Motor Industry KPI and best practice provided by Jeff Smith

British Airways food incudes a dead Earwig, how do they handle customer complaints? 

On a Business Class flight returning home from Helsinki to London Heathrow with British Airways, I ordered a Chicken and mushroom salad and as I was eating my meal, I discovered a dead earwig on my lettuce.

As you can imagine, I immediately felt sick. I pressed the button to call the Stewardess and when she came to me she could see that the colour had drained from my face and she said in a most concerned voice, “Are you alright, sir, what can I do for you?”

 I passed my meal tray to her and I asked very politely, “Would you take this away from me please?”

The Stewardess said, “Yes of course , sir” and then she looked down at my meal and her eyes lit up. “Oh my goodness” she said aghast “this is totally unacceptable, I’m really sorry!”

I did not make any comment about the dead earwig, I just said, “Would you excuse me please, I need to go to the toilet, I feel very nauseous.”

In all business situations, Customer Satisfaction should kick into overdrive when a problem is encountered. This is the story of how British Airways handled the incident of serving me with a dead earwig in my food.

I soon returned to my seat and thankfully I had not been sick, but we had another 1.5 hours to go on the flight and I did not feel too good at all. Whilst I had been away from my seat, the Stewardess had looked up my name (that was impressive) and she came over to me and said “Mr. Smith, I’m terriibly sorry about this, would you like a drink, brandy, whiskey, anything at all?”

I said, “I’d love a drink, but I’m driving when we land so could I have a bottle of water please?”

She gave me the water and said “Don’t worry, there’s no charge.”

I sipped my water slowly and gazed out of the window wishing that I was home. The Stewardess came back to me with a pen and some forms. As she handed them over to me she said “Mr. Smith, can you fill in these forms for me please? I’d like you to write about what has happened so that we can make a formal complaint when we land. This should never of happened, I’m so sorry.”

I completed the “Customer Relations” forms in the hope that this would be properly investigated and that it would not happen to anyone else. I handed the forms back to the Stewardess and she placed them into a plastic bag and sealed it. She said “As soon as we land I’ll pass these forms to customer services and you will be hearing from us, I’m so sorry about what has happened.” 

I disembarked from the aircraft, colleted my baggage and left the airport to begin my 2-hour drive home. 

Did the British Airways Stewardess do the right thing in your opinion?

What would you expect to happen now?

The flight to Finland took place in July 2007 and I received a letter from British Airways on 23 October 2007 - Three months later.

Between the incident happening and receiving this letter, I received no communication from from British Airways whatsoever. The letter from British Airways was not even signed, it had a very poor quality image of a scanned signature.

Here is an extract of some of the text in the letter:

Thank you for taking the time to complete our comment card. I was concerned to learn about your chicken and mushroom salad.

When something goes wrong like this, our crew log the details very carefully so that we can trace back the problem to a particular supplier. Then, the catering manager for this route starts a full investigation and will take immediate steps to prevent it from happening again.

I know this does not make up for how upsetting it was for you. The quality of the meals we serve on board is one of our highest priorities.

* * * * *

I’ve decide not to show the whole letter, but I can confirm that the letter goes on to give a voucher, by way of an apology, for a discount off another flight with British Airways.

Now to the main points of the story.

If you want to have effective Customer Satisfaction, you need to address problem when they happen and follow up promptly.

The Flight: The Stewardess was very good and attentive and behaved exactly how I would have expected. That’s an important point because when you do what is “expected” nothing great happens with Customer Satisfaction.

When a car is repaired and it’s right-first-time, that’s not great service for the customer, that’s expected - customers don’t think “I hope my car is going to be repaired right-first-time” do they? Outstanding Customer Satisfaction kick in when we have to deal with a problem.

Let’s look back at this incident, the Stewardess offered me a drink and I said “I’d love a drink, but I’m driving when we land so could I have a bottle of water please?”  She gave me a bottle of water.

If that was me, I would have given the customer a bottle of Champagne to take home. That is not expected, that would have exceeded customer expectations. If the Stewardess had done that with me I would have thought “Wow, that was a nice gesture.” As it was, there was no WOW factor, she was very nice but she only did what I expected. (The cost of a bottle of Champagne to British Airways would hardly break the bank, would it?)

British Airways Customer Services:The 3-month delay in responding to me caused more disatisfaction on my part. I was thinking that this incident was not so important to them. Or is it that they have so many complaints that they don’t have sufficient staff to deal with them in a timely fashion?

To be honest, I had expected a telephone call with an apology and to say that the matter was being given due attention. That call was “expected” and it did not happen - Customer Satisfaction falls through the floor.

The letter was all about British Airways, not me, the customer. I did not want any money or free flights or anything like that, just an apology would be sufficient and that could have been resolved with a phone call during the following days of the incident. A letter after the event, 3 months after the phone call would then have been acceptable.

The voucher for a discount on another flight with British Airways was a joke in my mnd and here’s why:

1. It would not cost British Airways anything
2. The voucher had severe limitations, must be used in a certain time frame, cannot be used for booking flights on the Internet, etc.
3. Could I book flights on the Internet cheaper than on the Phone, is that why they have restictions on this voucher?
4. Is it likely that I will fly again in the stipulated time restriction?
5. Do I want to fly with British Airways again?

 Perhaps you will not be surprised to learn that I have not used the voucher and I’m not like to either.

Customer Satisfaction Check List:

• If you want outstanding customer satisfaction, you must exceed expectations. Doing what is expected is nothing special.
• Customer satisfaction should kick into overdrive when you encounter a problem; this is your chance to win big! Problems are wonderful opprotunities to secure your future.
• Deal with problems there and then - don’t think about it and take your time to follow up.
• Always follow up and do it quickly
• If you are going to give something to compensate a situation, give something that will be valued by the customer, not something that they think will cost you nothing.
  • If you are in the Service Department, don’t give a voucher for a discount off parts and accessories or a discount off the next service, give something real like vouchers for Marks and Spencers; make it something where the customer knows that you will not gain and it’s a real gesture.
• Be customer focussed, don’t write letters to customer that are all about your company and your processes; customers don’t care about you, they care about themselves. Write about them and what they will get and how you will help them in thefuture. You aim is to retain them, not to tell all about you.

Conclusion: After I received the letter from British Airways in October, in November 2007, I received an email asking me to complete an online “Customer Satisfaction Survey” on behalf of British Airways, which was conducted by an independant reseach company. I was told that the results would be sent back to British Airways Customer Relations.

I told them everything and that I was very unhappy with the manor in which this incident has been handled by British Airways Customer Relation.

Here we are in April 2008, and I and yet to receive response.

Throughout 2007, I’ve been working with Nissan Nordic who are based in Finland, developing profit improvement strategies for their field teams. Since this episode took place I have been on flights to Europe, Africa, The Middle East and not one of these flights have been with British Airways.

The letter from British Airways Customer Services remains in my briefcase together with the still unused flight voucher. I keep them with me as a reminder of what not to do in the event of a problem with any of our customers.

Your comments are most welcome on this subject.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 27th, 2008 at 11:24 am and is filed under Customer Satisfaction.