Consultative Committee Minutes 22/03/17 Meeting title/subject: Consultative Committee Meeting location: Terminal 2 Windsor Castle Present: Gill Stancer Leonard Cheshire Paul Stonehouse Heathrow Airport Ltd Nicole Miersch Heathrow Airport Ltd Jennie Carr Silver Travel Advisor Age UK Rose Hughes National Autistic Society Emma Bould The Alzheimer s Society John Welsman Guide Dogs for the Blind Heather Ridley Whizz Kidz Ed Rex Action on Hearing Loss Milton Rae Action on Hearing Loss Simon Fraser Heathrow Airport Ltd Rebecca Stephens Heathrow Airport Ltd Geoff Adams-Spink Thalidomide Society Anita PA to Geoff Adams-Spink Sonia Sparks MS Society James Freemantle Civil Aviation Authority Andy Wright Disability Advocate for Omniserv Tender Update PS provided an update on the tender: Heathrow are currently half way through the tender process, undertaking site visits, which will be completed over the coming weeks. Heathrow are attempting to take an innovative approach which makes the passenger journey more seamless. I-beacon technology is also currently being introduced. This will allow the Special Assistance team to understand where their staff are within the terminal and help them to allocate agents more efficiently. The Heathrow CEO has made it clear that the level of customer service offered at Heathrow needs to be exceptional. Target implementation date of the new contract is 1 st July. However, this date may not be feasible so Heathrow are working with the current supplier to arrange an extension. Q: Are you looking to link i-beacon systems into navigation systems? PS: Action taken to factor this in. Heathrow are meeting with Cities Unlocked at the start of April, a company which brings environments to life through technology for those who are visually impaired. Heathrow will examine whether this technology overlaps with any navigation systems that could be linked into the i-beacon technology. Work is currently underway with Omniserv to see if there is a better way to log information when passengers book Special Assistance and build this information into the i-beacon technology.
Heathrow and their supplier need to find a better way to obtain information from the airlines or from passengers. This links to the idea of looking into specialist teams and providing the most appropriate local resource for the customer. Discussion moved onto autism awareness and the provision of an appropriate service for the needs of the passenger. Action taken to examine how we can better share information on the requirements of passengers, without making them feel uncomfortable. It was advised that most airports now offer lanyards or wristbands to support passengers with autism, however, all these items are different. The committee advised that the CAA should stipulate the colour and format of such identification. It was advised that Heathrow can work with other airports to share best practice and possibly come to a consensus. The committee agreed that the airport cannot solely rely on a passenger to self-identify this runs the risk of overlooking other people who consequently might not get any support because they are not wearing a lanyard. It was advised that training will help to identify people without identification and Heathrow are currently rolling out training for hidden disabilities to give staff a better understanding. Q: Who delivers the disability awareness training? A: Omniserv are working with Heathrow to tailor the training. At present the training programme is very focused on autism and requires more detail on visual and hearing impairment. Agents currently have 3 days of training which includes H&S, fire and customer service. The committee commented that passenger feedback should be analysed to validate the actual service and all PRM passengers should be treated with an open, respectful and personalised service. Action taken to consider the following questions during the tender process: How can the bidders use their customer feedback in terms of being able to demonstrate how they will deliver the best service possible? What understanding of the social model of disability does the bidder have? How are staff trained and what material is covered? How do they propose to deal with some of the more sensitive cultural issues in terms of the staff they will be employing?
