In Long Beach, a business model to keep innovation cooking

Written by Bloomberg Cities

The city-run airport in Long Beach, Calif., regularly turns up on “best airports” lists and scores high on Yelp, and it’s easy to see why: It’s small and easy to navigate, with a laid-back open-air courtyard, tasty food options, and even roving therapy dogs to cheer up stressed-out travelers.

While airport leaders are used to hearing positive feedback from customers, it’s largely come anecdotally. To put more rigor behind it, they hired the city’s in-house data and design experts at the Office of Civic Innovation to develop a customer survey and train airport staff in how to conduct in-person research interviews with travelers. The result is intelligence that managers can use to serve their customers even better.

“We wanted to know where passengers are coming from, whether they’re traveling for business or leisure, whether they took an Uber or Lyft to the airport or had a friend drop them off,” said airport Administrative Officer Dale Worsham. “That’s information we didn’t have. And it’s helpful for making decisions about how we can improve — both for people coming from Long Beach and people coming from outside Long Beach.”

Read full article at medium.com