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Successful companies know about customers. Not every customer is right, but treating customers right will serve you well.
Airlines often provide powerful examples of operational decisions hurting customers and company reputations. Learn from their mistakes. Don’t duplicate them.
American Airlines recently chose to send planes from Miami airport to multiple locations without placing the customers’ luggage on the flights. The airline failed to notify impacted customers until, in some reports, more than 1.5 hours after the planes had landed at their destinations!
Sending planes without luggage to keep flights on schedule may make sense; doing it without notifying the impacted customers is disgraceful.
Imagine taking a flight, walking to baggage claim, waiting for more than an hour and no one tells you none of the luggage was on the plane! Clearly people at American knew the flights carried no luggage when they left Miami. Why not tell the passengers?
American representatives at the destination airports knew they didn’t unload any luggage from the planes. Why not tell the passengers?
Communication is key
American PR has since claimed mechanical problems with luggage handling in Miami. So what? Did that prevent communication with customers? All company operations sometimes have to make suboptimal decisions, but why irritate your customers further by not informing them?
Any company that refuses to communicate with customers harmed by its operational failures better hope its customers have very limited choices.
Presuming your business faces competition and relies on satisfied customers, consider their needs and wants when dealing with unexpected issues, and communicate with them as promptly as humanly possible when problems do arise. Most customers react patiently with accurately communicated operational problems.
Successful companies know about customers. Not every customer is right, but treating customers right will serve you well.
