Customer Service in Times of Crisis
Things will always go wrong from time to time (hopefully not quite as dramatically as in our recent experience) and making the most of an unexpected situation is key to riding out the bad times and locking in customer loyalty.
So how do you turn a negative into a positive?
The Covid-19 situation got me thinking again, about how important customer service is, particularly in difficult circumstances.
Someone from British Airways once told me that they often got higher customer satisfaction scores and positive brand sentiment when they lost someone’s luggage, than when everything went smoothly. The reason being that they had an opportunity to show off their ‘out of the ordinary’ customer experience by returning the luggage promptly, to the customer’s door with a smile, and possibly a small token of their appreciation for the inconvenience suffered.
The customer is left thinking “Wow! That was efficient” and “I’ll book BA next time just in case something goes wrong”. BA has managed to make customer service mileage from the original error by showing themselves to be operationally agile, efficient and thoughtful to boot. Pretty good result all round.
My experience with a ski travel operator earlier this year (just before lockdown struck) provides another good example of this phenomenon in action. This time, Storm Dennis was the culprit. The third-party airline cancelled the flight two days ahead of the departure date - very sad face.
But the operator immediately contacts me (automated text) to say they’re dealing with it and will advise of the alternative arrangements by a certain time the next day. I then get a punctual, very polite, empathetic call with full details of the alternative arrangement - bus to different airport, new airline specially chartered, arrangements on arrival in resort etc.
Ok, so we ended up arriving late in the evening instead of lunchtime, but I was impressed we made it on the same day as planned at all. And it wasn’t just the big things they got right. They thought about most of the finishing touches too.
The replacement plane was smaller so we couldn’t take large sports equipment with us. They gave us complimentary hire to cover our pre-paid ski carriage costs and make sure we had everything we’d need during the trip. Free drinks and snacks in the plane helped keep the kids happy and the hotel put on late suppers for when we finally arrived. Most importantly, they stationed reps at as many of the locations along the way as possible – all 3 airports concerned at short notice, on the coach transfers, at the hotel.
So what can we learn from these examples? There are a few key things to make sure you’re doing well:
To sum up, I know circumstances are not making travel operators’ lives easy just now, but when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Or in this case, show your customers how well you assist them in times of need and reap the rewards of that trust when it comes to their next holiday booking time.
If you'd like to know more about mystery shopping your Customer Experience, get in touch with me at Yomdel: gina.mayhead@yomdel.com