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Experience

Jet Blue you blew it – again

Oct 1st, 2010
by Michelle Heath.
3 comments

Picture 29If you’ve been following along from my previous post, you’re probably wondering what happened when I raised the service issue to Jet Blue. I tweeted this post, got it retweeted a bunch of times, posted it to Facebook, sent it through the Jet Blue Cares feature on their site and told everyone I could about my bad  Jet Blue service experience.

Here’s what happened.

Sept 22nd 10am: Posted blog post, tweeted, facebooked

Sept 22nd 12:18pm: @JetBlue responds via Twitter and says:

We can’t track the details without info – please leave us a note at http://jetblue.com/speakup

Sept 22nd 12:19pm: I respond to @JetBlue by saying:

Hi and thanks for responding. I did that this morning (submitted form). Let me know what else you need. Got an email saying to wait for response.

Sept 22nd 4:48pm: I heard nothing so I sent another tweet to @JetBlue saying:

So, should I wait?

Sept 23rd 9:28am: Still nothing from Jet Blue. Sent another tweet saying:

Wondering when @JetBlue is going to address my issue from yesterday’s blog post? http://bit.ly/bCjrKM So disappointed in lack of service.

Sept 23rd 1:44pm: Finally get an email from Jet Blue. Here’s what they said:

Hello Michelle,

Thank you for contacting JetBlue Airways regarding your recently booked reservation and the
promotion offered the next day. We certainly appreciate your candid blog regarding the customer
service experience you had. Please understand this is not typical of the customer service we know
most of our jetters have grown to expect. Our leadership staff has been notified and will provide
some feedback to the crewmembers you spoke with.

The promotion offered did start after you booked your reservation. The guidelines for the promotion
were very specific. They did state the promotion was available to newly booked travel; changes to
existing travel are not eligible. It also stated the flight had to be booked on
www.jetblue.com/promo. Your flight was booked prior and not from the link provided the next day when
the promotion began.

Michelle if you would like to take advantage of this offer there is an alternative option. You are
welcome to cancel the current reservation and follow the link to book again using the same dates you
selected. You can go online to www.jetblue.com to cancel or call one of our friendly crewmembers.
You will be subject to the cancellation fee and any increase in fare when rebooking for the
promotion.

We truly value your patronage, and we hope to provide you with a renewed JetBlue experience in the
future.

I read it. I keep re-reading it. I am still dazed and confused. “A renewed JetBlue experience.” How exactly do they expect to “renew” me when they basically offered me nothing to keep me as a “valued” customer? Now, keep in mind, this promotion was not for a free ticket or something of what I’d consider significant consumer value. I run $50 promos all the time and 1) they work 2) if someone missed it I would give it to them to keep them happy and loyal. I especially love that they are happy for me to cancel and rebook but that I will be subject to cancellation fees. How is that helpful to me?

What kills me here is how Jet Blue could have really turned this around and made it a kick-ass experience for me. My friend, Nathan Burke, recently wrote a post about a bad Zappos experience that a great Zappos service team member totally turned around. He is now a huge fan of the brand – enough to tell everyone through his blog.

Well, Jet Blue, you blew it again. Rather than just giving me the promo and keeping me as a happy customer, you basically send the message that my business is not worth $50 and 500 Jet Blue points. For realz?!

So, I put it back on you yet again, Jet Blue. Is this really all you guys have got? The service bar has been raised my friends – are you doing the limbo or the pole vault?

I look forward to your reply.

An experience to remember

Dec 22nd, 2008
by Michelle Heath.
No comments yet

I happen to believe that it’s all about the experience. It’s one thing to meet someone for drinks. It’s another to meet-up at The Liberty Hotel and experience a restored prison with hip decor, great music and fun people watching. It’s one thing to shop online. It’s another to visit BlueFly where you can shop by price, color, size and style. The thing that gets me coming back for more is the experience and, boy, did I have one today.

I decided to take my 5-year old daughter, Maddie, to the Nutcracker. It just so happens I was a dancer in a former life and had the honor and unique pleasure to dance in the Nutcracker ballet once upon a time. It is an experience I will never forget and, to this day, influences my ability to stand on tip-toes to reach stuff on the top shelf and to sit with good posture:)

Anyhow, I got two tickets and decided we’d make it our first experience. Then, I met John Osbon and he took our experience from good to great. John is a member of the Boston Ballet board and is also active in my daughter’s school. I had won an auction prize of some ballet tickets a while back and he helped me put them to good use. He heard about my love for the ballet and how Maddie is taking lessons and loves it as well and told me he’d leave a special surprise for her at the desk.

