Even with the economic problems in this country executives with MBAs from famous schools still feel invincible enough to insult their customers. I’m impressed by that.
The music industry, for example, has decided to stop suing music lovers after suing about 30,000 of them in the last six years. Should we call that an improvement in customer service, times being what they are? How many times have I bought the Beatles albums with each change of format from eight-track to vinyl to CD to Internet download? They didn’t call it piracy when it worked to their advantage, but when the shoe went on the other foot they immediately cried foul and ran to their lawyers to seek revenge on us awful people, the customers.
I have to marvel at executives who spend money on legal fees to alienate their own customers. Give those folks a raise and a promotion. Maybe they will run a car company someday.
Did you bring enough for everyone?
I flew to South Carolina for Christmas on U.S. Airways. Giving them their due, all four flight segments were on time, and I arrived safely. That’s why we pay the big bucks for a ticket. Apart from the courtesy of individual flight attendants, there was no hint that the airline itself cared about the passengers in any way. Why should they? If you need to go to Charlotte, you need U.S. Airways, and they let you know that they know.
My favorite part was when they announced that they had an indeterminate number of sandwiches available for sale at $7 a copy. Not enough sandwiches for everyone, they announced in an explicit manner, and they would be offered to first-class passengers first and then on through the plane in row number sequence. Sorry about you folks in the back row. A beer to accompany it would also cost $7. They didn’t announce any shortage of those.
I cringed at the thought of paying $7, and again at the thought of the person behind me starving as I munched on the last remaining fraqment of food. In the spirit of the moment I declined both the food and the beverage.
In 1987 Jan Carlzon, president of Scandinavian Airlines, wrote a precedent-setting book on customer service. The title was Moments of Truth. You can buy copies through Amazon for a penny. Mr. Carlzon argued the value of good customer service to a company’s bottom line. This was a revolutionary concept at the time, and it may still be today. It would be a penny well-spent for most modern executives including those at U.S. Airways.
VERY well written! Customer service is certainly a lost art, however, in times like these perhaps we will see more companies recognize the fact that it’s actually the customer who feeds them!
Sadly, we have way too many people with the attitude, “This would be a great job if it weren’t for all those pesky customers!”
Best of luck in 2009!