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08.27.09 Engaging Your Consumers Socially  By Sally FalkowYesterday I flew across country on US Air. This was my first flight with them. And it will be my last. At the check in counter I discovered that to check my bag I had to pay $20. When I expressed surprise the attendant was very offhand - 'we've been charging since last summer.' she said with an annoyed tone of voice and a 'take it or leave it' attitude. They may indeed have been charging since last summer when the gas prices were high. But no airline that they did n regularly charges $20 per bag. There is nothing that she could do to change the charge, but she could change her attitude. Airlines in the US could take a leaf out of the Scandinavian Airlines case study. In 1981, Jan Carlzon became CEO of the problem-ridden Scandinavian Airlines and turned the airline around by focusing on what he referred to as "moments of truth," the various points at which people with the airline came in contact with airline customers. His book Moments of Truth: New Strategies for Today's Customer-Driven Economy is more relevant than ever in today's social media world, where every customer has the power to amplify their experience and influence thousands. Carlson realized that airlines were concentrating on the technical and administrative aspects of the business and not on the customer experience. "We used to fly aircraft, and we did it very successfully. Now we have to learn the difficult lesson of how to fly people." And every interaction with a customer is a moment of truth. As Charlene Li said in her keynote at Search Engine Strategies: we have to move from focusing on the technical aspects of online marketing to being focused on the people. Deja vu all over again.
Aircraft in and of themselves are not of value to an airline. It is only when they are filled with satisfied customers that they have value, said Carlzon. The company thought that the technical quality of their aircraft was what influenced the perception of the customer when in fact most of them had no idea what type of aircraft they were flying in. The perceptions came from interaction with the people in the company. "If those meetings are good meetings, our asset side on the balance side will increase. If those meetings are bad meetings, the value of our assets on the balance sheet will decrease. In other words, the only thing we have to do is to see that those critical meetings are as good as ever, that they exceed the expectations of the customers. Then we are going to be a successful company in moments of truth." When asked how he came to this conclusion Carlzon said it took lots of research - they asked questions and listened to what people had to say. And back in the eighties this took some serious research dollars. But with all the social media tools as your disposal today, this is easy to do. Listen and learn is the first step in becoming customer focused. And if you don't take Carlzon's advice and focus on those moments of truth, you just might find that the one customer you treated badly is on online influencer with thousands of followers on Twitter or Facebook. Comments
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