SignLive Demonstration Tom Bell Heathrow are due to trial the services of SignLive from May 2017. The interpreters working for SignLive are fully qualified with a minimum of 2 years experience. BSL is similar to sign language in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia and the interpreters are also able understand a certain degree of international sign languages. Tom demonstrated VRI and explained that it can be used to facilitate most services. The app can connect via 3G, 4G and wifi. Connection typically establishes within 20-30 seconds. SignLive currently have 10 interpreters covering shifts between 08:00 and 20:00, but times can expand as the customer demand increases. The app is free to download for anyone, but Heathrow will need a service agreement to use the service. Clients do not have to pay as the costs are covered by the cooperation that provides the service. Q: What is the minimum connection speed the app needs to operate? A: The app can work with as little as 300KPS. A connection speed below that will lead to pixilation which will affect the picture quality. Q: What other businesses are currently using SignLive? A: SignLive are currently working with Sheffield Hospital, Derby Council and Edinburgh Airport. They also have individual clients. General consensus was provided from the committee that the product is fantastic and will transform the service Heathrow offers. A concern was raised that SignLive will need to up their resource, as they currently only provide services from 8:00-20:00. There was recognition that the service needs to be scaled up for Heathrow and SignLive are hoping to expand the times in the future. Heathrow commented that following the trial, the demand will be reviewed to understand where the investment is required. Q: How will the interpretersl overcome challenges like difficulty finger spelling, or home-made and foreign sign? A: The interpreters can also hear what is happening and they can help relay the message and make communication possible. The interpreters are trained in BSL, but are able to use international sign and they might have training in different sign languages, so they are able to adjust to the caller and work out what is being said. The committee askedfor the company s website, which is signlive.co.uk
Passenger Feedback Collection NM talked through the processes used at Heathrow to collect feedback. The previous passenger feedback process was very disjointed. Passengers at Heathrow now have a number of ways that they can provide feedback or complaints this is through the CAA, Omniserv, Heathrow or the airline. A customer contact centre Go Response handle over half of the complaints. Go response receive the complaints, work with airlines and draft responses back to passengers. GFK handle the CAA survey this is another platform where passengers can give feedback. Feedback cards are handed out on the host areas to invite passengers to complete this survey. Heathrow have now, in addition, started collecting passenger emails to send to passengers. Q: Are you using the beacons to contact passengers? A: There is a need to be very careful around data protection so no. Q: How many people every year get into contact and how many people answer the survey? A: The passenger feedback that is received through Sales Force totals at about 300 pieces of feedback per month. The feedback received through GFK totalled at 99 responses for February. There was general concern around the room that the sample size is not great enough to get an accurate reflection of the passengers opinions. However, now that Heathrow are emailing the survey out, the figures are starting to increase again. 600 email addresses have been collected in the first month. Q: Are you confident that everyone who uses the PRM service receives a feedback card? A: The cards are at all of the host areas, so they should be visible for passengers to pick up. Agents are briefed on every shift brief that they should be giving out cards. We are now trying to get these cards in the top 5 languages for each terminal too. Q: If you use Sales Force as your main CRM, presumably you have an escalation process? And do you find that normally the feedback comes back and you can respond quickly? A: Yes we have an escalation process and if we need to investigate something further, then we let the passenger know what is happening. We have SLAs in place - 24 hours for the first response and 5 working days for resolution or closure. It was commented that the timing at which a feedback survey is sent out is crucial. Heathrow are examining this with GFK who send out the emails. A comment was made that the length of the survey needs to be reduced (although this is under the CAA). The CAA need to make sure that the same survey is used at every airport. The comments that are received on the surveys are very useful to the CAA, but they do appreciate that it is a very long process. The CAA received 3000 responses across all UK airports over the last 2 years (excluding Heathrow). Q: Are there variations of the survey as more than 4 questions for a passenger with autism can be an
overload of information? A Answer from the CAA the process starts again in April so they will take this comment away and examine the options. A comment was made that multiple choice is a good option for older people. Q: What insight do you get from the feedback? A: A few times we have taken up complaints and met with the customer, rather than just following up with a response email for instance we recently visited a passenger from Aberdeen to understand her issues with the service she was provided with. This allows the passenger to understand that we are listening to them and showing empathy. It was suggested that Heathrow get a quote from this passenger. This quote could be broadcasted as this will be a good way of encouraging response rates. The passenger we met has agreed to put quotes into our training and we will take an action to look into broadcasting these comments further. Q: Is there a possibility for every charity in the room to put out a survey which their customers can use? A: There was general agreement from charities around the room and an action taken for Heathrow to link in further with the representatives to implement this. A comment was made that we also need to think about getting feedback from passengers who do not declare themselves as PRMs but are still travelling through Heathrow. Q: Can we invite carriers to come along to the consultative committee in the future so they can hear these comments? A: Yes, we can see who is open to this and an action was taken to ensure invites are sent out to airlines in future. Q: If the agreement here is that we need more buy-in from our carriers, does the CAA have the power to move this forwards to get a better collaboration? A: If we had evidence that the service was being broken down by this, this could be mandated.
