Dear US Airways,
This is an exercise to see if you are listening to illustrate a point. Take note: 1 flight attendant with an attitude + my blog + social media distribution = an example of how bad news about your brand can spread. This post isn’t about me and my experience so much as a case study about the importance of monitoring new media channels.
I just got off of a 9 hour flight from Rome to Philadelphia, flight #719. Throughout the duration of the flight I got the impression that I was an inconvenience for the flight attendant with some very simple questions and requests. This is an example of poor customer service. Nevermind the fact that the flight left late, the attendant that checked our baggage was rude, I felt packed into the plane like a sardine, there’s no leg room and to call the in flight meal edible is a stretch. Being treated rudely by a representative of your business is a mark against your company. Given that our flight tickets cost us nearly $2000, I’d expect some modicum of warmth and hospitality. If she’d been wearing a name tag, I would certainly be calling her out by name.
Every other flight attendant seemed nice enough, one in particular smiled widely, unfortunately she was on the other aisle, not ours. Our flight attendant was rude when I asked about the possibility of getting a drink after everyone in our surrounding area had already gotten one…she snapped back, “just give me a minute.” She was rude when I inquired about a lactose free meal for my wife, she didn’t even make the slightest attempt to find a solution that would work for us. So my wife got the beef stew, which aside from being barely edible, upset her stomach. Much to our surprise we were offered a turkey sandwich within an hour of our arrival, she certainly could have offered that at meal time if she chose to. She was rude when she came by with the cart to offer water and orange juice. I asked if I could get apple juice. Instead of responding kindly that she didn’t have it on the cart and that she’d bring it to me after she made her rounds with OJ and water, she again took a sharp tone and told me that “it’s only orange juice and water, it’s a hydration service, you can come to the back if you want something else.”
Every interaction with her was snide and rude. So here’s a social media case study everyone…I’m an unhappy customer, having a bad experience with an employee of US Airways, let’s see if anyone from US Airways is listening. If they do respond, we’ll all get to see how they handle this. If no one answers, it becomes a prime example of how a business will lose out by not being on social media. Mark my words on this, if they don’t respond, this will have been my last US Airways flight.
Ok, so here it is US Airways…your move.
P.S My last Southwest Airlines flight didn’t charge me for bags, and our flight attendants all smiled, in fact one of them rapped the safety announcements, it was EPIC!
UPDATE: Mark Aaron Murnahan (@murnahan) wrote a great blog post called: Is US Airways Listening to Social Media? Are you listening? He follows up my blog post with a paragraph I couldn’t have said better myself, so I’ll quote it here, but definitely go check out the full article.
What if US Airways hears this message of discontent about their brand and ignores it? It means that they will further lose faith from this consumer, and also that of others he encounters … both online and offline. On the other hand, what if US Airways used it as an opportunity to regain his faith? What if they were able to improve his opinion of US Airways and even come to make him a fan of their company? Can you imagine the value of turning it completely around and showing a disgruntled consumer that you really do want to make them a happy customer?
(via www.awebguy.com)