People will put up with a lot more if they are told what is happening than if communication is minimal. Perhaps this phenomenon is witnessed no more clearly than in the air travel business.

 On specific occasions, airline personnel adequately communicate with passengers about delays, overbookings, lost luggage, and mechanical problems. When this happens, customers, by and large, graciously put up with major inconveniences. 

 Then there are circumstances when virtually no information is communicated. Passengers get more and more annoyed as they have no way to determine how serious the delay or other problem is. As a result, they begin to pester airline personnel, who become annoyed, bossy and parental in their attempts to get the passengers to behave like docile, obedient children and stop pestering them. This only further annoys the passengers, who begin to grouse to themselves. Airline personnel look with disgust at their impolite customers.

 What is needed is more complete communication, even if that communication is to simply acknowledge that nothing is known. Acknowledging that nothing is known, at a minimum, puts airline personnel in the same boat as the passengers. 

 Worst case scenarios need to be shared so customers can make choices that are better suited for them. When customers are told to expect a short delay and then five hours later nothing has happened, it is not surprising that a major complaint situation is brewing. The customer becomes angry with him or herself because they didn't just go to a different airline and rebook their flight when they first learned about the delay. Then the passengers take it out on airline personnel. A vicious circle is created with passengers and airline personnel feeding into each other's bad moods.
 
 The number of airline complaints received by the U.S. Department of Transportation in Washington, D.C. is dramatically increasing. Transportation spokespeople suggest two reasons why they think this is happening. One is the reality of fewer options for stranded passengers than options available to poorly treated hotel guests. 

 The second reason is the message that is indirectly communicated in the hundreds of letters that pour into the D.O.T. office on a daily basis. Passengers tell tales of their anger at not getting enough information to make rational decisions. Many complaints are generated not because of the problem itself, but because of the lack of information the customer receives. Many situations start out as relatively minor events, and by the time the customer feels inclined to send a letter to Washington, D.C., they have gotten extremely angry because of how they were ignored.

 Sharing information is not that difficult to do. In fact, it has to be one of the easiest things service personnel can do for their customers. Airlines can absolutely guarantee there are going to be delays, mechanical problems, lost luggage, oversold flight. Since they can't control these aspects of customers service to perfection, they need to put some effort into teaching their staff how to communicate adequately to customers when glitches do occur.

Janelle Barlow, Coauthor
A Complaint Is a Gift
Emotional Value
 
 
 

Previous "Complaint Is A Gift Corner" pages: 
 

#1	Overselling Service
#2	Not Listening to Complaints
#3	Plastic Chicken
#4	Complaints You Can Do Nothing About
#5	A+ Complaint Handling
#6	Beware! Others are Watching You
#7	At Least Keep Talking!
#8	Let Customers Know You'll Tell Someone
#9	If You're Going to Apologize, Then Mean It
#10	Keep Front-life Staff Well Informed
#11	Don't Set Goals to Reduce Complaints
#12	Products Used During Special Events
#13	Best Practices of Complaint-friendly Organizations
#14	Complaints About Mother Nature!
#15	Socially Offensive Situations
#16	A Complaint Is a Gift in Action
#17	Information Systems  Users' Complaints, I
#18	Information Systems  Users' Complaints, II
#19	Creating an Internal Service Culture
#20	When Your Customers are Industrial Buyers
#21	Customers Who are Poor Complainers
#22	Complaints That are Difficult to Talk About
#23	Do You Mistreat Your Customers?
#24	Fairness: Treatment of Staff
#25	Expectations and Complaints
#26	Successful Toll-free Experiences
#27	Small Companies and Service
#28	A Banking Customer Strikes Back
#29	Complaints in the Hospitality Business
#30	Customers Be More Cynical

We invite you to submit your "best" examples by fax or e-mail. We won't print any company names with the "poor" examples, because we believe that every organization fails from time to time. We will give credit to companies delighting their customers. In the case of the "poor" examples, we'll comment on how we think this situation could have been handled better. If you want us to list your name, please tell us that is what you want to do.

A Complaint Is a Gift, The Training Program 

A Complaint Is a Gift, The Book

Note: We have been getting e-mail from our readers asking us to list the names of the companies who get complaints. Our policy is to never list names. The reason for this is because every company fails from time to time, and we wouldn't want to tar some company's name just because of one bad example. Furthermore, we are dependant upon the writer's side of the story. We don't know for sure what happened, and in the name of fairness, we will not post names. Furthermore, the purpose of this corner is not to pass complaints along to corporations. This Complaint Is a Gift corner is designed to look at examples of good and bad complaint handling so we can learn from these experiences. Please, if you have a direct complaint you want a company to learn about, contact them directly. In many cases, we have never heard of the company in question and have no idea how to reach them. Janelle Barlow

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