www.madico.com

Many Safe Returns - Increasing Traveller Satisfaction through Security
Tom Niziolek, Director of Sales and Marketing, Madico, Inc

Air travel is a holistic customer experience. Parking, ticketing, security and boarding are not discrete events for the average passenger. Rather they form a collective whole, which measurably impacts that individual’s choice in airport selection and frequency of travel. In this way, airports are much like any other business: the better the experience, the more loyal the customer.

In an effort to invite passengers back to the skies, many airports have invested heavily in creating a safer, more welcoming travel experience. Intelligent parking systems guide vehicles to vacant spots while unobtrusively cross-referencing license plates against law enforcement databases. Online ticketing and self-service boarding pass kiosks expedite personal authentication, while pre-screening programs ease security congestion. Such customer-centric enhancements continue once airborne, with interactive games, live satellite television, and chic lounges available to all.

But for many organisations, customer satisfaction can feel much like a card house: a single careless move can undo all of the positive work one has performed. Airport security must be managed with a steady hand – or else the entire investment in a positive travel experience can crumble.

Today’s passenger has bid farewell to the halcyon days of 30-minutes-from-parking-to-gate travel. No longer presuming expediency, airport travellers now anticipate reasonable levels inefficiency and inconvenience in the name of security. In other words, they have awakened to the balance between safety and convenience.

Tolerance has its Limits

While passengers may be more patient with security-related delays, their tolerance has limits. For most, the line is drawn in the vagaries of human emotion. Simply, travellers know security is a priority, but they do not want to be reminded of it at every turn.

Ironically, this concern is greatest prior to boarding. The public realises that risk correlates directly to density. As the number of people increases at a specific location, so too does the potential for that site to be attacked. With security measures so focused on safeguarding post-board travel, airport visitors may feel most vulnerable.

Some reminders of susceptibility, such as audible warnings and proscriptive signage, are unavoidable. In fact, they have become as much a part of air travel as the $10 hot dog is part of baseball. But other security measures tug at the delicate fabric of the customer experience. Fortress-like partitions, impenetrable columns set outside iron clad doors – these massive structures can weigh heavily on the traveller's mindset, dragging down satisfaction and profits alike.

Fortunately some of this structural overload can be mitigated. In fact, one of the most reliable security enhancements is also the most undetectable: transparent, blast / mitigating glass films.

A Transparent Solution

High tensile strength films have been employed worldwide by commercial centers, government complexes and, of course, airports. They protect these facilities against violent storms, industrial accidents, and terror attacks by binding deadly glass shards together during the positive – blast – phase of an explosion as well as the more dangerous negative – vacuum – phase. After all, it is not the blast itself that causes the most widespread human trauma, but rather the debris and glass shrapnel expelled by the explosion.

Despite the fact that these films increase safety without exacerbating feelings of vulnerability, the materials’ efficacy has been called into question. This concern is attributable more to the dubious marketing practices of a minority of manufacturers rather than the products themselves.

Until recently airport officials relied largely on vendor claims of product performance, leading some companies to engage in an escalating game of one-upmanship. Each boasted of capabilities that exceeded those of its competitors, while silently hoping real world events would never expose their overstatements. Unchecked, this practice resulted in a handful of window film companies promising bullet proof glass and other benefits that could not be positively substantiated.

Eventually, however, facilities managers began to question the veracity of uncorroborated claims, compelling vendors to invest heavily in third-party testing as a complement to internal research. Today, window film products must be certified by independent labs if they are to be specified by any informed customer.

Trusted Guidelines

Madico, one of the world’s largest and most recognised safety film manufacturers, never became caught up in claim escalation. An award-winning member of the Protecting People First Foundation, Madico has long led the industry in terms of R&D investment. It submits its materials to third-party organisations, like Underwriters Laboratories, for unbiased certification and has commissioned ABS Consulting, an independent risk management expert, to supervise various internal tests.

According to Carl Kernander, technical manager for Madico’s safety and security products, Madico takes a unique approach to product testing. “We test our films to the point at which they fail,” said Kernander, “because only by first understanding a material’s limitations can we ultimately improve its performance.”

The General Services Administration and various European governments publish criteria that a safety film must meet to be certified as a blast-mitigation product. These standards provide airport officials with reliable benchmarks against which to compare the volume of vendors competing for their business.

In the end, reliable security is a prerequisite to a successful airport. But savvy managers know that security does not need to be omnipresent to be reliable. Blast-resistant glass films do more than protect visitors physically; their virtually undetectable appearance also preserves passengers’ peace of mind. And a comfortable traveller is a happy traveller … and a happy traveller is a repeat customer.

Madico, Inc. is one of the world’s largest manufacturers and distributors of blast mitigating glass films and attachment systems. The company’s products have been installed at government, commercial and municipal centres worldwide. For further information, visit www.madico.com.

 

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