I flew to Stockholm last Thursday morning at 7.30am by British Airways from terminal 5. I’m just on the way to pick up my car, one week later.
Why did I fly? Because no one mentioned any possible disruption, despite the fact that 90% of flights were already stopped by 7am. Blissful ignorance.
Did they not have the information to give? Somehow I doubt that.
Did they think about the effort they would cause their customers downstream? To quote Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon:
“I think most big errors are errors of omission not commission. The times when they were in a position to notice something and act on it…and yet failed to do so”
The chain of ‘customer effort’ and frustration that BA have created for me is fascinating. And the amount ot work it caused other people and companies. All avoidable, had BA been open and honest. I’ll try and précis it.
- An afternoon of calls and web searches by me, my PA, by my concierge service, by my Swedish collague. To get information, assess options, arrange hotels, try to get a car. At least 3 calls into hotels, 6 to the office, several to local car companies, that I could see. Many calls, texts and emails to friends and contacts to try to get a car. Many calls on our behalf.
- 2 hours shopping for clothes and necessities.
- 6 texts and 2 calls to a colleague’s son whose friend had a car we could hire.
- Multiple attempts and 4 calls into 3 insurance companies to check cover for the car.
- The colleague’s son’s friend taking the morning off work to get the car test renewed before it ran out the following week.
- The son planning to fly to his sisters in London who would have to keep the car before he drove it back for his friend.
- The PA trying to get a car crossing for the channel and googling, texting routes.
- The 26 hour journey across 7 countries by car.
- The 3 calls to HSBC for bouncing my card, presumably for being used in different countries. The very poor handling of which is resulting in them losing our business accounts. It was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
- The re-organising of picking up a new car back home.
- The colleague’s wife driving to Dover to pick us up.
- The re-re-organising of picking up the car ( with 2 subsequent re-visits, but that’s another story of customer effort)
- The abortive trip to Heathrow to move the car, but there were no shuttles. Big well done to BAA for waiving the car park fees!
- The actual trip now to Heathrow to pick the car up.
I could go on……. but I’m distracted by the effort in resolving how Fiat sold me a “previous model” as a new car without telling me and hoping they’d get away with it.
One small omission by company, many large effects for customer. Huge customer effort…..
So my message is….. think about the effort you cause your customers downstream. They will. To quote Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, again:
“I think most big errors are errors of omission not commission. The times when they were in a position to notice something and act on it…and yet failed to do so”
