Service, But Not As We Know It
Lessons on How Not To Do Things From the World’s Least Favorite Airline. By Julian Aldridge, Founder, Enact Agency
“I’ve been to almost as many places as my luggage.” — Bob Hope
Every cloud has a silver lining, or two. And the silver linings from this sorry tale relate to how not to treat customers, particularly loyal customers, particularly those who are so loyal they use virtually only your services, forswearing all others. Lessons courtesy of the airline that used to employ the tagline, ‘The World’s Favorite Airline’. Quite how they got away with that is for another story.
Years ago, I ceased to complain about every travel inconvenience, issue and idiotic thing that happened on my journeys. Yes, they were funny, but positivity when traveling is a better tonic than negativity. When you travel a lot you have to view the glass as half full, or else you’d die of dehydration, almost regardless of the situation.
Consequently, when my first flight broke en-route to London on August 15th at about 3.30pm, I was sanguine. Laura, my travel angel, had booked me on the next one out, departing about 4 hours after my original departure time. It was also a better plane, with nicer seats. All was good in case I had to change planes.
Some three hours later, after the engineers had been on board for two hours, the British Airways captain had informed us that, since the restarting of the engine had not solved the problems (apparently Airbus engines are more finicky like that than my iPhone, where a good restart solves most issues), he was calling Heathrow (from San Francisco) to see if they could help troubleshoot.
Not encouraging.
At that point I disembarked (to the clearly expressed annoyance of the cabin crew who insisted that the flight was not cancelled and that all passengers should stay on the sick plane) and boarded my new BA flight. The gate agent informed me that since it was only 45 minutes to departure, my bag would follow on the next plane out (the next day). Not the end of the world, just annoying. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? They had spoken to the baggage team at SFO, my bag was tagged and identified, and their computers would do the rest.
Everything Was In The Hands Of British Airways. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
On landing at LHR ten hours later there was no news. At all. Other than a nice email informing me that BA had rebooked me on a flight the following day on Virgin. In economy. Despite the fact that I’d paid the cost of a months’ rent on a penthouse apartment in Manhattan for a seat on their flight, and, as the system should have shown, was already in London.
Details, details.
Oh, and my original flight had been cancelled, despite the assurances of the captain and crew to the contrary. Sometimes gut intuition beats professional protestations.
Things were not going well, but they were about to get worse, much worse.
One thing, amongst many, that all Challengers know, is that service is king. And queen. And Jack. It’s the ace of hearts up their sleeve. Incumbents by their very nature are set in their ways. Slow, cumbersome, and tend to be anything but service oriented. Perhaps they were when they started, but as they grew, so their service culture waned, sometimes to disappear completely.
Here are five lessons for every Challenger (and incumbent, should they listen) to ensure that you never go the way of British Airways. The examples below are taken from not just my experience, but also having listened to how Rebel Athletic, and my wife Karen Aldridge in particular, deal with dissatisfied customers. Because it doesn’t matter how well a company is run, sh*t will happen.
But it’s how you deal with the sh*t that matters.
Listen, First, Second and Third. To the surprise of many, I’m still married after nearly thirteen wonderful years. Partly that’s because I’ve learned (slower than most, perhaps) to listen. As someone once told me, ‘god gave us two ears, two eyes, and one mouth for a reason’. Yes, that’s a 4:1 ratio of listening devices to talking devices. When disaster (even small disasters) happen, listen first, speak fifth. Listening to grievances, not interrupting, and asking questions to show that you are listening, (not just tuning the drone of complaints out) goes a long way to calming any situation.
And, it usually gives you the key to the solution that will turn a disgruntled customer into a super fan. If you know the question, chances are you can come up with a good answer.
Ask What You Can Do. One of Karen’s most brilliant tactics when dealing with a disappointed customer is to ask, ‘how can we make this right for you?’. It’s a disarming question. It puts the onus back on the other person to come up with a solution that they feel fits the problem. It accepts that whatever happened shouldn’t have. It says that you are going to make things better. And it turns a monologue into a dialogue.
Suddenly there’s a conversation, based on the needs of the customer, and in the direction of resolution.
Take Accountability. Sometimes the problem may not even be your fault, but that’s not the point. The customer expected A from you, and get less than A. So, own it. Excuses are fuel to the fire. Ownership is the opposite, it’s a fire hose on the burning building. I’ve seen instances when just admitting to the error calms the situation. Challengers benefit from the lowly expectations that incumbents create — use that to your advantage. Big companies become arrogant; their C-suite divorced from the rest of the company. Their leadership exudes entitlement and invulnerability — and that permeates the rest of the firm.
Don’t be like that. Be humble. Be accountable. Be real.
Follow Through. If there’s one thing that can make a tricky situation truly terrifying, it’s not following through with the agreed on solution. As the old adage goes, once is a mistake, twice is stupidity. Which brings us back to honesty. If it can’t be done in the way you (and the customer) wants, say so. Immediately. If you think you can deliver two days late, promise three days and say you’ll do your best to make it less.
