4 ways big airlines are pre-disappointing passengers
I heard a friend use the term “pre-disappoint” in a discussion this weekend in reference to people who set their expectations too high. What a great term to describe airlines, which are setting customers up to be let down, breeding restlessness, irritability, discontentment and — worst of all — resentment.
Some people I know even go so far as to refer to the latter as the number one offender, and that can apply to customer service, too.
Airlines have been creating this monster for years. They trained customers back in the pre-deregulation heyday of air travel to expect caviar, sexy, intelligent “stewardesses” (as they were called back then), and all manner of kowtowing. People wore their Sunday best. There was a certain glamor associated with air travel.
That training stuck, and today’s customers are pre-disappointed before they even start the travel planning process. What’s more, the cycle continues, and that school of thought is handed down through the generations like so much front-porch folklore.
Here’s what’s gone by the wayside:
1. The friendly, knowledgeable telephone agent. The experienced, helpful agent in many a central reservations office or frequent flier department has been replaced by an undertrained — and likely underpaid — call center worker in some offshore location.
There’s a not-so-kind slang term that’s arisen in the business world — “getting Bangalored” — describing an individual whose job has been outsourced to a foreign country. It’s in reference to the fact that the Indian city is home to so many outsourced call centers for US and British companies. It has such a negative connotation that the city itself has changed its name to Bengaluru.
I’m not trying to cast aspersions on the hard workers of Bengaluru. Good for them for practicing a little carpe diem. I’m attempting to point out that years of industry experience in a complex business are being replaced by new hires who don’t necessarily understand the product, and that the learning curve is hard to climb.
2. Cabin comfort. Airlines are cramming in more seats to make more money (who can blame them with fuel costs skyrocketing). But this, in some cases, started before the latest fuel crunch. US Airways changed the configuration of its Boeing 757 jets, shrinking first class from 24 to 8 seats well before the current fuel crisis or its merger with America West. Frequent fliers went nuts, as they did when the “new” US Airways shrunk first class by ten seats on the Airbus 321, which the airline uses primarily for transcontinental flights.
So much for those upgrades it promised to Dividend Miles members.
And despite cries from businessmen and women in the northeast needing somewhere to stow their winter coats or their suit jacks for those meetings on Wall Street, the airline removed coat closets from first class on its fleet of smaller Airbus jets.
Business customers are now pre-disappointed when they fly with US Airways because they expect they will not get that coveted upgrade, and if they do, their suit jacket will arrive rumpled from being crammed in the overhead.
3. Airline food. It’s been the butt of jokes for almost as long as there have been stand-up comedians. But now, we have to pay for something that doesn’t taste good instead of having free gruel included in the cost of our ticket? What’s up with that?
Folks are so pre-disappointed with food, they pack a lunch. I pack Cup Noodles and a plastic fork in my carry-on, get hot water from the flight attendant and chow down. You’d be amazed at how many of your fellow passengers will drool with envy over a $1.25 cup of noodles, salty bullion and reconstituted veg-all. It’s not exactly health food, but it does the trick. (And, by the way, who knew they were called “Cup Noodles?” Until I wrote this, and went looking for the link, I always thought they were called “Cup-o-Noodles.”)
4. Reliability. We are all familiar with this one, so I doubt I need to go into much explanation about flight delays, congested airports and airspace, antiquated air traffic control systems and the like. My colleagues already have. I’ll just sum it up with a comparative snapshot from the US Department of Transportation. In April 1998, the latest flight of the month was a Northwest Airlines flight that averaged 53 minutes late every day; in April 2007, that dubious honor went to an American flight that averaged 106 minutes late. Enough said about that.
The airlines have pre-disappointed us with their inability to be on-time, too.
The only one of the bunch that doesn’t seem to pre-disappoint is Southwest. They’re not perfect, but they seem to have it right when it comes to setting the expectation bar at a certain level, and then over-delivering. Their product isn’t fancy, but people aren’t expecting much to begin with.
Southwest’s got customers so trained for this that they’re pre-satisfied. Other airlines could stand to take a few pages from its playbook.
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“Pre-disappoint” is a great term. Passenger expectation are indeed too high for airlines faced with record fuel costs and inefficient management to meet. Realistically, the only thing passengers should expect from airlines is that they and their checked bags arrive (relatively) unharmed at their destinations within a few hours of the scheduled time, or at least on the same day.
Unfortunately, airlines are increasingly unable to meet even those most basic of expectations. So passengers have every reason to be pre-disappointed, post-disappointed, and frankly pissed off about each and every aspect of the airline “experience.”
Airline executives don’t care one little bit about that. They’re guaranteed retention bonuses, severence bonuses, lavish compensation, and untouchable pensions even even if their companies crash and burn (and the taxpayers will provide the bailout before that happens). And in the absence of usable alternative forms of transportation, passengers who can’t make do with staycations or video teleconferencing will have no choice but to queue up at the TSA “security” checkpoints waiting for their airline to yet again fail to meet their expectations.