ABCI Joins Constant Contact’s Business Partner Program
Program Provides Aviation Clients with Effective and Affordable Tools to Build Strong, Lasting Customer Relationships
July 1, 2009 – ABCI today announced they have joined Constant Contact’s Business Partner Program. ABCI is able to provide their clients in the aviation industry with easy-to-use email marketing and online survey products to help them build strong, lasting customer relationships. Constant Contact®, Inc. (www.constantcontact.com) is a leading provider of email marketing and online survey tools for small organizations. “Our customers are always looking for effective ways to grow their businesses,” said Paula Williams. “Constant Contact’s customer communication tools give our clients a valuable addition to our core services. Constant Contact’s ease-of-use and affordability made the partner program a great solution to meet our clients’ marketing needs.”
“Email marketing and online surveys are proven tools that help small businesses connect with their customers and build successful customer relationships,” said Len Bruskiewitz, senior director, Partner Programs, Constant Contact. “We are pleased that ABCI chose Constant Contact to provide their clients with our products and services, and we look forward to working with them to help grow their clients’ businesses.”
As a Constant Contact Business Partner, ABCI is able to provide their clients with email marketing and online survey capabilities. With SpeakUp!SM Email Marketing, Constant Contact’s email marketing product, ABCI’s clients can quickly and easily create professional-looking emails, manage contact email lists, measure email campaign results from clicks to open rates, and review who joined email lists. With ListenUp!SM Survey, Constant Contact’s online survey product, ABCI’s clients have an easy-to-use tool to gain insight that will help them meet customer needs, generate new ideas, and grow their business or organization. ListenUp! Survey also helps ABCI’s clients analyze responses quickly, create targeted email lists based on survey responses, take action, and follow-up with relevant email communications.
About ABCI
ABCI was founded in 2005 to provide business consulting and online marketing services to the Aviation Industry. ABCI specializes in online marketing and leveraging social media in credible and cost-effective ways for flight schools, software companies, aviation professionals and other companies in aviation.
About Constant Contact, Inc.
Launched in 1998, Constant Contact, Inc. is a leading provider of email marketing and online survey tools for small organizations, including small businesses, associations, and nonprofits. To learn more, please visit www.constantcontact.com or call (781) 472-8100.
Constant Contact and the Constant Contact Logo are registered trademarks of Constant Contact, Inc. All Constant Contact product names and other brand names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Constant Contact, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.
Good news – it’s a good time to be a flight student, a good time to be a flight instructor, and, if you can hold on a bit, it’s a good time to be a pilot!
From Kit Darby, President : AIR Inc., speaking for ATP
The aviation industry rightfully places a great deal of emphasis on safety. Pilots receive hours of training in all aspects of safety to attain and keep their ratings. But unfortunately, not everyone that works in this industry has the same level of training even as ramp and line personnel encounter many of the same risks as pilots in their day-to-day work. A cost-effective (emphasis on effective) solution is vital. /
“For all its glamour, aviation is a dangerous business. Pilots and mechanics are well aware of the risks and are highly trained to manage them. But the same cannot be said for many of the ground support workers in aviation ramps and hangars. The lack of a standard approach to training, the relentless time pressures which many of these workers face, their congested and sometimes confusing workspaces, and their physically demanding but often ill-paid positions can create a dangerous environment.” /
Charlotte Adams – Aviation Maintenance Magazine.
Also from Aviation Maintenance Magazine – The cost of ramp accidents is high. According to the Flight Safety Foundation, approximately 27,000 ramp accidents and incidents occur annually worldwide and around 243,000 people are injured — about nine per 1,000 departures. The cost to major airlines was estimated to be at least $10 billion a year. /
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) reckons the direct costs of airplane damage to be about $4 billion a year. IATA attributes the problem to “minimal oversight” of ground service providers in the selection and licensing process, in systems implementation, training and development, and in auditing, reporting and compliance procedures.
