Airlines, Mushrooms, and Apologies

I don't mean to pick on JetBlue. I've never flown them (not a big presence here in St. Louis) but I have a lot o f friends who do and they swear by the airline despite the unfortunate weather debacle in NY. My biggest issue with that situation was the lack of a fast and dramatic "making up for it" action (like Intuit re Turbo Tax problems).

I don't fly Northwest Airlines very often. I flew them recently, though. Today, I opened a letter that said:

"I personally want to apologize to you for the delay in your travel plans. To show you my commitment to quality service, I am adding 1000 bonus miles to your WorldPerks account....I hope you will give us an opportunity to restore your confidence..."

I fly frequently enough (usually American and United) that I usually don't even notice an hour delay. I had to think back and try hard to remember this particular delay. Wow, my usual airlines don't do anything like this. Hmmm. Too bad NWA doesn't go (conveniently) from St Louis to most of my destinations.

Does your firm do something like this for what might be minor inconveniences where your customer hasn't even squawked??

Or does your firm do what Romano's Macaroni Grill (on Brentwood) did the other night when our family went out for my son's 15th birthday?

The restaurant served my eldest son's girlfriend a dish containing mushrooms despite very clear instructions to omit them because she is extremely allergic. The mushrooms were discovered after the dish was partially eaten which caused a lot of anxiety for everyone, especially the girl, who was visibly shaking with fear of her throat swelling up.

The waitress 'reassured' us that "It isn't my fault, the kitchen messed up." Of course, this blame avoidance only served to infuriate all of us. (See my post Blame Avoidance: Why It's a Fatal Error).

Recognizing that mistakes happen and you sure can't please everyone all of the time, isn't it awesome when people who work for companies do and say the right thing!?

Does your company have high standards and train your people to do and say the right thing? Do the leaders in your organization emulate optimal service or do they teach others, by their example, that something less is acceptable?

Comments

[Ed Kless]

Michelle, I fly American all the time and they do, in fact, give me miles when a flight is delayed, but only when it is not due to weather, which clearly is not the airlines fault. Unfortunately, the majority of delays are weather related, so in three years this has only happened about five times.

Also, it IS the servers fault. Every person I ever talked to who worked in a restaurant has said than one of the responsibilites of the server to check to see that special orders are correctly carried out by the kitchen staff.

As the father of a mushroom alergic daughter, I hope she was not harmed.