Hidden Disability Updates An update was given on the work of Heathrow over the past few months on developing support for passengers with autism or dementia. Consensus was provided from the Alzheimer s Society and the National Autistic Society that the work being done in this space is positive and promising. It was highlighted that Heathrow cannot just rely on this information being available on their website as not everyone has internet access. An action was taken to see if there is a way to get this information mailed to passengers, or have printed copies in circulation at the airport. Approval was received from the Alzheimer s Society and the National Autistic Society on the new helping hand assistance symbol. The Alzheimer s society commented that they do not favour charity symbols as it can cause confusion by having multiple icons. Some symbols for dementia have cogs or question marks and there was a request to avoid this. Q: Could we get rid of the word Special in Special Assistance? A: Heathrow is currently working with a design agency to upgrade their host areas and brand. One of the solutions proposed was to remove special and this is an option being considered by Heathrow there is a plan to hold focus groups to evaluate the design options and members of the consultative committee are welcome to attend these. Another design option looks at using the new helping hand symbol in place of the wheelchair logo that is currently used. The general consensus was that the wheelchair symbol cannot be removed as there will be confusion around what the new symbol refers to, as it is not internationally recognised. Training & Technology Updates AW will be taking this discussion offline with several members of the committee. This will involve discussions on the training of the Omniserv STAAR team agents need to understand specific needs and the right/wrong way of doing something. Suppliers need to get feedback on their training from various points of view. Expo Open Day An Open Day will be held on the 13 th May. 100 attendees are required and a request was made for the charities to help us recruit these. Agreement was provided from charities and an action was taken to link in with the charities over the next couple of weeks to organise this. The plan is to operate landside and airside tours (passport required for airside tours). It will be based at Heathrow Academy and the plan is to hold presentations in the morning, followed by a chance for an expo style afternoon where passengers can interact with various charities and companies present. There will also be tours in the terminals and help buses to provide transportation to the terminals.
Website Updates The proposed updates to the Special Assistance webpage were presented. A comment was provided that the focus on hidden disabilities seems to be very much limited to autism & dementia. Language and visual of website needs to reflect that an enhanced level of support is being offered, but without overtly saying that it is exclusive to a certain type of disability. An action was taken to ensure that the focus is placed on the service provided and not the condition. An opportunity has also arisen for Heathrow to produce a video for use on their website. Advice was asked on defining the objectives and content of this video, so that the team can work with the Heathrow comms team to commission a production agency. The following information/questions were provided as necessities to consider: Will the video be signed? Subtitled? How would we get security permissions for filming? The journey to the airport could also be considered, including parking and access to the terminal buildings The video should not just target passengers with autism, but a range of passengers Include audio description which can be switched on and off Information should be provided on what sort of help will be available to people at each stage Information should be provided on what will happen at the assistance desk, check-in, and security will you be on your own? Will you be at a separate security section etc.? Information should be provided on self-mobilisation An indication should be provided on the questions passengers will be asked when they arrive at Heathrow. Information on assistance dogs where are spending areas? What is the process etc? The single-minded proposition of the video should be: We re here to help at Heathrow. Heathrow is an airport accessible to all. AOB A request was made for the slides to be circulated in advance of the next meeting.