Moments of Truth
8/26 UPDATE : US Air has announced that they are rising their bag fees even more.
Yesterday I flew across country on US Air. This was my first flight with them. And it will be my last.
At the check in counter I discovered that to check my bag I had to pay $20. When I expressed surprise the attendant was very offhand – ‘we’ve been charging since last summer.’ she said with an annoyed tone of voice and a ‘take it or leave it’ attitude.
They may indeed have been charging since last summer when the gas prices were high. But no airline that they did n regularly charges $20 per bag. There is nothing that she could do to change the charge, but she could change her attitude. Airlines in the US could take a leaf out of the Scandinavian Airlines case study.
In 1981, Jan Carlzon became CEO of the problem-ridden Scandinavian Airlines and turned the airline around by focusing on what he referred to as “moments of truth,” the various points at which people with the airline came in contact with airline customers. His book Moments of Truth: New Strategies for Today’s Customer-Driven Economy is more relevant than ever in today’s social media world, where every customer has the power to amplify their experience and influence thousands.
Carlson realized that airlines were concentrating on the technical and administrative aspects of the business and not on the customer experience. “We used to fly aircraft, and we did it very successfully. Now we have to learn the difficult lesson of how to fly people.” And every interaction with a customer is a moment of truth.
As Charlene Li said in her keynote at Search Engine Strategies: we have to move from focusing on the technical aspects of online marketing to being focused on the people. Deja vu all over again.
Aircraft in and of themselves are not of value to an airline. It is only when they are filled with satisfied customers that they have value, said Carlzon. The company thought that the technical quality of their aircraft was what influenced the perception of the customer when in fact most of them had no idea what type of aircraft they were flying in. The perceptions came from interaction with the people in the company.
“If those meetings are good meetings, our asset side on the balance side will increase. If those meetings are bad meetings, the value of our assets on the balance sheet will decrease. In other words, the only thing we have to do is to see that those critical meetings are as good as ever, that they exceed the expectations of the customers. Then we are going to be a successful company in moments of truth.”
When asked how he came to this conclusion Carlzon said it took lots of research – they asked questions and listened to what people had to say. And back in the eighties this took some serious research dollars.
But with all the social media tools as your disposal today, this is easy to do. Listen and learn is the first step in becoming customer focused.
And if you don’t take Carlzon’s advice and focus on those moments of truth, you just might find that the one customer you treated badly is on online influencer with thousands of followers on Twitter or Facebook.
Related Links:
If you enjoyed this post, please consider leaving a comment or
subscribing to the feed to have future articles delivered to your feed reader.
sally – thanks for reminding us about this. Moments of Truth is a great read and easily one of the most powerful books on customer service.
i’m hoping you, or some of your other commenters may have seen a great little booklet done by American Airlines sometime after Moments of Truth was written — they were little vignettes of the great things that American staffers had done in pursuit of delivering fabulous customer service.
there was the story about the captain who chased a customer’s toupee as it blew around on the tarmac…
and the one about the baggage handler who located an errant bag several hundred miles away, managed to get it and personally drove it over to the customer at 4am so she’d have it before her 7am presentation…
and my favorite, the one about how the plane’s crew — and passengers! — helped a traveler propose to his fiancee.
if anyone has a copy or knows where i can get one, i’d be most appreciative.
[...] link is being shared on Twitter right now. @sallyfalkow, an influential author, said Why airines in the [...]
Great example. Here’s mine (the flip side of yours): A recent cross-country flight on Southwest. I used to avoid Southwest for the random seating policy, but early check-in has solved that. Still – as I was taking my seat, I heard a passenger ask “how long is this flight?” “An hour and a half.” Red alert! Alarms! From Raleigh to Las Vegas????
Turns out there was a stop in Nashville, not listed on anyone’s itenerary (unless you were deplaning in Nashville). I expressed surprise, a little frustration, about lack of transparency. The flight attendant listened, sympathized, AGREED that it seemed unfair, and encouraged me to write to the company to express my opinion. Then she gave me a glass of wine (no charge). You think I went away angry? Nope. I’m flying SW to the west coast again next month.
[...] This post was Twitted by sallyfalkow [...]