Can You Count to Ten?

Posted by Harry Hertz, the Baldrige Cheermudgeon

The Baldrige Cheermudgeon is back from a wonderful vacation in Glacier National Park and Banff and Jasper National Parks in Canada. While the east coast of the United States was sweltering in 100 degree heat, we enjoyed the cool comfort of the Rocky Mountains. Yes, I did leave a few blog postings behind, so those who read Blogrige probably didn't know I was away.

But what does this have to do with counting to ten? I had the opportunity to do just that several times and several ways on our flight home. (If only we could convince airlines to use the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence....Customer Focus, Process Management.) Let's start with luggage. In the old days (five or so years ago) two pieces of luggage could be checked for free; then it became one piece; now $25 for the first piece, with a strict weight limit. Not only do you pay, but we experienced long lines while they weighed each piece for the exactly 50 pound limit and made everyone else wait. Count to ten! Nobody paid an overweight fee that I saw, but we waited while bags were repacked, weight redistributed, underwear and dirty laundry flying, heavy jackets put on, lines backed up..customer focus or harassment?

There are no direct flights from Calgary or Spokane to Washington, DC, so we had to connect through a hub. We landed at C8, 1 1/2 hour layover, but C11 was our next flight. I had a good book and settled in. I just got comfortable when they moved our flight to D10. C and D concourses are a mile and a half apart (OK, I exaggerate). Count to ten! We move and settle in. Flight has mechanical problems, another 1 1/2 hour delay. Oh and now gate C8. Count to ten! At least the delay provided us our daily exercise. Another delay, one hour. We are given a $6 voucher for lunch. You can hardly get a drink and chips for $6 in an airport. But we had already eaten anyway.

Leave after a four hour delay. We are each promised a $200 travel voucher as a thank you for our patience..customer focus/service recovery. Once on the plane, they start distributing vouchers from the front and back of the plane. We were in the middle, exit row. You guessed it. Remember counting to ten. The airline failed...ten vouchers short. Didn't they know how many people were on the plane?...process management. "You will get your vouchers in DC." We did, but only after having to wait in line for them to be printed. They couldn't send a message ahead of our arrival?

So, for the Baldrige geeks among the readers of this posting, who are always asking about core competencies, I would assert  this airline has core competencies in customer frustration and customer service recovery. Are there better ways to achieve customer focus and engagement? What do you think?

Comments

[Bryan Zak]

Next visit come to my cabins in Alaska. You can count to ten while your dropping your bait to the bottom of Kachemack Bay, and then you can count to 1,000 as your pulling up a Halibut that weighs over 100 lbs :) www.alaskaadventurecabins.com

[GreenDriver LV]

I travel for business more than I care to, but tend to exclusively fly Southwest airlines as they are quite the opposite from the above: first two bags do fly free. Their process management is also far better, in my opinion: I arrived only an hour ahead of my flight out of Ft. Lauderdale last year just as all the cruise ships had disembarked so there were approximately 7 million people in line at the Southwest check-in area. Knowing I arrived there late, I fully resigned myself to the fact that I would miss my flight and spend the rest of the day in stand-by status. The Southwest team immediately started separating the line into those passengers with immediate flights and those with far later flights (which is apparently common among cruise ship dock days). I was whisked to the front of a line with just 30 minutes now until my flight. I was told my bag may not make it and was given priority access to the equally-long security line and I was at my gate with 10 minutes to spare before boarding. And my bag made it! Impressive--but far from the norm among airlines. They have to keep raising fees to make up for the lost revenue in tickets passengers like me are not buying from them!

[Dinis Camara]

Harry - When you got to DC, how did the airline know to whom to give the vouchers? Did anyone who previously got a voucher get a second one?

[Harry Hertz]

They did not appear to know who had not gotten a voucher. I don't know if anyone tried to get a second voucher. I believe they put trust in their customers.

[dana]

I fly Jetblue whenever possible, they've learned lessons from Southwest and have continuously improved from there. When I fly have to fly other airlines, as I'll do this week, the greatest irony is suffering similar dissatisfiers to those you've described WHILE reading the posters telling me that this airline has been rated #1 by some measure and some standard. Seriously, who does that impress or fool? dana