A single queue heading to the "priority customers" desk at Iberia's connection center in Madrid
UPDATE: one week later, same flight, same delay, but this time Iberia did a BRILLIANT job. See below.
Just have a look at the photo on the left: it’s a quiet February afternoon at Iberia’s Madrid hub, but for some reason there are HUGE queues of people waiting at the equally hugely understaffed Iberia “customer service” centers (3 employees for 100 people queueing to get rerouted after losing their connections).
But now have a closer look at the photo. Are you noticing that there is a single queue? Leading where? To a red sign marking the special lane for priority customers! Actually, the “queue management” posts and ribbons were set up in a way that PREVENTED standard customers from queueing at the non-priority workplaces.
The scenes at the counter were depressing. A few brave international business class and Oneworld Sapphire and Emerald customers dared to fight their way through a mass of understandably angry passengers which had been accumulating aggressions during their long wait. No employee and not even the supervisor responded to requests to manage the queue according to Iberia’s own rules.
This reminded me one basic wisdom of airline management: Plan and train as thoroughly for service disruptions as pilots train for emergencies. When hell breaks lose, everything must go automatically, without thinking, without arguing.
When I asked the supervisor why they didn’t respect their own rules, the response was that “when there are so many people, it would be impossible differentiate lanes”. Wow! So, when there are no queues, high income customers don’t have to wait either, but if there are many people in line, they can’t offer them the expedite service they paid for?
That’s an amazing way of employees destroying value by not having understood the essence of CEM. Not their fault – it’s management who his responsible for hiring, training and incentivizing adequately.
Understandably, some customers started to tweet their experience immediately to make the world aware of how unprofessionally they were being treated by Iberia. And yes, Iberia had someone monitoring the Twitter universe who responded, ehm, that “the customer could file a complaint”. But that method of corporate value destruction by CEM-incompetence is another story.
So, what could Iberia do once they wake up after they get through their merger with BA and can focus again on making money by delighting their customers?
- Fire supervisors who do not supervise (sorry, I had to said that).
- Prevent queues by using IT, mobile Internet, planning! That saves costs and makes customers happy. An airline knows perfectly which passengers will lose their connections long before they arrive to the hub airport. Wait for them at the arriving gate, give them the new boarding passes or hotel vouchers right there!
- Even better: send all those passengers with a mobile boarding pass simply a new one to their phone, with an explanation, an apology and perhaps a small gift to compensate for the hassle. Automatic. At no cost. Highly appreciated by the frequent flyer.
- Give your employees the right tools to manage their tasks. A connected iPad is great, but if the applications on it are crappy, forget about them and go to a top tier IT provider to get it done right.
- Of course, train your employees. Teach them to manage queues and to distinguish different segments of customers.
- Hire employees who are passionate about serving customers even under stress. For those who aren’t, recommend them to apply for open positions at your competitors or send them to handle baggage in the video-controlled airport basement.
- Improve the response time of your airport task forces to react immediately to staffing problems (I guess your airline has such a task force to attend special situations, doesn’t it?).
- Have Express Connection badges consistently ready (Iberia sometimes does, sometimes does not) to help people get through the security lanes quickly so that they can still make it to the connecting flight. Train security people what “fast lane” really means. Force airports to staff security adequately. You are THEIR customer!
- Allow premium passengers to get their problems handled in the business lounge while having a beer. Don’t alienate them by having to queue, not even a fast lane, if they don’t want to.
Any additional ideas about flight disruption management best practice? Please leave your comments!
UPDATE (26 February 2011): One week later, same flight, same delay, different international connection. Last week I flew to Munich, this week to New York. This time Iberia handled the situation brilliantly: In Tenerife I was upgraded to Business Class (FFP premium tier may have helped) to get me quickly out of the A340 in Madrid. In Madrid, Iberia staff was waiting for connecting passengers to escort them quickly through passport / security controls. This time Iberia didn’t let me down – so they know how to do it! Let’s hope that the previous Friday was the airline’s particular black Friday…
