Hit # 1 – At Gate #3, Providence RI, I had a great experience with the US Airways Gate agent. She had noticed, after I had already boarded the plane, that my frequent flyer number was not properly entered. To be honest, I was expecting a long and frustrating procedure where I’d have to get off the plane in order for the agent to clear things up. Instead, she took my ticket, went back to her station, changed the number in the system and walked back onto the plane to present me with a new boarding pass with the proper information. On top of that, I received credits for my flight, talk about customer service!
Miss # 1 – US Airways Pilot DC – Providence. The plane just started pulling away from the gate and the pilot announced we would have to de-ice, and there would be a 10 minute delay. I travel enough to know it’s rarely ever only 10 minutes and assumed we would be on our way in about 30. For the next hour and a half we received no communication other than a brief announcement from the flight crew that we were still waiting for de-icing.
A whole two hours passed until the plane was finally towed to the de-icing bay, followed by another half an hour of waiting for the de-icing to complete. When the process was finally over we heard a mere two words from the pilot “De-icing complete.” No apology, no regard for the passengers’ wasted time, just two words which left an entire plane full of passengers frustrated and angry. What’s the lesson? A lack of communication when there is an obvious problem leads to a more bitter customer.
Hit # 2 – Believe it or not, the flight crew wasn’t even being relayed any information from our quiet pilot. I overheard one of the flight crew members say “Two hours of keeping us in the dark and he only has two words to say? De-icing complete? Are you kidding me?!” It helped to ease the pain knowing that the flight attendants acknowledged the lack of communication from the pilot and were genuinely upset by his inability to exchange information. Are you feeling the same pain your customer is? Don’t be afraid to share your sentiments!
Try and keep an eye out for out of the ordinary situations in your life…we can often learn valuable lessons from them! ← Click To Tweet
What are some recent stories you can share which taught you some useful sales lessons?