Under-promise, and overdeliver, then even a late delivery exceeds the (revised) expectations.
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate. If the three keys to real estate are location, location, location, then the three solution words for crisis management all begin with ‘c’. More than that, communicate proactively. When Rebel find out that there are issues with a delivery before it reaches the customer (currently 1 in 100, but still not perfect), they give advance warning and set the stage for an honest, open conversation — rather than erecting a wall of excuses, half-truths, and prevarication. Knowing the issue ahead of time puts everyone on the same page and shows the customer you are treating them as adults, as partners.
Keep it transparent. Communicate problems ahead of time.
None of the above is rocket science. But none of the above is clearly remotely in the British Airways playbook.
As I said earlier, things when I got to the UK went from bad, to badder, to barely believable.
On the afternoon of Friday August 16th, after I’d landed, I received a text (good sign) telling me that BA had opened a case file for my missing bag (not a good sign). I called and spoke to a human after a long wait and was informed that, yes, my bag was missing. No, they had no idea where it was, but that I should call back on Saturday afternoon. No one seemed in the slightest bit concerned, except me.
I called back first thing in the morning, as a text had informed me that BA had located my bag (a very good thing, but also something I knew as they said they were delivering it) and that it was being sent to my ‘delivery airport’. However, BA couldn’t say when it would arrive, despite it being blindingly obvious that it should have been on the flight arriving at 10am — as their tracking system should have known.
At 8.44pm on Saturday evening I was informed that the courier company had my bag (nearly 12 hours after the plane had landed.) A link showed me that the bag was in their system! Time to break out the champagne! I went to bed a hopeful, happy camper. My bag and I were soon to be reunited.
Later that evening an email informed me that my bag would be delivered on that day, and that it had been picked up! That seemed unlikely, given that there were only two hours of the day left, but I believed them. Stupid me.
Because, when I woke up, no bag. I’d have to have breakfast alone.
On Sunday, multiple calls later, I was guaranteed delivery between 1.30 and 3.30pm. So, we waited. And waited. And still no bag. I was sad. I missed the bag. I knew it missed me.
Monday, rinse and repeat. There had been ‘serious delays the day before’. But it was definitely coming today between 4.30 and 6.30. So, we stayed in, inflated some balloons, and invited friends around for the joyous delivery of said bag.
Which never happened, despite the tracking system showing the delivery van driving around south west London (my sister lives in Richmond, so it was very close) for eight hours that day, until finally hiding in Bermondsey for the final 90 minutes of the driver’s shift, presumably to avoid our welcoming party. Some people are just party poopers. My bag and I were having separation anxiety.
A Culture of Exceptional Service Comes From The Top. So Does The Opposite
Following a series of calls and texts and emails by me on Tuesday the 20th, demanding the $%##$# bag be delivered, or I’d send a raiding party to their depot, I was informed it would be on the first van out that day. Well, it may have been, but it ended up arriving as the last case to be delivered — at 9.53pm. Seven minutes before delivery cut off time. At last, my bag and I were together. We hugged. Tears were shed. And I had clean clothes again, after four days.
My bag arrived exactly 60 hours before my return flight to the US.
At no time did BA sound remorseful. At no time did ecourier air do anything other than send false delivery days and times. There was zero accountability. Zero urgency. Zero concern. It was ‘just another day at the office, pretending to care when we really don’t’.
At times (I’m not making this up) there were four hour gaps between my text conversations with Ayesha (who was always sorry I’d been kept waiting so long), and me. Four hours?? In four hours Kelvin Kiptumcan could have run two marathons. You can finish half the LSAT (lawyers exam in the US). You can read a huge chunk of War and Peace. You can enjoy Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra movie. But Ayesha couldn’t respond to my (increasingly creative) texts.
I don’t totally blame the operatives at the two companies. Tone, and action-orientation, come from the top. And it doesn’t have to be that way, as other airlines demonstrate on a daily basis.
When Virgin America launched their cool, chic, and classy young flight crew made you feel like a rockstar — even sitting in seat 29 B.
Southwest Airlines staff have fun before, during and after the flight. They make a bog standard airline feel welcoming, joyous, and novel. Even if they’ve been cracking the same jokes for the past 20 years.
Cathay and Singapore make every passenger feel like a VIP. I don’t care if they are faking it — and I don’t think they are — their concern and empathy shine through.
Further afield, every cashier at Walgreens greets every customer, every time — and this is just a run of the mill drug store (chemist to us Brits).
I could go on.
Service is either part of your culture, or its not. Either you listen first, ask what you can do, take accountability, follow through and proactively communicate, or you don’t.
As a Challenger you have many variables in your business over which you have little control. A culture of exceptional service is not one of them.
Happy flying everyone.
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Julian founded his agency, Enact, to help brands of all sizes discover, define, articulate, and amplify their Challenger Story. Illuminate is published weekly, and his new book Illuminate: A Challenger’s Handbook, Volume 2 is now available on Amazon. He can be reached at Julian@EnactAgency.com
