Customer Experience Strategy and inbound immigration at London-Heathrow
Tags: Travel, Customer Experience, London, Strategy, Heathrow Airport

I vaguely remember her face. She was a young mother, must be in her early thirties or late twenties. She had a toddler with her, a son, who must have been less than two years old. That little one was hyper. Let us call her Anna as I do not know her real name. Anna and myself were in the same cabin in the Qatar Airways flight from Melbourne to London via Doha Qatar. The flight took off around 10.30 in the night into its first lag of 15 hours. I settled down to read a book as I usually cannot sleep while travelling or watch movies (that is a disease I believe). After the dinner, people settle down to watch a movie or sleep, and the cabin lights went dim.

Everyone else was sleeping except me, Anna and her little boy. I noticed Anna because she passed my seat repeatedly a few times without making any noise like a ghost. Had I not been awake, I would not have noticed her. For a while, I was wondering what the hell she was doing in a dimmed cabin. It took me a while to realize what was happening.

Her little one was walking around in the cabin, and Anna was following her everywhere he went. The little one was so small that I did not even notice him in the dark. Anna was just behind him. He just went on and on through the entire cabin, Anna was walking behind him and prepared to catch him if he fell. Initially, it was fun to watch. However, soon, I got bored and went back to my reading. After another hour, Anna and the little one was still going through circles in the dark cabin. I tried counting how many times they passed me, and I lost the count. In between they stopped, to change the nappies. Boy did not sleep or slow down, and neither did Anna.

That incident helped me to create a whole different perspective on motherhood. I did not know how Anna managed that. For fifteen hours, she could not take her eyes off from the hyper-energized kid. She could not go to the loo. She could not sit, she could not sleep, or she could not watch a movie like others in that cabin. On top of that, she made a conscious effort not to make any noise especially because others were sleeping or resting. How she got that energy, I did not know.

Finally, after fifteen long hours, I got off from Doha to board the next flight to London after two hours. And there she was. I met them again in the same cabin. And the story began. Anna was following the little one who was running through the isles, and this time, it was more intense as it was the daytime. Everyone else in the cabin minded their own business as they were so bored of seeing the son and the mother running behind each other.

After seven and half hours we all off-board the flight in Heathrow and I saw Anna ahead of me, with huge two cabin bags and the little one at her back. Finally, we arrived at the inbound immigration after a long walk just to be shocked to see a long, long, very long queue at the immigration clearance. There was a zigzag line ahead of us, and more than seven hundred people were lined up and waiting impatiently for their turn. Me too joined the queue. After more than 24 hours in the air, I was restless, exhausted and with zero energy. Luckily, I did have only the backpack. But Anna, she had her son at the back, two big luggage and then the toddler started crying.

She started consoling him and, in the attempt, she slowdown in the queue and people overtook her. Toddler probably exhausted started screaming. Anna tried her best to control him but failed. She was still in the queue like everyone else, no special treatment.

I looked at the officers who were standing near the queues wearing, London-Heathrow staff badge and the purple uniforms, most of them were females. They supposed to assist and control the traffic in those queues. They saw Anna and the screaming toddler, and then they moved away to the front and did not do a damn thing. They were making jokes to each other and having a fun time, and the only thing they did at the font of the line was yelling ‘next’ informing the next person in the queue to the next counter. Seriously …? I was thinking to myself and lost my patience.

I called one of the officers and explained to her ‘that lady with the screaming toddler is coming from Melbourne, which is for more than 24 hours now. Can you please take her to the front of the queue? Can’t you see that child is screaming?’. She then gave a pitying look at Anna and said, ‘let me see what I can do’, and she went to the front of the queue. I saw she was muttering something to her colleague, showing Anna and but they did not do a damn thing.

After more than one hour in the queue, I saw Anna was clearing at another counter parallel to me.

That is why London-Heathrow inbound immigration should seriously think about ‘Customer Experience Strategy’.