Caring or trying to appear to care?

Posted by Ian and Steve on Aug 30, 2011 in Hints and Tips | 0 comments

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Last week I had to go to Peru. During my return home the plane from Paris to London Heathrow was delayed by just over 2 hours. On the train from London to Ipswich, the penultimate leg of my journey, I received an apology email on my mobile phone. For a moment I was impressed but then I read it …

Dear Mr./Mrs. CLARKE,

We are sorry that your flight on 08/27/2011 was delayed. Please accept our sincere apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

The situation you encountered was not in line with the high levels of service we aim to provide. We assure you that we are constantly working to improve flight punctuality.

We hope that your next flight with us will fully meet your expectations.

Yours sincerely,

Air France Customer Care.

 To receive real-time flight information on your mobile phone, please indicate your mobile phone number when you book your ticket or ensure that this number is included in your Flying Blue contact information.

Please do not reply to this e-mail. If you wish to contact your local Customer Care department, please go to the Contact us section of our website at www.airfrance.com. If you no longer wish to receive this type of communication from AIR FRANCE, please click here.

I was puzzled by a few things …

1. Why didn’t they know if I was a Mr or a Mrs? I’d booked the flight as Mr.
2. They had my mobile telephone number but I didn’t get any “real time” texts to let me know what was happening.
3. Why did they prevent me from replying to the email which would have been the easiest way for me to contact them if I had wanted to?

If you truly want to provide “high levels of customer service” then experience your processes otherwise the customer experience is that you are just going through the motions and don’t really care at all.

If I had been able to reply to the email I would have attached a copy of A Useful Guide to Customer Service       by Bryan Edwards      .