May 24, 2012

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Killer Customer Service, or Customer-Killer Service?

June 26, 2011 By 5 Comments

A friend of mine has been a member of a particular airline’s frequent flier program (we will call this major US airline, AirlineX) for a number of years. He even has a credit card linked to that account to help accrue points. This friend had earned enough miles for a free trip to Europe but hadn’t been able to fly AirlineX for awhile since his company now required him to fly the cheapest option (which this airline never was). Knowing that his hard-earned points would expire soon, he called the airline to see what could be done to retain them. AirlineX told him that he had to fly a “qualifying flight” in order to retain his points. Unable to do that due to the aforementioned company policy (and with no other potential trips on the horizon), my friend lost his accrued points (and a future flight to Europe).

Now, this happens all the time; that is the part of the formula for points-based loyalty programs. Keep customers coming back so they will continue to earn points and hopefully continue to spend money with the business.

The real pain in this case is the monthly emails that my friend receives from the airline. Each month, AirlineX sends an email showing how many frequent flier points he has (or at this point, doesn’t have). This is most likely intended to help the airline stay top-of-mind with the customer and gently encourage them to book their next flight with the airline. However, in this case, the monthly email only serves as a reminder that this particular customer doesn’t have any more points with AirlineX – and that hurts.

Customers are watching the actions of your company. Every email they receive, commercial they view, social media site they “like”, and direct mail piece they read (or not) affects their view of your business and their overall customer service experience. It may be something that seems small to your organization which pushes the customer out the door.

What do your marketing communications say about your company? Are they helping your customers to buy more from you? Or are they painful reminders of a damaged relationship, resulting in customer-killer service?

(Photo credit: marco)

Filed Under: Customer experience, Customer service, Featured Tagged With: , ,

Airline Customer Service Makes All the Difference

June 19, 2008 By 16 Comments

The Airline ExperienceThe airline industry is in quite a mess.  Extra fees being charged for bags have passengers feeling even more “nickle and dimed” than ever.  Fuel costs are driving more people to take their vacations at home.  Cut-backs at airlines mean fewer employees doing more work = grumpy people.  What is an airline to do?

Would you be surprised if I said “Improve the Customer Experience”!  Well, it is not just me saying it this time.  J.D. Power and Associates just released the results of their 2008 North American Airline Satisfaction Study.  Declining customer satisfaction is linked with the level of customer service provided by airline staff, even more than it is linked with concerns over extra fees and prices.  Per the press release:

The study finds that satisfaction with “people” factors—including knowledge, courtesy and helpfulness of reservation and gate agents, check-in staff and flight crew—has declined dramatically since 2007, and is the leading contributing factor to the overall decline in customer satisfaction with airlines in 2008. The decrease in satisfaction with people factors is more than twice as large as the decline in satisfaction with price factors.

The press release goes on to quote Sam Thanawalla, director of their global hospitality and travel practice, who urges airlines to invest in their employees in order to improve the customer experience.

Here is the Customers Rock! take on the situation:

In a tough economy like this one, customers will be very choosy about where they spend their hard-earned money.  If a customer has decided to take a trip, they want to it to be great!  Airlines need to get with the program and look at the experience from the customer’s perspective.  It won’t take much “mystery shopping” to figure out where to find the pain points.  It could be just a few simple things that make the difference, but airlines need to get into a conversation with their customers in order to figure this out.  Southwest Airlines has done an exceptionally good job of this with their Nuts About Southwest blog, even changing some of their policies as a result of customer feedback.  (Fun aside – Southwest just blogged about MyStarbucksIdea, and now their customers are starting to ask for MySouthwestIdea… think it will catch on?)

Yes, the customer experience really does matter to customers, and it matters more every day.  Marketing, customer service, HR, sales – all departments need to put their heads together and figure out how to create better customer relationships via the experience.  Quick – do it before your competition does! 

(Photo credit: egdigital)

Filed Under: Customer experience, Customer strategy, social media Tagged With: , , , , , ,