{"id":606,"date":"2011-12-29T10:52:24","date_gmt":"2011-12-29T16:52:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/etereman.com\/remanu\/?p=606"},"modified":"2011-12-29T10:52:24","modified_gmt":"2011-12-29T16:52:24","slug":"when_things_dont_go_as_planned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/etereman.com\/remanu\/2011\/12\/29\/when_things_dont_go_as_planned\/","title":{"rendered":"When Things Don't Go As Planned, How's Your Customer Service?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nI flew almost 150,000 miles this year. And it took until today, December 22nd<\/sup>, for something positive and worthy of writing about to happen to me. Yes, I could have written an article at least once each week of the year about what not <\/em>to do based on the crappy service and frequent lies most airlines dish out. But I\u2019d been on the lookout for something great to happen \u2013 something worth sharing.
\nAfter a weeklong family trip to Park City, Utah, my family and I returned to the Salt Lake City airport eager to get back home for the holidays (that\u2019s four of us, seven bags, and a connecting flight through Denver to be exact). Sure enough, our flight was delayed. Not to worry, though \u2013 it was only delayed forty-five minutes and, with a two-hour layover in Denver, we\u2019d be OK. And then the announcements started. Every once in awhile, an announcement would let us know the flight was going to be a little later than expected. In the end, we took off almost ninety minutes late. That\u2019s pretty normal. Except that it wasn\u2019t.
\nFor a change, the gate agents told the truth. Instead of keeping us in the dark like most airlines, the women at the counter gave us frequent updates about what was happening. For a change, the gate agents were empathetic, understanding, and helpful. They made announcements specific to those people with connecting flights and explained what the options were. They calculated the revised layover times, and showed passengers how far their next departure gate was from our Denver arrival gate. For a change, they put four people at the gate to answer our questions rather than leaving the counter empty. I was pretty impressed with what I was witnessing.
\nAnd then things got interesting.<\/strong>
\nThe gate agents proactively began making announcements with timesaving ideas. First, they made it known that we had five passengers destined for New York that would have the tightest connection. They asked that when we land, all passengers remain seated until these five passengers got off. It\u2019s not the first time I\u2019ve heard of that concept, but is the first time I\u2019ve seen it happen prior<\/em> to boarding the flight. Then, the gate agents asked for anyone willing to gate-check bags to come forward and turn them in right away (this was 30 minutes before our plane had even arrived in Salt Lake). The agents explained that anyone willing to do this would still get their bags on the jet bridge when we landed, but this process would speed up boarding by approximately ten minutes because less people would be trying to jam their carry-ons into the overhead bins. People lined up with pleasure.
\nWhen we boarded the plane, the flight attendants greeted us with smiles and expedited the takeoff by helping with bags and seat assignments. We were in the air before we knew it. The pilot came on and apologized for the delay with a compassionate tone and delivered a little something unexpected. \u201cBecause of the inconvenience, folks,\u201d he said, \u201cwe\u2019re going to go ahead and allow to enjoy all twenty-four channels of DIRECTV with our compliments.\u201d This might not seem like a big deal, but to the 150 passengers onboard it was pure gold.
\nJust before our initial decent, a flight attendant made an announcement reinforcing the earlier request to let the New York-bound passengers off the plane first. She even had those five passengers raise their hands and asked the rest of us to look around and find the five \u2013 so that we knew to let them pass.
\nGuess what?<\/strong>
\nThe folks headed to New York made their flight.
\nSo did we.<\/strong>
\nLet\u2019s review what just happened here and make it repeatable for your company. In other words, when things don\u2019t go as planned (maybe you don\u2019t fly airplanes for a living, but I\u2019ll bet you\u2019ve had to tell your customers about a late delivery at some point), here\u2019s what to do:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Be pleasant. <\/strong>You\u2019re already delivering bad news. No need to deliver it with a bad attitude. In fact, being friendly will go a long way to earning the understanding of your inconvenienced customers. <\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Be empathetic. <\/strong>If you don\u2019t care about your customer, they\u2019re certainly not going to care about your explanations (er, excuses). Put yourself in their shoes \u2013 imagine that what\u2019s happening to your customer is actually happening to you. Once you know how your customer feels<\/em> you\u2019ll be better prepared to help them. Which leads me to my next point\u2026<\/strong><\/li>\n
  3. Be helpful. <\/strong>Your customer needs your help. Your customer is depending on your help. Your customer wants your help. So\u2026help them! Even a little bit. Your mission is to help them the best (and the most) that you can.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  4. Be solution-oriented<\/strong>. Nobody wants to hear what you can\u2019t do. Nobody wants to hear that \u201cthere\u2019s nothing anyone can do.\u201d There\u2019s always something. Always. So focus on what can be done and deliver that<\/em> right away.<\/li>\n
  5. Be consistent. <\/strong>Be sure that everyone on your team knows what\u2019s happening and how you\u2019re solving the problem. Your customer will automatically feel better if the entire company is on the same page. Just think of my story above\u2026the gate agents, the flight attendants, the pilots were ALL focused on making things right.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  6. Be thorough. <\/strong>Delivering some help is a start. Walking your customer all the way through the solution, and then ensuring the solution works is, well\u2026best. Attack the problem from every angle at once and ensure that you eliminate (or mitigate) the issue. The flight attendants could have just said, \u201clooks like everyone will be able to make their flights, but we don\u2019t have any gate information\u2026be sure to check with a gate agent when we land,\u201d like most flight attendants do. But these flight attendants were different. They worked their tails off to be sure that we were thoroughly taken care of.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  7. Be thankful. <\/strong>Thank your customers. Thank them for their understanding. Thank them for their cooperation. Thank them for their business. Thank them for trusting you. Thank them. Thank them. Thank them. Oh, but don\u2019t just say it. Do it. Show them that you\u2019re thankful by serving them well and by doing your best. Go above and beyond to make them feel your gratitude.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  8. Be better next time. <\/strong>This one\u2019s a bonus. But it\u2019s also the next logical step. There\u2019s two ways to be better; either by preventing the problem from happening in the future, or by being better prepared to react and respond to the problem in the future. I suggest you work on both strategies.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    That\u2019s a lot to learn on a layover, no? Put this one down in the history books, folks. An airline gave great service. They just might be on to something here!
    \nJust in case you\u2019re wondering what airline I flew \u2013 it was Frontier Airlines. And the crew working the flight both on the ground and in the air were top notch. If you\u2019re planning a trip, give Frontier a try. I hope your experience is just as remarkable as mine.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I flew almost 150,000 miles this year. And it took until today, December 22nd, for something positive and worthy of writing about to happen to me. Yes, I could have written an article at least once each week of the year about what not to do based on the crappy service and frequent lies most […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[20,62,63],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhen Things Don't Go As Planned, How's Your Customer Service? - REMANU<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/etereman.com\/remanu\/2011\/12\/29\/when_things_dont_go_as_planned\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When Things Don't Go As Planned, How's Your Customer Service? - REMANU\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I flew almost 150,000 miles this year. 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