Airports can be stressful places for many people, but by focussing on the customer experience, Liverpool has come out top of the Which? report on UK airports for customer satisfaction. With passenger numbers increasing, Liverpool’s Growth Platform Company saw an opportunity to promote all that Liverpool and Merseyside has to offer and how to get there. They envisaged a Visitor and Travel Information zone, featuring the draws of the city centre and promoting the lessen known attractions in Merseyside, including travel itineraries.

Following a tender process, the project was awarded to BWD Ltd who, working with Media Village AV, put forward a multi-lingual, accessible, eye-catching display, with interactive screens in the arrivals hall and incorporating touch-screen graphics from Marketing Liverpool.

The team engaged students from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) to undertake surveys with inbound passengers, gathering essential feedback to direct the content for the information screens, ensuring the focus remains on the customers. They collected information on age, gender, ethnicity, accessibility requirements, length of stay, transportation plans and knowledge of the area. The survey also asked if passengers were aware of the Visit Liverpool app, a source of lots of information and a key part of the Visitor and Travel Information zone.

Bev Wood, Owner and Creative Director of BWD Ltd explained the importance of the survey, “It was essential that we didn’t assume that we knew what passengers wanted and needed, so by talking to them with measurable and open questions we developed a clearer picture of the real-life requirements. Once we had this list along with an agreed specification from Liverpool’s Growth Platform Company and the airport, we could then develop an eye-catching zone, accessible for all, to signpost, inform and inspire onward travel to the many sights that Liverpool and Merseyside has to offer.”

She concluded, “The practical details are important to us such as placing the screens away from the large window to ensure that they can be seen, lower set multimedia screens for access by wheelchair users, clean simple graphics for quick understanding and multilingual options so that visitors can use them in their native language.  We decided to implement a bank of smaller screens rather than one large one, so that if one should fail, the whole panel isn’t impacted. The zone we have created visually looks great and is also practical for all.”

The completed project was signed off at Liverpool John Lennon Airport on 12^th September for passengers to use and enjoy, improving even further the customer experience at, that Which? has found to be, the UK’s favourite airport.