On the Record With
Douglas Cribbes, svp, Aftermarket &
Customer Services, Corporate & Regional Aircraft Business, Rolls-Royce
"What have you done for me today?"
That, in a nutshell, is the attitude of the modern business
aviation customer, says Douglas Cribbes, the new svp in charge of aftermarket
and customer services for the corporate and regional aircraft business at
Rolls-Royce.
Rolls claims to power 34%, by value, of the business
aircraft flying today, with a marked presence on the heavy-iron end of the
business. That's good, but it means that service expectations are higher than
ever before.
"Bombardier and Gulfstream are fighting each other for the
Fortune 500 customers," says Cribbes (pronounced with two syllables). "The
expectations of those customers are, 'We expect no bumps or humps in our
life.'"
He continues, "They are always moving the bar up. If there's
a problem, they want it fixed right away.
"Unless you continuously improve your customer support and
service, the customer will not be satisfied."
And, despite the bottom-line, no-nonsense nature of the
business, customers need to be given "a warm and fuzzy feeling," too.
Thus Cribbes, who says he's delighted to be returning to
business aviation (and to Rolls-Royce) after eight years servicing the airlines
(he was president and general manager of Texas Aero, the Rolls-Royce and
American Airlines engine overhaul and maintenance joint venture in Fort Worth),
says his focus is developing customer support.
"It's not that complicated to say," he told Show News. "It's
complicated to execute.
"We've been selling a lot of engines" for extremely capable,
long-range aircraft, he says. Problems tend to crop up in out-of-the-way,
far-distant places. "Getting trained mechanics in place and trained up is not
something you can do in a week." And customers, of course, don't give you a
week.
Rolls has a program called CorporateCare that's designed to
take care of problems before they occur so that customers never have to think
about them.
Cribbes wants to sign more customers to CorporateCare
(making the argument, among others, that it enhances a given aircraft's resale
value) and also wants to improve the program. CorporateCare includes engine
management and condition monitoring, as well as worldwide engine replacement
when necessary, and access to spare engines via lease. It's those last aspects
that require constant improvement: Cribbes and his team have to make sure that
engines for lease or other replacement— and the parts for those engines— are
present where they're needed, before they're needed.
Cribbes intends to improve the "forward planning process" at
Rolls and establish "more cohesive models of what's going to happen next."
Remote sensing and monitoring, already part of
CorporateCare, may be increased and could be applied to older aircraft on a
retrofit basis.
