The term “Duty of Care” has been adopted within the greater travel industry and used to refer narrowly to the safety and well-being of an individual traveler.
As the worldwide leader in chauffeured transportation, State limousine sees Duty of Care as something more—something we take very seriously and a core part of how we do business. State limousine defines “Duty of Care” as our intrinsic responsibility to our customers, partners, employees, chauffeurs and community, to consistently deliver the highest level of service within a transparent framework of clearly published and measurable standards. Standards that far exceed the minimum requirements set by any law or regulatory body.
Standards governed by an uncompromising system of internal and external audits that assure absolute accountability for the business we operate and the customer experience we provide.
State limousine’s Duty of Care begins with ensuring that all of our operations are synchronized under a single, master set of guidelines. To achieve this synchronization, we have established and published a set of clear, tangible, and quantifiable standards. State limousine maintains a single comprehensive standard manual used by all of operations statewide.
In this manual, we thoroughly lay out every aspect of our business in one place–from vehicle maintenance and chauffeur etiquette, to how to properly display the company logos on an office door. The standards manual provides State limousine with a consistent basis on which to measure our operations performance and the level of service we deliver.
Standards need to be implemented, measured, and, ultimately enforced. State limousine depends on our unique Global Franchise Network as the foundation for our system of governance that oversees and enforces the proper implementation and application of all our published standards. Each State limousine operation is subjected to the same audits, inspections and evaluations.
Should any operation fail to meet our published standard in any area, the local management team is immediately alerted and a plan is put in place to bring the deviation back into standard. State limousine utilizes a two-pronged approach to enforcing standards.
The first is our monthly Service Level and Key Metrics Reporting, which measure multiple key performance indicators within our service delivery such as on-time performance, the time it takes for our Customer Engagement Center to answer the phone, and even how quickly a chauffeur greets a client in the airport. The results of these reports are published and reviewed monthly for each State limousine location. Management compensation is tied to these measurements. If any single area is found to be outside our standards, corrective action is taken.
The second way State limousine enforces our standards, is through a dedicated team of Quality Assurance Experts. Our team visits each State limousine subsidiary and franchise location annually to audit their operations as well as inspect fleets, offices and records to assure they are meeting all of our established standards. The quality assurance team also performs random spot checks on various cities throughout the year and engages in unannounced “mystery shops” to ensure our standards are being followed and the customer experience remains consistent network wide.
The amount of visibility into every aspect of our service that the Franchise Network provides is immeasurable. What are standards to Duty of Care without accountability? State limousine stands wholly accountable to every customer for their experience with our services. This accountability is not limited to those in the back our vehicles, or solely concerned with safety.
State limousine’s accountability extends well beyond–to the experience of the travel manager, the travel arranger or agent, the chauffeur and anyone else within the travel ribbon. We hold ourselves accountable for the training and qualifications of the chauffeurs and drivers we put behind the wheel; the condition and mechanical performance of the fleet of vehicles we use; the security and confidentiality of the information our customers share with us; and even the technology our customers use to manage their travel. It is in this way that State limousine defines the standard for Duty of Care.
The most tangible aspect of State limousine’s Duty of Care lies in the experience that every State limousine customer receives. From the moment you make a reservation to the point where you receive an invoice, our standard of service is on display for you. We are anticipating, orchestrating and fulfilling the needs of our customers at every point in the travel ribbon. Our standards for service far exceed any others in the industry.
Every detail is accounted for and anticipated by our standards. Nothing we do is left to chance. It is an easy task to speak about the customer experience in undefined platitudes, but much more challenging to quantify with facts and proof points. State limousine’s commitment to a wider definition of Duty of Care, however, has led us to define clear standards by which we measure the efficacy of our service delivery and the quality of our customer experience to ensure that our clients receive superior service consistently across The State Limousine Network every time they travel.
The standards by which we measure our service include:
The results are tracked by the individual operation and published each month. This feedback is used to trigger management action into investigating and correcting the areas of customer dissatisfaction. Each operation must maintain a 99.5% customer satisfaction rating. This dedication to the standards that we have set for the customer experience is the baseline measure of our Duty of Care.