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Winter Warning: JetBlue's Customer Experience Fails When it Counts

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Brian Cantor
Brian Cantor
01/27/2015

They say true leaders emerge as victors even when their backs are against the wall.

If that is the case, JetBlue is not the customer experience powerhouse many have suggested.

On the whole, the JetBlue flight experience is very strong for an industry riddled with nightmarish customer management issues. It makes effective use of multi-channel communication. It offers superior in-flight amenities. It adheres to a competitive pricing structure (including offering complimentary bag checks).

It and its employees, above all, demonstrate an upbeat, enthusiastic attitude not remotely characteristic of an airline company.

It is thanks to my awareness of JetBlue’s approach that I rejoice when my company books me on one of the airline’s flights.

It is also thanks to my awareness of JetBlue’s approach that I found myself appalled by the organization’s operations during Winter Storm Juno.

A Storm of Disillusionment

Originally booked to embark on a Tuesday morning flight to Orlando, home of Call Center IQ’s annual Future Contact Center Summit, a colleague and I shifted our flights to Monday evening (the only available option) to avoid the certain cancellations.

Given the fact that the snowfall started early Monday, doubt emerged whether my 5:55PM ET flight would actually depart. But in refusing to change the flight’s "on time" status even as the weather worsened and other flights began succumbing to cancellations and delays, JetBlue effectively told me I was crazy for having any doubt. This flight was going to depart Monday night.

I thus had to get a cab and begin my journey to the airport.

As I finished packing and prepared to hunt for a taxi, my coworker (who lives farther from the airport and thus left earlier) texted to report that cabs were being called back to dispatch and that I might have trouble finding transportation to the airport. To avoid any difficulty, I booked an Uber – at 1.6x surge pricing.

As the airport ride that normally takes only 15-20 minutes began to materialize into an expedition of more than an hour (due to parking lot conditions on the highway), I continuously checked Google, an independent flight status website, JetBlue’s website and JetBlue’s mobile app. All reported the same thing: despite the ridiculously awful weather and reports that LaGuardia airport was effectively shutting down, the flight to Orlando was happening. I thus could not turn around. I could not cut my losses. I had to move forward.

Figuring there might have been a glitch with the flight status system, I also checked the JetBlue Twitter account. There, I saw another passenger on my flight assured (by a human JetBlue representative) that the trip was on schedule.

At 4:20PM ET, I received a text from my coworker. Upon arrival at the airport, she found that even though our flight was still confirmed as "on time," no gate had been confirmed. Passengers, in fact, were not even allowed to pass through security.

She also noted that one flight—seemingly involving the plane we were due to take down to Orlando—was not even supposed to arrive until 5:51 (a delay of an hour). If the airplane was not even going to be at LaGuardia until 5:51, how was our flight still scheduled to depart at 5:55? Why was JetBlue not at least announcing a delay?

At 4:45PM ET, when my 80-minute journey had taken me within a mile of the airport, the app suddenly confirmed that the flight was cancelled. That is all the message said.

It did not offer a substantive apology. It did not offer an immediate backup plan for getting to Orlando on schedule. It did not explain how to acquire reimbursement for the time and money spent traveling to the airport. It did not, seemingly, even account for those who were now stranded at the airport.

My Uber crawled the rest of the way to the airport, we picked up my coworker, and then we headed back to Manhattan to complete the $200 Uber trip.

Upon returning home, I fired up my laptop and, naturally, ranted about the issue on Twitter. Knowing that JetBlue regularly responds to Tweets, I assumed I’d at least receive an apology and explanation and certainly hoped I’d receive something to compensate for my time and expensive cab fare (to which I believe I am clearly entitled). I have yet to receive a response.

I also noticed that the customer who initially Tweeted about the flight also failed to receive a response to her complaint about the delay.

JetBlue is, however, responding to inquiries, "safe" complaints and compliments.

Because JetBlue does not control the weather, it should not be held accountable for the fact that the flight was delayed. It is, however, accountable for how it handles itself and its customers in a weather crisis.

It did not handle the matter well. It proved that while it can project an image of customer-centricity in favorable circumstances, its commitment to the customer falters when times get tough. And insofar as we are defined by how we perform in the worst of situations, JetBlue cannot be defined as a customer-centric business.