Fatalities also occur. GAO found that of 29 fatal ramp accidents (across all sectors of aviation) from 2001 through 2006, 17 involved ground workers, eight were passengers and four were pilots. These misfortunes typically occurred when employees were struck by objects such as vehicles, or were crushed, or fell. Of the eight passengers who died, five were struck by propellers. /
Training for ramp and line workers can be expensive. The current state of the economy and a high rate of turnover make training ramp or line staff a challenge. /
The Ramp Safety for Line Personnel course from HighTop Company is an online course that covers driver training, airport markings and lighting, communications, safe operating practices, identifying risks and risk mitigation. It covers the material suggested in the FAA Advisory Circular (AC 150/5210-20) Ground Vehicle Operations on Airports, plus ramp safety procedures and many more industry standards and best practices.
Benefits
The format is very accommodating of the reality of business at airports and FBOs. Learners can log on and complete the modules at their convenience from any internet-equipped computer.
The bookmarking feature improves on this – each time the learner logs into the program he is taken directly to the place he left off.
The photography and video are very realistic of the realities of working at a busy airport.
The drawings and diagrams are clear and helpful. They keep the learner’s interest and help her remember key concepts.
The tone of the course is practical, useful, and sincere. The course mentions a few shocking incidents (a ramp worker that walked into a propeller, for example) that make it clear that the material needs to be taken seriously.
Course Content
The style of the course is current and polished. The course controls are intuitive and easy to use.
Airport Ramp & Runway Safety
The course provides clear learning objectives and signposts about progress. This allows the learner to control the pace of the course and thoroughly understand concepts before proceeding.
Ramp Safety Course Objectives
The photography and video offers clear and realistic pictures of a typical ramp environment.
Ramp Environment Photography
Diagrams provide clear and common understanding of concepts and vocabulary that will help ramp workers work as a team with pilots and other aviation personnel to achieve smooth operations and a safe operating environment.
Ramp Environment Diagram
Your Best Investment for Training Ramp and Line Personnel
The ideal training materials are cost-effective, time independent, offer rich multimedia experiences, include interaction to keep the learner’s interests, accommodate completion during multiple sittings with interruptions, and include a means of providing completion records and certificates for your personnel files.
Comparison of Features
Summary
This is an ideal, timely course which should be used for initial and recurrent training for ramp and line workers. It should be required for every non-pilot who coordinates, dispatches, or enters the ramp environment in the course of doing his job.
With some products, you don’t really get a good sense of how you would use it unless you see it in action.
Some great candidates for video demonstrations:
Software
Components
Charter Services (show maps, scheduling, aircraft available, etc.)
Flight Schools (introduce instructors, outline the program, give an introductory flight via the web!)
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Product demonstrations are very powerful ways to show your product. And they can be delivered inexpensively over the web on a blog or YouTube!
Here’s an example we created for one of our favorite clients, Summit Aviation. /
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In this demo, we had a question about experience requirements for a pilot to carry a passenger at night. We go for the answer to the FAA.gov site and then to the Summit Aviation Digital Reference Library. /
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This is just a quick example of how the Digital Reference Library can save you time, and therefore, money. The best way to find out for yourself is to try it in your business. We offer a full refund of your purchase price if you’re not completely satisfied.
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If a video would be a good way to show off YOUR product or service, give us a call or drop us a quick email and we’d be happy to discuss the options. You could have a great demo ready to show customers in less than a week!
I mentioned to on Facebook (via Twitter) that I was working on a postcard campaign. My friend Amit mentioned how postcards are the old snail-mail micro-blogging.
Postcards = Snail Twitter! I love it.
Postcards = Snail Twitter
Actually, as a marketing consultant I’ve been getting away from printed forms of advertising, marketing and PR lately simply because they’re cost-prohibitive for a lot of my clients, who have to get the very best return on investment. Lately, social media and search engine work has been a better marketing method simply because of the low cost.
But I’ve always liked postcards and still do. It adds “real world, “ tangible legitimacy to a campaign and draws attention to your website and other online media without a lot of cost. It also prevents the problem with a lot of mail – people don’t bother to open the envelopes of anything but bills! But an eye-catching postcard doesn’t need to be opened to get the message across.
So, here’s an endorsement for the humble postcard (snail-twitter!) from a hard-core social media junkie.
We’ve recently contracted with two new clients that have excellent products for the aviation industry. Watch our blog and their websites for great content in the next month.
