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High Impact Quality: Customer Another example of customer service gone awry may help to illustrate the criticality of regaining our footing and refocusing squarely on the customer. We're not proposing a return to the supercilious rhetoric of "customer first." There are customers, fortunately a small percentage, who cannot be placed first without placing your business last. And, unfortunately, this small percentage is large enough that they can make the difference between a profitable and an unprofitable business. Still, there is a need for a reasoned and practical focus on delivering service that builds client loyalty. Another counter-example, this time from the airline industry may help to illustrate how far afield from this ideal it is possible to stray.
The airlines are not known for great service. Exactly why the airlines should be the archetypes of poor service is somewhat puzzling. They cater to a relatively select percentage of the population who are purchasing an expensive product. A family of five is easily spending $1,500 to spend a few hours in the airline's company and yet that company has all the surly malevolence of a biker bar just before the next fight breaks out. With a few notable exceptions (Southwest, anyone?) the airline industry is an embarrassing throwback to the comfort and amenities characteristic of cattle cars during the dust bowl, stalls removed to cram more people in, shuttling broken laborers back and forth across the plains.
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The airline industry is an embarrassing throwback to the service standards on cattle cars during the dust bowl. |
Sometimes, though, even the airlines outdo themselves.
Near the end of a bumpy flight from New York to London a flight attendant noticed an elderly lady who did not have her seat belt fastened. The overhead announcements were ringing out, “Please fasten your seat belts and return your seats to their full and upright position. We’ll be landing in a few minutes.”
The young gentleman pointed up toward the fading vibrations of the announcement and gently reminded the woman, “Please fasten your seat belt ma’am. We’ll be landing momentarily.”
There seemed to be a language issue or a hearing issue or an age issue, the woman fumbled anxiously with the belt but could not accomplish that reassuring click.
The flight attendant assumed it was a compliance issue and said, much more loudly, and much closer to her face, “Fasten your seat belt!”
More fumbling, but no progress. The attendant grabbed the ends of the belt and smashed them together around the woman’s lap while the PA announced with even more urgency, “Flight attendants, please take your seats for immediate landing.”
Despite the fevered mashing and bashing the seat belt would not click into place. The belt may have been jammed, or broken, or twisted, but the flight attendant quickly became red in the face, clawing at the belt and pawing at the woman’s mid-section, trying to force the belt into place.
At this point the woman was protesting and pulling at the belt while the attendant was urgently pushing and the announcement was now at full blast, “Flight attendants, take your seats immediately, there is an imminent threat that your spinal cord will be snapped in two places if you’re still standing in the aisle during the next six seconds.”
Flight attendants are a brave lot, dedicated to service, professionals, generally. They happily give their lives for their passengers, assisting the least capable off the plane in emergencies, despite grave risk to their person. Like firemen, albeit with drinks and snack crackers in hand, they patrol the aisles, protecting their charges from danger.
Except this time.
Enraged to a purplish hue, the young man, threw down the seat belt, stood up straight and screamed at the elderly woman, “Well, Just Die then!” and dashed up the aisle to scramble into the three-point harness on his jump seat.
The plane landed with a feather touch and no one died, despite best wishes to the contrary. I’m sure this airline, which is normally a superior performer, did not view this as a great day.
It's not clear that the flight attendent was untrained or unskilled. Prior to this incident he seemed the soul of politeness and scampered about the cabin in a crystalline simulacritude of politeness and efficiency. Under pressue, slight though it may have seemed to an outside observer, he developed some pretty wide fissures around some, undoubtably, pre-existing fault lines. He was focused on the customer, trying to "help," but trying so hard as to overwhelm common sense.
In our search for the balance between focusing appropriately on the customer and reaching for the Maalox, there is always a need to for a measured approach.
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