I’m going to write a big post about this soon – with special mention for supposed people-friendly companies, HP and IKEA – but till then, have a look at this novel approach to customer complaints.
United are an absolutely terrible airline – even worse than Cathay Pacific – which is why one of my favourite websites is untied.com, a site created years ago by a disgruntled United passenger who decided bad publicity was the best form of revenge. And you know what, it seems he was right because not only has the site uncovered all manner of scandalous internal behaviour but it is also credited with losing UA millions of dollars in business.
The amazing thing is that UA carry on regardless – which is why companies need to understand that they are the reason why people regard ‘promises of care’ as nothing more than more marketing horseshit.
It’s not hard to win people over … sure product and price are critical factors … but if you simply practice what you preach and take some responsibility when/if things go wrong, you’d be amazed the difference it can have in terms of loyalty.