The truth about airline customer satisfaction surveys
Today it was the American Consumer Satisfaction Index, declaring the end of customer service as we know it. And a me-too from J.D. Power & Associates. A few weeks ago, it was Wichita State University and the University of Nebraska at Omaha with its Airline Quality Rating.
The airline industry’s ratings are circling the drain. But are airlines paying any attention to their grades?
Actually, they aren’t.
These surveys do little more than give cub reporters and their clueless editors something to write about. They are meaningless to the airlines, and they should be meaningless to you.
What numbers really matter? Check out the Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report. Airlines do.
Do you want to make the airlines stand up and pay attention to your complaint? Don’t waste time on these silly surveys – write directly to the DOT (don’t call – the letters and e-mails are taken more seriously by the airlines).
I spent a long time on the leadership team of a major airline’s customer relations office. We had our own internal customer satisfaction data that we carefully collected from letters and phone calls directly to our office. That information was recorded and used daily to help department heads and managers improve the customer’s experience.
Every week, that information was rolled up and blasted onto a screen in a company-wide video conference so that every manager could answer directly to the CEO for failing to meet performance goals.
Talk about being in the hot seat!
The only external customer satisfaction surveys my airline paid attention to was the information from the government – the Transportation Department.
As an example, my former employer did not publish one syllable in its daily internal newsreel this year about the Wichita State/University of Nebraska study. I suspect the same will happen with the Michigan report.
As for J.D. Power, my airline encouraged employees to “go online and vote for us so we’ll win J.D. Power!”
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