aNewDomain
— After visiting Gogo’s headquarters in Itasca, Illinois a few years ago, it was not hard to be blown away by the company’s shiny new digs in downtown Chicago at 111 North Canal Street. The building is now dubbed the “Gogo building” because the tech company has the top four floors.
The USGBC awarded the building Gold LEED certification for its sustainable, eco-friendly practices.
The elevators have no buttons. You swipe your employee security card and pick a floor, then the card reader sends you to a numbered elevator.
Now that I’m home and have had time to ponder the elevators, I am frightened in hindsight. I’m thinking the building may be in charge of the people. I doubt George Orwell would have gotten in an elevator like that one. But he might have ridden an elevator to get a behind-the-scenes tour of Gogo’s headquarters. It was cool. As guests of Gogo’s on November 12, I saw where Gogo engineers put Wi-Fi systems and antennae through their paces and how Gogo monitors its inflight Wi-Fi services around the globe troubleshooting 24/7.
Gogo also has a customer service team in Denver that troubleshoots connectivity issues as they happen.
As you’ll see in my video below, Gogo’s customer service team welcomes inflight chat. They field about 2,500 chats per day, and instead of viewing that as a headache, the team welcomes each opportunity to improve the service.
I think this could put Gogo on par with Nordstrom in terms of amazing customer service. Perhaps the Gogo team should be called our Wi-Fi Concierge.
Here’s my visit to Gogo, with a behind the scenes tour of engineering and customer service and an intro to 2KU satellite Wi-Fi which I detailed in a separate post.
So when you buy a flight pass from Gogo or inflight Internet from an airline, remember that there is a team standing by to troubleshoot any connectivity issues you may have. When I experience slow connectivity or dropped connections with Gogo inflight Wi-Fi, I don’t hesitate to chat with the customer service team.
On a recent Delta flight, a woman complained to a flight attendant about her inability to connect. The flight attendant told her she didn’t know how to help, which is usually the case. I suggested the passenger hit the chat button and talk to Gogo’s customer support, but she looked at me like I was speaking a language she didn’t understand. So I resumed watching Delta’s complimentary videos on Delta Studio because my iPad had a solid Wi-Fi connection.
I also got to take the new 2KU system for a spin on Gogo’s test plane, and watching live TV in HD on an airplane was a lot of fun. Here’s a look at my Gogo Test Flight.
Videos and stills: By Terry Gardner. All rights reserved.
For aNewDomain, I’m Terry Gardner.
