think that’s real practical experience for our other pros out there.

Kara:
Oh, you’re so welcome.

Steve:
Well, Kara Gardner, we have reached that point of the podcast where I ask every guest to give us their take home value. This is your best tip or your one item that you hope that our listeners could take away and go and apply at their at their place of business. So, Kara Gardner, what is your take home value today on the podcast?

Kara:
Thank you. And something I’m passionate about. I would tell all the leaders out there to focus on your behaviors as a leader, the way you show up to work, the way we treat others. These behaviors are all observable. They’re teachable. And above all, they’re repeatable, right? So we need to lead. And as a leader, our behaviors are positive impact on both the people and the results. So I would just tell everyone to live and breathe the values and the behaviors that you want your employees to demonstrate for their customers.

Steve:
Yeah, that’s a really good tip. And again, so many people are looking at us as the key leaders to really role model what what it should be like in our organization. So thank you for that take home value and thank you for being such a great guest on The CX Leader Podcast. We really appreciate having you on.

Kara:
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

Steve:
And if anybody would like to continue the conversation, your Kara with a Kara Gardner and I know I found you on LinkedIn, but is there any other can they find you on the website at CAE or…

Kara:
Well, you can’t find me on the website, but it’s Kara.Gardner@cae.com.

Steve:
Great. Kara Gardner is the global customer experience manager for CAE. Fascinating company with a fascinating story of navigating their customer experience through the COVID pandemic. Kara, thanks again for sharing your story with our listeners on The CX Leader Podcast.

Kara:
Thank you.

Steve:
And if you want to talk about anything you heard on this podcast or about how Walker can help your businesses customer experience, feel free to email me at podcast@walkerinfo.com. Remember to give The CX Leader Podcast a rating through your podcast service and give us a review. Your feedback will help us improve the show and deliver the best possible value to you, our listener. Check out our website cxleaderpodcast.com to subscribe to the show and find all our previous episodes, podcast series, contact information. You can drop us a note, let us know how we’re doing or suggest a topic for a future podcast. The CX Leader Podcast is a production of Walker. We’re an experience management firm that helps companies accelerate their XM success. You can read more about us at walkerinfo.com. Thank you for listening. And remember, it’s a great time to be a CX leader, so keep doing it and we’ll see you again here on the podcast next time.

Sonix is the world’s most advanced automated transcription, translation, and subtitling platform. Fast, accurate, and affordable.

Automatically convert your wav files to text (txt file), Microsoft Word (docx file), and SubRip Subtitle (srt file) in minutes.

Sonix has many features that you’d love including enterprise-grade admin tools, collaboration tools, automated translation, automatic transcription software, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.