Summit Aviation keeps their clients “on top” of the complex and ever-changing FAA regulations. They have created (and are continually updating) a digital reference library so efficient and easy to use that some FAA officials shell out their own money for a subscription! They say that this digital library is much easier to use than the FAA published documents and saves them many hours of valuable time (and therefore money) on research. If the FAA employees pay for this software out of their own pockets, you know you can depend on it to be the fastest, most efficient way to ensure compliance for your charter service, aircraft maintenance department or aviation-related business.
HighTop Company creates online educational products for initial and recurrent training, including a ramp safety program and a pilot fatigue program. These are critical and timely topics – The New York Times reported on Tuesday that pilot fatigue was major factor in the crash of the Colgan commuter plane in Chicago. Unlike many companies that produce a few PowerPoint slides and a quick quiz and call it a “training program,” HighTop’s programs are engaging, interactive and effective. These web-based modules allow learners and managers to learn from anywhere, make productive use of downtime, track progress and completion, and cost hundreds or thousands less than sending employees to trainer-led classroom sessions. The safety of your team members is well worth the investment.
I am often asked to write product reviews for clients. I decline unless the product is of sufficient quality that I am comfortable with two things:
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1) That I can freely write an accurate review, and
2) That the review will represent my clients in a way that meets my responsibility as their marketing consultant.
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It is a pleasure to run across a product that meets both of those criteria, as is the case with the Fatigue Awareness for Pilots course.
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In the interest of full disclosure, Steve Leon of HighTop Company is a client of Aviation Business Consultants (ABCI), and the review below represents my professional opinion of the product.
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Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.
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Overview
Pilot fatigue is “insidious,” even for experts and experienced pilots.
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Pilot fatigue seems like a simple concept, and the solution seems simple as well. Pilots are professional people and are expected to simply use their mandated “down time” to get enough sleep. They are expected to manage their lives in a way that does not compromise their fitness for duty. Our lives as passengers depend on this expectation, and our businesses (if we work in aviation) depend on it as well.
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But the concept and the practice are often more complex. Pilot fatigue was cited as a major factor in response to the recent Colgan Air crash in Buffalo, New York.
Bill Voss, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, said policies involving fatigue can be difficult to implement because workers don’t like having their employers interfere with their personal lives. “It’s hard to tell people what to do during their day off,” he said.
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Voss, a former pilot, said he’d felt fatigue while on the job. “There are times you work long hours,” Voss said. “It’s insidious. It’s just like any other impairment. It’s like having too much to drink. It can sneak up on you.”
- Stephanie Chen, CNN
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HighTop Company has developed a web-based course for pilots. This course reviews the types, recognition, reduction, prevention and hazards of fatigue associated with professional pilots.
Benefits
The format is very accommodating of pilots’ objectives and lifestyle, since the course can be completed anywhere there is an internet connection. So those bits and pieces of time spent at an FBO, terminal or hotel can be put to productive use.
The bookmarking feature improves on this – each time a pilot logs into the program he is taken directly to the place he left off.
The interactive nature of the program provides animated illustrations and vivid imagery that assist with material retention.
The graphic images are evocative and entertaining. They keep a pilot’s interest and help to remember key concepts.
The content is very relevant to pilots – it addresses the reality of schedule, caffeine, monotony, oxygen, vibration, and other factors affecting the real environment of pilots, and how it is different from fatigue in other professions.
The tone is respectful of learners – we are all familiar with courses that were written by a lawyer and then delivered verbatim by a human resource person that doesn’t understand the material. This course is practical, useful, and sincere.
Course Content
This is an example where a drawing is used to add interest to a graph or chart. The visual image builds during the discussion.
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It is apparent that this course was written by and for pilots. The content is far and away above most “courseware” sold online that is little more than a PowerPoint presentation with narration.
Resource Section
The resource section is a great addition to the course because this applies the knowledge to the real world. Incidents are dissected to explain what happened and how they could have been prevented.
Competitive Analysis
The ideal training materials are cost-effective, time independent, offer rich multimedia experiences, include interaction to keep the learner’s interests, accommodate completion during multiple sittings with interruptions, and include a means of providing completion records and certificates for your personnel files.
Summary
This is an ideal course for initial and recurrent training for professional pilots. It addresses a very timely and important topic, and it belongs in the library and training plan for airlines, air transport companies, charter operations, commuter services, business flight operations departments, and flight training organizations.
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