Welcome back to the Friendly DELTA Skies (whoever said that)?

August 20th update: Delta did it again! Today, they asked for 11 “volumteers”! Do I smell a pattern?… August 13th original entry: I’m flying back to Detroit from Chicago Midway friday late afternoon. First the incoming flight is delayed by 20 minutes. Then the gate agent announces that due to weight restrictions, she needs 14 [...]

How Can Similarly Devastating Fiascos Have Such Different Impact On Customer Loyalty For BP, Toyota?

Two articles were published on the same day last week, which offered an amazing contrast between two companies that have been in the news over the last three months for the wrong kind of reason: Bad press. And in both cases, you know I’m talking about really bad press. The contrast was not so much [...]

Telling It Straight To Your Customers

Let’s imagine for a moment that your company is facing a huge problem prohibiting the delivery of its service, and while the problem itself is not something of your company’s doing, your customers are holding you responsible, flooding your call centers and demanding an immediate answer – if not a solution. What do you tell [...]

Club Med Provides Best Illustration of How To Deliver Seamless Customer Experience

Over the school break, a couple of weeks ago, my family went to Club Med (in Port Saint-Lucie, Florida) to escape the not-so-snowy but very cold winter that has settled upon our area for the past few months. It was a first for all of us, but for our kids, who had never heard about [...]

Customer Satisfaction and Customer Value Are Complimentary Concepts, Not Adversarial

A press release regarding a survey among cellular phone customers in the UK, France, and Germany states that “Telecoms Consumers Want Love, Not Discounts” (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/pan-european-survey-reveals-telecoms-consumers-want-love-not-discounts-2010-03-03?reflink=MW_news_stmp)  Should anyone be surprised? I’m not. For years, it has been shown that when it comes to satisfying and retaining customers, you’re better off delivering what you promised as opposed [...]

What Tiger Woods, John Edwards, and Toyota Have In Common (And Wish They Didn’t!)

It feels like not a day has gone by over the last couple of weeks without hearing or reading more disturbing and incriminating news about Toyota. Just yesterday, it was Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood making (controversial) news by telling Toyota customers not to drive their vehicle, then later correcting himself by specifying that he was [...]

Convenience Of Paperless Option Should Come At No Cost To Consumers

Last week I decided to do “the right thing” by going green and paying more bills online – particularly for those providers (in this case, a utility company) that promoted that option on the invoice they had sent me. After all, it’s not just “the right thing to do”; it’s easy and quick, saves the [...]

Be Realistic When Setting A Target For Your Customer Satisfaction Score

I came across an article this week that talked about the “relevance” of Customer Satisfaction for some industries or businesses (“When Customer Satisfaction Might Not Matter, And When it Does” – http://callcenterinfo.tmcnet.com/analysis/articles/72074-when-customer-satisfaction-might-not-matter-when-it.htm). While I didn’t find the article particularly informative (basically, Customer Satisfaction is relevant in competitive markets, not so much in monopolistic conditions – [...]

Ford May Have Improved Its Vehicle Lineup, But Customer Experience Needs To Catch Up

When our oldest son came home from college for the summer last May, it was time to add a vehicle to the family fleet. We wanted something that was safe, reliable, somewhat fun to drive but with good mileage, and could be used by any family member. That meant sports cars, SUVs, minivans, and trucks [...]

“Satisfaction Guaranteed”? A Powerful and Low-Cost Proposition – But How Many Times Can You Use It?

A couple of years ago, my family went for an Easter vacation in Southern California. One of the things we did was take a two-hour boat ride on the ocean, with the promise that we’d see whales – SATISFACTION GUARANTEED! And if we didn’t, guess what? We could take another two-hour boat ride for free. [...]