Customer Journey Mapping and Research for Albuquerque International Sunport

Urgent pain point: Albuquerque International Sunport (ABQ) could not reliably capture fresh, real-time passenger feedback across multiple airport touchpoints—concessions, airport parking, and third-party transportation (especially Uber/Lyft)—creating a risk that any operational changes would miss what matters most to travelers.

As the state’s primary commercial airport, ABQ needed a clear, timely picture of customer needs before implementing improvements and therefore engaged Gold Research. The core question: how can ABQ collect accurate, in-the-moment insights at varied flight times, concourses, concession areas, parking zones, and pick-up/drop-off locations so decisions to optimize concessions, parking, and third-party transportation are driven by real passenger experience—not assumptions?

Differentiator: Gold Research was chosen for its dual expertise in customer journey mapping and collecting real-time feedback from airport customers while they are going through their travel experiences.

First — Customer journey mapping: Gold Research mapped passenger touchpoints and experience pathways to define the journey and key moments of truth (customer journey, passenger experience, touchpoints).

Then — Real-time feedback collection: Gold Research collected in‑the‑moment feedback from airport customers as they moved through the travel experience to capture real-time insights and sentiment.

Methodologies/technologies used: customer journey mapping and real-time feedback collection (real-time insights, in-the-moment feedback, passenger experience research).

Outcome: All planned research was developed and executed within 60 days.

1. 60-day execution — rapid delivery that enabled faster decision-making.
2. Immediate data access — incoming data available in real time (no waiting for results), improving mobile survey turnaround time.
3. In‑the‑moment shopper insights — targeted feedback from actual ABQ customers across travel, parking and shopping touchpoints, supporting actionable solutions and potential shopper insights savings.
4. Continuous monitoring — guaranteed accuracy and richer insights than traditional online surveys.

Business impact: decision-makers received actionable customer journey maps that highlighted pain points, triggers, revenue‑leakage areas and moments‑of‑truth — providing clear blueprints to optimize customer experience and prioritize investments.

Testimonial: “Gold Research's customer journey research and mapping solution provided the highest level of research rigor that we desired. Their efforts helped us understand exactly what we needed to do to improve our customer experiences.” – Nyika A. Allen, CM., Director of Aviation, Albuquerque International Airport.

Forward-looking benefit: this approach enables faster iterations, clearer prioritization for ROI, and a repeatable method to scale customer journey research across additional airport or retail contexts.