Does this resonate with you?
- You purchased a product and paid in full significantly in advance of the consumption date.
- Payment for that product was a four figure sum.
- The vendor does not incur any real cost related to your purchase until you arrive to consume the product on the day.
Arriving on the day to consume the product, you and your fellow customers are berated and abused by the vendor. Not because of any failing on your part as a customer. The low standard of customer interaction is due to the artificial creation of rules, arbitrary ‘guidelines’ and processes imposed by the vendor.
That is the world of airlines today. In this article I have chosen to name names. This is United Airlines.
I have become so desensitized to the non-experience of the airline industry that any expectation at all would already be high. Although, the opportunity to be berated and abused is a sublime addition to the experience package.
United’s arbitrary 15 tier ‘boarding system’, is difficult for regular travellers to navigate when, where and how to board a flight. United’s employees are so mentally broken by their organisation’s self-created processes and chaos that in their mind, it has become the customers fault and failing. Switch to customer belittlement and offhanded directives mode. Speak up about such shoddy treatment? They will arbitrarily label you as a ‘security risk’ and remove you from the flight.
It is incredible that an industry so regularly treats the customer so poorly throughout the contact experience. On the ground, in the air and beyond. In a word: disgraceful. But when you have nothing to lose it’s a free for all. It is high time that a broom was put through this industry to remove all of the self-serving protection, controls, rules and law that has essentially made airlines a rule unto themselves with limited meaningful external governance and customer accountability.
Spare the feedback of the X trillion points love fest with said airline. In hospitality we aim to treat every customer equally. At least with a little appreciation, dignity and respect.
Life is so tech. Come fly with me!
Mark Fancourt
