I’ve been doing a lot of air miles recently, for business and pleasure, although I would never say flying is a pleasure!!
The majority of my flights have been with Ryanair and I’ve been amazed at the different levels of service you can get from one aeroplane to another. On one flight the air crew were so friendly and upbeat, yet on another a stewardess was so annoyed with something that she was slamming toilet doors and huffing to herself as I was boarding the plane, which startled me a bit.
There was a situation that occurred on two flights that were handled so differently, which got me wondering if they actually had any “policies and procedures” for customer service once the Safety Talks and the selling of Charity scratch cards had been dealt with.
As you may know children’s ears tend to hurt more than adults when coming into land, and some toddlers tend to cry (loudly) when they’re made to sit in their own seat and put their seat belt on even though they want their Mum/Dad as they are in pain.
The first time one toddler was so traumatised by this and was screaming to hug her Mum who was just sat next to her, that a stewardess came over and asked if she thought her daughter would feel better if they brought an extendable seat belt so she could sit on her Mum’s lap. The Mother took the offer with relief and the child stopped crying the moment she could hug her Mum. (Which if I’m honest was heaven to my ears as mine were also starting to hurt but from the noise not the flight).
The next time this happened, the child behind me screamed and sobbed the whole time the plane was landing as they couldn’t hug their Mum. I sat and wondered why the crew didn’t come and offer the same solution to this family. I realised then that it had been the first stewardess’s initiative that had made her offer the compromise to the family. She had thought about the child, the Mother and the passengers around her and figured out a win/win resolution.
At TI Accountancy we have a mission statement to treat every business as if it’s our own!
This not only lets clients know how much we care about their business but also empowers my team so that they can make decisions for themselves. When faced with a request from a client all they have to do is ask themselves “If this was my company what would I do” and this enables them to give amazing customer service.
If Ryanair had a similar policy, would more of their aircrew go that extra mile, think outside the box once in a while, so they could deliver great customer service constantly instead of it being like Russian roulette as to whether you have a pleasant flight or not.
What mission statement do you have in your business?
I’d be interested to hear what they are and how they work within your business.
