Delta Airlines Needs Hively for Measuring Customer Satisfaction
Posted on February 14th, 2012
Last week I was traveling and witnessed an interesting customer service experience happen while flying on Delta.
While boarding my plane in San Diego, a man walked on to the plane and asked a flight attendant if he could get a customer comment card. The flight attendants response?
“What for?”
The man paused a bit after that response and explained that the lady at the Delta ticket counter (her name was Joyce) was extremely helpful. So much so that he wanted to be sure Delta knew how great her service was. The flight attendant’s reply this time was “I’ll see if we have any.”
The flight attendant never returned with a comment card before take off. About mid flight, the man asked her again if she could find a comment card. Her reply this time was, “I haven’t had time to look.”
Finally, we landed. Just before we deplaned the man asked the flight attendant one more time if he could get a comment card from her. Her final response: “Oh sorry. I looked. We don’t have any.” The man got really frustrated, shook his head and walked off the plane.
Ok. So a few lessons from this.
1) It should never be this difficult for your customers to leave feedback. However you collect feedback, make it easy for your customers to give it you constantly, consistently and conveniently. Real time, 1 click customer feedback is a great option.
2) Automate your feedback process. Paper comment cards are an out dated way to gather feedback. First, they have to be stored and staff have to know where to locate them. After watching what happened on our flight, this can obviously be a difficult task. Second, I’m guessing that even if the gentlemen in the story above would have received a comment card, his next question would have been “can I have a pen?” Third, once the paper form is completed it takes further effort to analyze the information, document it, distribute it to the people who need it and aggregate it with additional data to get any real meaning.
An automated method for gathering feedback would have been a much better option for this situation. If Delta employees had Hively QR Code rating snippets on their name badges or at their ticket counter stations, the man looking to give feedback could have simply pulled out his iPhone, scanned the QR Code snippet and given Joyce a happy face with 1 click. In doing so, Joyce would have instantly received positive reinforcement that she’s doing a good job. Additionally, her manager at Delta would have also received an alert.
3) Don’t turn a positive experience into a negative one. I watched as the flight attendant on the plane slowly took this customer from a state of pure delight with Delta and the service he received from Joyce, to one of complete frustration. It was obvious the frustration he experienced at the end of the flight clearly overshadowed the positive experience he had earlier at the ticket counter.
Really what I’m trying to say is that if Delta Airlines were using Hively, the experience of the customer would have improved and the people at Delta would have received some great feedback.
To Joyce, the excellent agent at the ticket counter in San Diego, if Delta Airlines ever does consider using Hively to measure customer satisfaction – this will be here waiting for you:
And for the flight attendant that made a Happy customer frustrated, yours will be waiting too:
Also related, when I got home after all of my flights from last week I did get an email from Delta Airlines asking for my feedback. I clicked on the link to check it out. This is some of what I saw.
I didn’t fill it out. I didn’t have time. But Delta, if you want to know how I felt about my flying experience with you last week here you go:
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