Customers - More Like Guests Less Like People with Money
I'm convinced that there is a right and wrong way to do business. Not just in terms of morality because I think you'll will be surprised how often doing the right thing, morally, will reward you monetarily.
I was recently on a flight from Krabi, Thailand to Kaula Lumpur, Malaysia. A short flight, just over an hour, on a low cost airline called Air Asia. Now I should explain what a low cost airline means. The airfare is cheap but you're going to have to pay for everything else, water, peanuts it even cost money to get blanket!
When we arrived at Kuala Lumpur the weather was so bad that we couldn't land. After circling the airport for 20 minutes hoping that the weather would clear we were re-directed to Penang, Malaysia (another hour away) because we were running low on fuel.
Not a big deal stuff like this happens.
We landed in Penang to refuel but we weren't sure when the weather would clear up enough for us to make it back to Kuala Lumpur. We also weren't allowed to leave the plane because we were an international flight and something about immigration law wouldn't let us. A quick one hour flight had turned into being stuck in an airplane on the runway for an unknown length of time in a place we hadn't intended on going.
Again not a big deal, if you travel enough stuff like this happens. It's certainly not Air Asia's fault, I'm glad they detoured rather than try to land in bad weather.
Understandably people were a little irritated and worse still missing connecting flights. There was a very nice couple from Australia (I think?) who were going to miss their flight to the UAE (hope you guys made it anyway!). It was getting close to dinner time so a lot of people were going to the back to ask the flight attendants for water, a cup of noodles or a bag of peanuts. Being a low cost airline, Air Asia was charging everyone for every last bit. They only took cash and some people didn't have any cash, they were expecting a short flight after all. They didn't get anything to drink or eat.
I'm not going to suggest that it was outrageous of them to charge people, it's a low cost airline you kind of expect that. I do think that they missed out on an opportunity to really make an impression on their customers though. The meaning of the word "customer" has been skewed by a lot of businesses recently. They think of a customer as "a person who gives you money" rather than what it should be, a guest. There was a time not too long ago, often in smaller or family owned businesses, where a business treated their customers like guest. Like friends who came over for dinner or family staying with you from far away.
Air Asia should have given out water, peanuts, cup of noodles to their passengers free of charge and apologized profusely. Not because they were at fault (they weren't) but because their guests had been inconvenienced. The experiencing of flying with them had been below standard. The cost to Air Asia for giving away bottled water would have been insignificant.
Thanks to the internet your "guests" have a lot louder a voice than ever before. There is no better advertising then when someone tweets, facebooks or blogs about a glowing experience with your company. Conversely if they have a bad one others will hear about it. Just ask Comcast about comcastsucks.org.
1 comment
Dec 28, 2009
foster said...
on a somewhat related note, Li Ka Shing was telling a story of when his plastics business was still quite young, a buyer canceled all the orders last minute, causing Li's company to lose a lot of $. He didn't fuss about it, didn't charge the buyer any cancellation fees, just told him that he hopes they can do business in the future someday. Well, one day a few years later, a buyer approached him and wanted to buy all of this inventory. The new buyer said another person (the previous buyer) had told him how trustworthy Li is and wanted to do business exclusively with Li. Just goes to show if you treat your customers well, you will get rewarded at the end.
