Marketing & Fundraising Ideas

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    I just hung up the phone and am in shock. I have always been surprised by shortsighted business practices of many companies. Even back in my early days in business I understood the value of my customers and always tried to over deliver.

When I was in the ice cream business, my first business out of college, I once paid a $15 ticket for a customer who double parked to buy a 90 cent ice cream cone. I understood intuitively, the lifetime value of my customers and I knew that I couldn’t have bought the word of mouth endorsement of any customer that cheaply. For $15 I turned a fan into an evangelist, a raving public relations machine. I was, and still am surprised that other businesses do not get it.

But it is so much more important to get now, in the internet age. In 1990, before the internet age, a Harvard Business School study showed that the average customer who has has a problem with a company tells 9 other people about it, and 13% of unhappy customers discuss it with more than 20 people. Meanwhile, satisfied customers also tell an average of 5 people about the good treatment they received.

But I digress. I just hung up the phone from Spirit Airlines. I told them that my mother had died on March 18 and that as a result I was unable to make my flight on March 19th. I’d like to use my ticket for later this week. Spirit Airlines informed me that my ticket was canceled and forfeited for not showing up. I reiterated that my mother died and was cited company policy.

I asked to speak to a supervisor. Again, I was told company policy was to cancel tickets for no shows that did not cancel 24 hours in advance. I told the supervisor that my mother died 12 hours before flight time. She said she was sorry, but there was nothing she could do.

So Spirit Airlines not only is a company either without values or with disgusting values, but it is also a company that does not empower its customer service people to actually provide customer service. In fact, given the level of customer service provided by Spirit Airlines, the company could probably save money by hiring away employees from McDonalds to staff its customer service department. Even its supervisors.

Now don’t get me wrong. If Spirit lost money because of my misfortune, then charge me. Well, I actually think that would be disgusting too, given the circumstances. But it would at least be understandable. What is not understandable is a company that flies planes with empty seats on a regular basis insists on profiting from the misfortune of its customers rather than profiting from providing superior customer service to its customers.

Is it any surprise that this is the same company that enslaved its passengers for more than 10 hours. Ooops, that was Jet Blue. But it might as well have been Spirit. Any company that exudes the values that Spirit Airlines does, is not far from treating its customers in the same ways as Jet Blue did, and both are not far from failing. Mark my words, this is one company that will not survive. And Spirit Airlines does not deserve to survive.

If you have had a similarly disgusting experience with Spirit Ailines, Jet Blue, or any company, please click on Comments at the end of this post and share.

PS. I just saw a post on James Brausch’s blog called “Just Doing My Job.” It’s a must read, and as you can imagine, quite relevant to this post.

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