Facility design's impact on customer experience: Embassy Suites and airline terminal

Role of Facilities Management

In Ensuring Guest Service and Satisfaction

Designing, developing, launching and maintaining facilities as part of a strategic initiative to increase and sustain customer satisfaction is a foundational element of the customer experience area of facilities management. The many factors that are part of creating an effective facilities management strategy that promotes, nurtures and strengthens customer satisfaction is critical for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) services providers must be orchestrated around a positive and memorable customer experience (Hoots, 2005). Facilities management planning and execution must move beyond the utilitarian nature of just constructing a building to setting a foundation of transforming the customer experience. At the intersection of facilities management and customer relationship management is the development of businesses that deliver unique experiences over and above fulfilling their utilitarian roles in providing a structure to meet and transact in (Hoots, 2005). The facilities management strategies that are integral to strategic market planning are able to attain this level of integration and deliver transformational experiences for customers in the process. The intent of this analysis is to provide how facility designs positively and negatively affected a real-life experience. The positive experience was in a resort hotel designed specifically as a landing zone for tourists coming in from sandy beaches both via walkways and by driving up, and the negative experience was in an airline's exclusive terminal which was meant to streamline the boarding process for international flights. Ironically they never announced when flights were leaving and had no flat panel displays showing flight status. The terminal was a former commuter terminal with no running water and not enough power outlets for laptops or recharging devices before the long flights leaving from this location.

Facility Design and Management As A Strategic Asset: Embassy Suites

United Airlines Business Class Lounge at Los Angeles International Airport, Bradley Terminal

At the opposite extreme is the utilitarian, stark cold atmosphere and facilities of the business lounge of United Airlines in the Tom Bradley Terminal of LAX. The culture of Unite thrives on a distinct class-based caste system of flyers by their award levels, and the Business Class terminal tends to overflow with customers who have had their egos pumped up so United can get away with charging them exorbitant ticket prices to fly across the Atlantic or Pacific. The result: a sterile, at times arrogant atmosphere that is designed purely for the B2B customer. United wants the global road warrior as the long-haul flights to Europe and Asia is where they make their greatest profits. Ironically this business terminal is battleship gray and blue, has no windows to show if flights are ready to go, and has no massive flat panels to tell you when a flight is leaving or not. The seats are cold black leather and the promised free drinks and food are mostly out of cans. It is a depressing place and there is not a lot of warmth in this place, yet it is promoted as a "award" for flying with them so much. Meeting rooms are entirely enclosed with no views and often are booked with two or three people working on projects. The entire environment feels more like a very serious business office, not a place you'd want to hang out before flying ten or more hours to another continent. It is sterile, cold, business like with a laser-like precision of execution. Even for those with the most miles and highest status, this is not a welcoming environment.

The facility manager needs to make this place show signs of life. Bringing in bright windows or even relocating this terminal to an area with better ambient light would be a big improvement. Second, the facility is not responsive enough to customers' needs for information or flight updates. Nothing will tell you if your flight has been delayed, is leaving now or the status of weather on your flight path. Third, the "rewards" of eating canned nuts and drinking cans of soft drinks makes the claims of exclusivity seem like a lie. United fails to deliver on the massive promises they make of luxury. Fourth, the seats and carpeting, black and deep blue, are meant to convey luxury yet they act as an exclamation point on a place that is decidedly more utilitarian than customer-focused.