Crises Don’t Derail the Customer-Centric

The storm—and the storm alone—explains why I am writing this article from my apartment in New York rather than engaging with customer experience professionals at the Future Contact Center Summit in Orlando.

JetBlue’s behavior—and JetBlue’s behavior alone—explains why I am frustrated.

Here are several grounds on which JetBlue failed.

No Transparency:

In consistently declaring the flight "on time" until an hour before takeoff, JetBlue was offering a statement of technical fact rather than useful insight into the situation. JetBlue was not technically lying by saying the flight was still scheduled, but by not offering details on the probability of a cancellation or an explanation as to why the flight was immune to such horrible weather, the organization was absolutely misleading its customers.

Everyone knew the weather was awful. Everyone knew flights were likely to be delayed or cancelled. Because flight statuses are updated in real-time, JetBlue’s assurance that the flight was scheduled to depart on time therefore came with full awareness of the conditions. The messaging thus shifts from "this flight will probably be cancelled due to the weather" to "despite the weather, this flight is not cancelled."

That JetBlue’s Twitter was reiterating the flight’s status less than two hours before departure only solidifies the assuring nature of the messaging.

As far as conditions and forecast go, nothing dramatically changed between 3PM and 5PM. Whatever led to the cancellation at 5PM, therefore, should have been anticipated by JetBlue at 3PM. By not offering transparency into its thought process, customers had no way of knowing why it was not – and no way of gauging the true likelihood of cancellation.

No Customer Consciousness:

As an airline, JetBlue only directly oversees the transactions and experiences associated with flying. In that context, a cancellation or delay does not matter if the business is willing to refund the ticket price.

That is not the lens through which customers view the flight experience.

To customers, there are stakes on both ends of the trip. They have to schedule and arrange for transportation to the departure airport. They have to schedule and arrange for transportation from the arrival airport. They make plans based on their expected departure and arrival times.

A customer-centric organization interested in building relationships rather than processing transactions understands that. It understands that when a flight is cancelled an hour before take-off, passengers have already spent time and money traveling to the airport. It understands that when a flight is cancelled an hour before take-off, passengers have already confirmed plans in the arrival city.

No, an airline cannot be responsible for everyone facet of every passenger’s life, but when its 4:30PM status update assures that a 5:55PM flight will depart on time even in the middle of a snow storm, it must recognize that it is requiring passengers to travel through that snow storm to get to the airport. Had JetBlue cancelled the flight at 2:30PM, those passengers would have saved their time and money.

By not taking that reality into account, JetBlue renders itself responsible for its customers’ lost time and money.

Since customers have to invest in the travel process, the stakes are higher for them than they are for JetBlue. JetBlue’s attitude, therefore, should not be, "We’re not officially barred from flying, so let’s say the flight is on." It should instead be, "The weather is awful and flights are being cancelled. While we’re not technically barred from flying, it is highly unlikely we will be flying on schedule. Let’s communicate that to customers."

The latter, which adheres to a customer-centric mindset, is how a business earns trust. The former, which is an insular, business-centric mindset, is how a business elicits rage.

Poor Judgment:

If we assume that this incident was not the result of a calculated JetBlue prank, we have to assume that JetBlue not only wholly believed its flight was taking off until 70 minutes before the scheduled departure but also felt no need to communicate a more detailed portrait to customers. If that is the case, then it is as guilty of poor judgment as it is of poor communication and customer consciousness.

Since customers book with the expectation that airlines will make the right decision in every possible circumstance, JetBlue’s inability to judge the situation functions to further undermine the brand’s reputation for customer-centricity.

No Remedy:

JetBlue has thus far not even acknowledged my complaint. It has certainly not offered anything approximating an apology or compensation.

Even if JetBlue, somehow, believed it made absolutely no mistake in this situation, it still received a public complaint from a loyal brand advocate who felt otherwise. To not acknowledge that complaint—even to defend itself—is to show an utter disregard for its customers and for their loyalty and feedback.

That the complaint came via a social platform does not render it any less worthy of a response. In an omni-channel environment, the customer—not the business—chooses the forum in which the conversation takes place. My Tweet is no less serious or worthy of a response than a phone call.

And insofar as JetBlue does actively manage a customer support-driven Twitter account, it knows the importance of a multi-channel service approach in today’s marketplace. It thus knows it is failing by not acknowledging my complaint.


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