Going Outside-In at American makes for a better customer experience.

Managing Expectations, achieving Successful Outcomes and optimising a Moment of Truth.

American Airlines is going all plastic onboard, following the example set by Southwest in 2008.

John Tiliacos, American's managing director of onboard products explains

"From our perspective and from our customers' perspective, it makes transactions smoother for both our customers and flight attendants," he said. "Flight attendants in particular don't have to have correct change when the customer doesn't have the exact amount."

Tiliacos said American believes the change will potentially bring in more revenue, and flight attendants may be able to earn more commissions by selling food on board.

"Flight attendants will print out receipts when requested, a boon for business travelers who need to put in for reimbursement of their expenses. "

This is a fairly important Moment of Truth, so let's examine it.
The 'old' process created lots of work for American, the reconciliation of cash, the processing of the inventory, the interaction with customers and obtaining the correct amount and providing the necessary change, the security of the cash collected, the training of the staff, the hand over of the cash in the airport and so on.

All these sub processes carry a cost, slow things down and create a messy customer interaction. From a customer point of view there are issues related to carrying 'change' (notes or coins, what about security, is it in the bag above, or one of the pockets in my jacket?) and potential inconvenience with other passengers.

This Moment of Truth (MOT) is the Cause of Work, and also a Point of Failure (within the CEMMethod we explicitly identify those) however we can not easily remove this MOT. We can however significantly improve it. Moving to 'plastic only' massively simplifies the interaction, reduces costs and improves service.

The Successful Customer Outcome is an easier target to hit everytime, as we reduce the number of internal handoffs and simplify the associated business rules.

A minority of customers may argue that this reduces customer choice, and they would be correct, however the cost of providing that choice for less than 20% of cash paying passengers is a cost everyone else has to bear in the ticket price. By creating a cleaner 'expectation' the service can be optimised further by offering, say, big ticket items, tracking buyer behaviour (much easier now) and further improving the technology to provide at the MOT related operational information (to encourage more purchases, build affinity, add value to the experience etc.).

This is a fine example of how existing processes can be transformed to 'outside-in' to win that triple crown (simultaneously reducing costs, enhancing service and ultimately improving revenue).

From a customer perspective you are making my life easier, simpler and more successful.
Well done American!


References:
BP Group - Global not for profit business club with 32,000 members - FREE membership, join at

LinkedIn - BP Group discussions, presentations, toolkits, video, downloads

Successful Customer Outcomes - Articles

Customer Expectation Management Method (CEMMethodtm)

Business Process Professional - Certified BPM Training

Summer Webinar Series (free to BP Group members)

Contact the author - Steve Towers
web - www.stevetowers.com
linkedin - www.linkedin.com/in/stevetowers
twitter - http://twitter.com/stowers
email - steve.towers @ bpgroup.org




What is the best way to pitch BPM - David Mottershead?

Say you've identified an organisation that needs a little BPM, what is the message that gets people excited the most? Is it a crown, the triple crown, or something else? Is every organisation the same or does it depend on the type of organisation, the industry, the size of the organisation or who you speak to?

What is clear from the discussion is that there is a difference in the approach people take depending on who is being dealt with within the organisation and whether BPM is being use. Some like to start out small, with pilot projects to get quick gains whilst others approach the organisational implementation of BPM from a holistic viewpoint. Common to both approaches is the need for buy-in from an organisation’s top team.

A couple of themes are common throughout the discussion; “pitching” BPM from the outset is not the optimal approach to take, the identification of an organisations “pain points” appears to be a common first step and key drivers for the implementation of BPM are the need to reduce costs and improve service.

When all is said and done, there is still no agreement on what BPM is . . .

http://bit.ly/DWucD or if you are not a member http://bit.ly/9MJBp

Top Outside-Inners strut their stuff

What are the top Outsider-Inners doing and where are they now? Nominees from Best Buy, Cabela's, Tesco, IBM so far - Outside_in

If you're not a member join here - http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=1062077

BPM Solutions - these are the players

On a periodic basis we print an update of the current notable players in the BPM space.
If you wish to add anyone let us know who and why. Within reason all submissions will be included to develop the resource for general reference.

Here is the list as at 21 May 2009:

From Basic BPM to Strategic Leadership (7 levels) - www.bp2009.com

The (not for profit) home of Business Process - www.bpgroup.org

Dates and Program for Certification - www.businessprocessprofessional.com

Articles, blogs and Case-studies - www.successfuloutcomes.blogspot.com


BPM Solution Providers


Adeptia www.adeptia.com/
Appian www.appian.com/
Ascentn www.ascentn.com/
Casewise www.casewise.com/
CuteFlow www.cuteflow.org/
HandySoft www.handysoft.com/
HighOrbitBPM www.workflow-automation.com/
IBM www.ibm.com/
Intalio www.intalio.com/
Laserfiche www.Laserfiche.com/
Lombardi www.lombardisoftware.com/
Metastorm www.metastorm.com/
Oracle www.oracle.com/
Pallas Athena www.pallas-athena.com/
Pegasystems www.pega.com/
ProcessMaker www.processmaker.com/
SAP www.SAP.com/
Savvion www.savvion.com/
SoftwareAG www.softwareag.com
Ultimus www.ultimus.com/
Vitria www.vitria.com/

BPG Process Professionals Newsletter - May 2009

New downloads, articles, webinars availability, research and updates.

Here's the link to the newsletter: http://bit.ly/12Lcop

All the Best, Steve, Chair - BP Group

BPM Summer Webinar Series released

The annual series of roundtables is taking place online this year. As many of us try to chill for a few weeks we keep the plates spinning with FIVE webinars focused on successful BPM. Latest Case studies, new techniques and community discussion on making oursleves and companies more successful through advanced business process management

Review and Register from the BP Groups front page at www.bpgroup.org

I look forward to seeing you there!

BP Group Webinar Series