A Wing and a Prayer

Recently, for a variety of reasons, I’ve not had my feet planted firmly on the ground.

No, I’m not suggesting that I have spiralled off, head-spinning, into a dream world of economic stability; sound stable financial institutions or benign party politics. Nor have I been induced, by real world intervention, to take mind altering substances.

No, simply put, I have spent a lot of time in the close companionship of ‘those magnificent men in their flying machines.’ I’ve been travelling. Regrettably, on business.

As a result of all this time with my feet not on terra firma I have accumulated a reasonable number of air miles, so that I can spend my spare time . . . . . . back in the air.

Unfortunately, I feel sure that behind the scenes at ‘my favourite airline’ they look at my profile and say, ‘Wow, this dude must love us.’ Or whatever posh Executive Club executives call their passengers. But do I?

A while ago I entered into a discussion with them that centred on the issue of false loyalty. Do I use them because I love them? Do I use them because they have a monopoly? Do I use them because I’m hooked into their loyalty programme? Do they care? I suggested that their surveys etc didn’t get to the bottom of this and so I questioned how much they cared.

Remarkably and overnight I became a statistical anomaly. Almost every flight thereafter I was ‘randomly’ chosen to fill in a survey. There was no seat in which I was safe.

That said, given my desire to help, I duly filled in every survey, much to the delight of pen manufacturers, and in the free comment section, commented freely.

Repeatedly I mentioned that the survey was a ‘tick box’ approach designed to encourage me to give good grades but that it was not geared to them finding out what they could do to enhance the experience i.e. tell us how well we are performing, but don’t tell us how we can do it better or differently.

To be fair, however, persistence paid off and I received an e-mail saying that my concerns had been noted and passed on to, I assume, someone who cared and who would follow up immediately.

Alas, I wait; I wait in vain, despite several attempts to find he who cares.
Whilst this bothered me a great deal, unfortunately it didn’t end there. As I had become the Gordon Brown (by that I mean the official target) of my favourite carrier’s survey team, I received something I had never received before. A landing survey. Well, actually, a post landing survey as it came as an e-mail after the trip. This was designed to allow me to assess the whole landing process. Again, as I quite like landing, I thought I would help them out.

I was asked detailed questions and asked to rate the cabin preparation prior to landing (looked fine to me, still in one piece), the friendliness of the crew (very), punctuality (on time) and a host of other things all of which I rated very highly. The final question, however, invited me to rate my overall landing experience to which I replied with the numeric equivalent of awful.

How could this be, you ask? Everything was great but you gave them no credit? Are you cruel and unusual in your assessment? Perhaps, but I think not.

For me, perhaps unusually, I expect a good to bumpy landing. I expect a fairly friendly flight crew, and am rarely disappointed. I also expect the pilot to land at the right airport and close to the runway; but, most importantly, after flying for a fair number of hours, I expect my bag in a reasonable amount of time - not at the point where I have forgotten what it looks like and have to be re-introduced to it Stanley and Livingstone fashion. The thing that mattered most to me wasn’t even on the survey. (And no, it wasn’t terminal 5!!).

So why the rant and what can we learn?

Most companies do surveys, but very few do them from the customers’ perspective. They want to know how well they are doing rather than how well they could do. They assume that what is important to them is important to the customer, which is often not true. They very rarely provide feedback and so we wonder what the information is used for. They forget that all of the cost is in doing the survey, collecting the data and analysing it, but the return is in doing something!

For me, however, the worst element was when I was contacted and my issues acknowledged, with a promise of follow-up . . . . . . . . that never happened. The ultimate double whammy.

So, if you want to do surveys make them relevant to your customers. Focus on how well you could do and not on how well you are doing. Ask the tough questions. Collect and use the data. Give feedback quickly and openly and remember to be decisive. Customers just want to know what you are doing to make things better for them. So remember, the more firma, the less terra!!