Off we went through the sleet and snow. We were both on pins and needles wondering what the surprise would be. We arrived at the desk and waiting for us was a brown Boston Ballet bag. Inside, were two signed pairs of dancer’s shoes and two Nutcracker snowglobes. Nothing like being in tears with my daughter and the show hadn’t even started! We took our seats in the beautifully renovated Boston Opera House where Maddie promptly took off her snow boots and donned her well-used pink toe-shoes. She could not have been more excited as we waited for the lights to dim. She was riveted through the entire performance and wanted for more as the lights came up. Then came the best part.

The backstage tour. Where, although my camera battery died (when will I learn!) , I got some great shots of my girl with the sleigh and the giant Christmas tree. But all she wanted to do was go home and put on her new toe-shoes. We practiced our releve and arabesque in the living room and she wore her ballet tights to bed so she could “slip on her toe-shoes when she wakes up”. What would have been a day at the ballet was turned into an extraordinary experience for a 5-year old aspiring ballerina and her ballerina-at-heart mom.

A magical day created by an unforgettable experience. Check out the photos.

Shipping charges really suck

Nov 22nd, 2008
by Michelle Heath.
2 comments

Sorry to rant but I can’t help it. This is a constant pet-peeve and, if you have anything to do with a retail website, you should listen up.

IMHO, the difference between a good website and a great website is the experience. When it comes to online shopping, sure there are ways to make browsing better but at the end of the day, it’s all about the check-out. Were you up-front with the total cost? Was it easy for me to get my stuff and get on to the next thing I need to do? Did you give me the ability to do it all in one-screen or did I have to page through a whole bunch of optional and promotional screens?

Well, this morning, I decided I need some new stationery. I want something that looks classy but is economical, given my employment situation. I googled “discount stationery” and up came a bunch of sites. I clicked on American Stationery, which was one of the top links. I quickly browsed a bunch of different options and found one that I really liked. It was a little bit more than I wanted to pay, but it was unique and I really liked the colors and the envelope liner. Plus, they threw in the printing of return address on the envelopes. Okay, off I go to check-out. The usual – register, shipping address info, next, next. Total cost: $68. Great, I’m in. Next screen, confirm shipping address. Got it. Credit card info, check. Then the confirmation screen appears and it is at this point, before I hit the money button, that I find out the shipping charge is an additional $11! What the f? Three screens before that, they said the total cost is $68? But it’s not. It is in fact $79. You’re telling me, American Stationery, that you want me to pay an additional 16% for shipping? I am so sorry but I DON’T THINK SO! Actually, that is not only annoying but insane. How can shipping cost them $11 for a tiny little box of notecards? It is one of the major problems I have with online shopping.

Let me talk to you about a site that does it right. Nordstrom’s online. Here’s how they do it. Flat rate. $5. All the time. You order $50 of stuff – five bucks. $500 worth of stuff – 5 bucks. It’s that easy and, as a frequent online shopper, they get most of my business because the shipping is a flat rate (and returns are free.)

My advice to you, online retailers, is this – figure out how to make shipping cheaper and easier for your customers and, guess what, they will come back. I would love to know how many abandoned shopping carts are strewn across the internet because of shipping charges. There is a price to be paid for convenience but each consumer has a tipping point where they’d rather just get in their car or walk to the store to go get it. Online retailers need to think about how they are making the shopping experience valuable for their online shoppers and I would guess ‘value’ to the online shopper means easy, great selection and economical.

So, you lost my business, American Stationery. Maybe if you had put the shipping charge up-front I would have been okay with it. Maybe I would have left anyway (probably the case). With the holidays around the corner and a recession in the mix, figuring out how to entice shoppers to buy seems like a no-brainer. If you’re an online retailer, why not test out a variety of shipping promotions? Free shipping days, flat rates, free shipping on certain dollar amounts. Test it out and see what works. Something tells me that providing free or minimal shipping charges will lead to a more profitable customer down the line.

My $.02.