More than just ranting…(aka the customer comes last)
More really bad (ie easy to fix/avoid-in-the-first-place) customer service errors.
Starting with the local air travel quasi-monopoly British Airways. I used to be happy to recommend BA to people I knew and was generally very happy with what they had to offer, however over the past few years they have consistently been frittering away this reputation and now, I’d have to say I only fly with them because, well if you live in the UK…there really isn’t any other choice, at least not with anything like the same flexibility, schedule, etc. for a full service airline. (Most major airports in the world have a similar ‘lock-in’ with one major carrier creating a vast network of local monopolies where the customer is basically told to take it or leave it (despite these same customers being the voters that elect the legislators who ultimately oversee the regulators who perpetuate this ridiculously anti-competitive state of affairs…)
Anyhow, yesterday was a classic example of why instead of being treated like a respected and important client of BA (which call-me-crazy but as a gold card holder for the past 7 years and having earned well over a million miles while purchasing thousands and thousands of pounds of their services each year…), I was treated like just another guy with a ticket - rules are rules - move along buddy… I had some excess baggage, and they charge a fortune for extra baggage, £250 in my case…) Doesn’t matter that I’m a gold card holder. Doesn’t matter that on the inbound flight I had no baggage (they didn’t offer me any money back, funny…), doesn’t matter that for that matter, probably on 80+% of the flights I’ve taken with them over the years - most of which have been in business class - I’ve had no baggage, doesn’t matter what the actual amount of baggage/capacity of the flight overall was, you are over the limit sir and unless you pay up your baggage doesn’t go with you. Why don’t all these other things matter? Well because they don’t have any idea of who I am at the agent level … all that data BA has on me, used for nothing more than to send me promotional emails (and since my kids get the same emails, I figure the only data they seem smart enough to use is the email address…) Indeed yesterday I have to say the agent was courteous and seemed even slightly embarrassed (and then relieved that I didn’t jump up and down and shout at him for 5 minutes - I think they get alot of that…) - the problem isn’t the staff, it’s the policies. Their policies don’t recognize top customers, their policies don’t include arming their customer facing employees with customer information, their policies don’t empower employees to make discretionary decisions, basically their policies are more akin to those of a bureaucratic monopoly that those of a customer-focused firm in a competitive marketplace. Very sad indeed and frustrating. Maybe it was appropriate that I pay the excess baggage, perhaps I should have been comp’ed - I don’t know…that’s not what wound me up. What wound me up was the complete lack of any sort coherent customer-aware policy and worse that I didn’t have any course of action: taking my business elsewhere - as long as I am based in London - is just not an option. (It would inconvenience me far more that it might hurt BA’s bottom line…)
Next up CNBC.com… a couple days ago I linked to a video on cnbc.com featuring Weatherbill’s CEO. Today I wanted to show it to someone and clicked on the link. Well, after 24 hours you need to have a paid subscription to see the archives. (I’m not going to debate now whether or not that is a good policy or business model etc. - you can probably guess what I think in any case…) It costs $9.95/mo (no option to pay in another currency of course…); I already pay for a cable subscription to CNBC (gee why wouldn’t they think to offer web access to their cable subscribers…); but I’m more often in front of my laptop than my TV and I think it’s a really good business news service so I thought what the hell and spent 5 minutes signing up and giving them by credit card number. Then I went to back to try an watch the Weatherbill clip. Boom. You need a Windows PC and Media Player to use CNBCplus. Mac and Quicktime users bugger off. Funny thing is the free service works just fine with Quicktime. What the hell is up with that kind of decision??? You actually convince someone to buy a paid subscription to your website and then you give them fewer choices and try to lock them in to one proprietary standard. And they can’t even hide behind some lame excuse that they don’t know how to make it work because it works on the free-to-view site! (Maybe I shouldn’t shout too loud lest they disable this compatibility…)
January 22nd, 2007 at 4:20 pm
[…] Sean’s having trouble finding vendors that try to Keep the Customer Satisfied; in fact he seems to be doing better at finding Deputy Sheriffs, according to his recent post. Deputy Sheriff said to me Tell me what you come here for, boy. You better get your bags and flee. You’re in trouble boy, And now you’re heading into more. […]
January 22nd, 2007 at 5:55 pm
While I agree wholeheartedly with the CNBC example and your general thrust, I wonder how much excess baggage you think you should be allowed to carry?
In this case, my idea of good service would be to recognise who you are at the time of purchase and perhaps allow you a slightly larger baggage allowance (but what would happen if the flight were filled with frequent flyers?) and then to treat ALL passengers with equal courtesy and common sense.
Good service should not be about treating someone better at the expense of others.
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:57 am
Don’t you know who I am?!
January 23rd, 2007 at 9:53 am
Of course! I guess you didn’t see the update to my previous post on BA.
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:19 am
John, my primary point was not so much that I shouldn’t have to pay excess or get a discount, but was to underline that BA does a dismal job using all the information they have on me to give me a better service. In my mind, whether or not to charge me extra for baggage has a number of other variables which have to do with the specifics of the flight itself (how full, how much cargo, etc.) that could be coupled with the situation of each passenger at point of check-in. Indeed they could even have an advance estimation of baggage (and thus possibly optimize what extra cargo they could take on) by soliciting an estimate from passengers when they check in online (and rewarding them for good and accurate estimates.) That way, they could have for example either comp’ed my extra bags, creating a very very positive customer experience for one of their top customers or explained more credibly that the flight was full and already heavily laden so I would need to pay extra. So the answer to your first question I think is ‘it depends’…on my history and on circumstances. In this particular case, having seen the flight was only circa 2/3rds full, and that I paid full business class fare (in part because I mistakenly thought that would make up for the extra baggage I knew I would have - more than the £40 of extra baggage allowable embedded in a business class ticket), I think the £250 BA earned was not worth it in the long run and in this particular instance they could have waived or discounted the charge.
I actually disagree with your last point on two levels. Firstly I think it is entirely appropriate and commercially astute to treat your best customers as such. Clearly you should treat ALL customers with equal courtesy and common sense (in the hope that the service will continue to grow in their esteem and they become more frequent and / or loyal as a result.) When I fly Virgin for example, I would hope for good and courtesy service but I would not take any umbrage at not being given the same advantages as somebody who flies with them weekly. Secondly, there are many non-rivalous perks that a company can offer to its best customers (or prospects for that matter) without it being at the expense of any other customer. I don’t believe that zero-sum arithmetic is often relevant in terms of good customer service.
Finally (and this relates to the point I made in the post wrt to my usual baggage requirements), if the flight had been filled with frequent flyers, statistically I would guess there would have been very very little hold baggage (before the recent hand-luggage restrictions perhaps none at all)…and so my extra suitcase would have been rattling around all alone. Business travellers in general have little or no baggage (but pay the highest fares.)
I don’t want to seem to be ranting too much about my particular case, and perhaps I should have given more detailed reasoning in my original post - so thanks for your comment prodding me to do so. The point I really want(ed) to get accross was that BA (and sooo many other companies) could do sooo much better with relatively little extra effort; working smarter (not harder) with the vast amounts of information that they (should) have at their disposal to make their customers happier and ultimately their bottom line bigger.
Anyhow, I hope this is more clear and thanks again for reading and taking the time to comment.