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Service Recovery Insights From My Single Cebu Pacific Flight Cancellation And Rerouting (Part II)

(How a well known company missed an opportunity to recover a tarnished reputation. The backstory for this insight can be found here.)

First, this is from my experience and I make no sweeping generalisations. Second, I do acknowledge the company’s good intentions in venturing low cost flights to and from our notorious place. I’ve praise them for the good service  in the past. Third, I don’t make personal comments to the individual staff as I believe this is an organisational response protocol. Service recovery is an organisational effort. Fourth, I wrote this as a learning opportunity based on my experience alone. Fifth, I am in a service sector and I cannot help but learn the kind of service recovery implementation offered especially when “shit happens” in a company. 

So what did I learn?

1. TRANSPARENCY; TAKE CONTROL OF THE SITUATION ASAP.
Not one of the team introduced themselves properly and how they are related to the company. Except for their ID and uniform, there’s no other way to know who are we talking to. There’s no central person in charge of the service recovery efforts. The shuffling of tentative questions between members of the team and the frequently changing instructions revealed this. One more thing, what exactly does the phrase “due to late arrival of your turnaround plane” mean?

2. TIMELINESS; RECOVER RAPPORT, FAST!
I don’t feel the sincerity and helpfulness of the service recovery team. No one made an effort to smile or look the complaining passengers in the eye while talking to them. One asked me bluntly “Are you taking videos sir?” with a stern look. I almost replied mean to burn her brains out but, I said “no my boarding pass is in my phone, please view it now, my phones battery will be gone soon”. She gave me an idea and I almost jumped at it, but we’re all humans. So, screw that video taping.

3. CONSISTENCY; LINES OF COMMUNICATION IS KEY
Please don’t “shout” announcements when weary customers are lined up to rebook. Its not a concentration camp right? The least you can do is approach and talk to them personally, not them going up to your desk. Customers are the one inconvenienced and your job is to re convenient them! The handouts helped but not if you can’t read or understand it. Some of us got their transportation reimbursement but others, like me, weren’t able to.

4. RESOURCES; READY SERVICE RECOVERY LOGISTICS
I can’t believe it a big brand company have to hastily set up a “whatever” desk (frankly I don’t know). Someone was looking for a laptop, then a wifi connection. Someone announced at the top of his voice that we should look at our updated booking status online using our cellphones. Not all have internet connections mind you and many passengers particularly the more senior ones, are not internet savvy. Helplessness is the last thing you want for your customer to feel.

Bottomline, these scenarios weren’t well thought out before thus the response were hilariously frustrating.

Overall, I’m not satisfied with their service recovery efforts. Cebu Pac did re route and gave an extra free flight coupon. I paid for the former with my old ticket and the latter in my opinion is a poor attempt to hide a dismal service recovery efforts. I have other poor experience flying this company but I leave those as a learning instance for me.

Of course, until there’s a better airline flying our routes on those time slots, I have no choice but to fly a Cebu Pac. Again, this is not an attack on their staff because I personally knew many who are good and well intentioned.

This call is for their leaders, I’m sure they all knew these insights I mentioned. You failed your people for not training them well for this. You failed your company’s good name the moment you left service recovery in the backseat of your business strategy. More importantly, you failed your clients the moment your SR team implemented a lousy SR protocol.

Lastly, i don’t expect this company’s leaders will even read this. But I thank you nonetheless for giving me an opportunity to experience a bad SR implementation. Clearly, I learned something new today- that’s how not to run a service recovery protocol.

Indeed, the best companies are those who shine best, “when shit happens”..

By • October 9, 2018

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How to fly with Cebu Pacific and not get angry at cancellations: You don’t (Part I)

(This is a two part post, the first one recounting my experience and the second, an insight into the Service Recovery protocol of the company)

Backstory:

I arrived at NAIA Terminal 3 on October 7, 2018,  2 hours 30 minutes early for my 2PM Manila- General Santos City Cebu Pacific flight 5J 997.  I only have a backpack and a hand carried bag with me. I checked in online the day prior. After the pre departure protocol checks, I went directly to boarding gate 120 and fell asleep at the bench waiting for the plane . I heard the paging system announcing  our flight will be delayed “due to the delayed arrival of our turn around flight”.  Cebu Pacific flight 5J 997  arrived ~ 2:30- 2:45PM . Passengers boarded the plane between 3- 4pm.  After around 15 minutes inside the plane, I saw the cabin doors shut and heard the pre-departure announcements on the loudspeakers. The plane backed up,  getting ready to taxi into the runway. Once I felt the plane moving, I immediately fell asleep. I woke up 30 mins thinking we were flying already.  Looking out through the plane’s window I saw our plane still lining up for the runway. When it was our plane’s turn to take off, the control tower advised our planes pilot to go back because our plane will not make it to Gensan airport’s “sunset” limitations. Our plane proceeded to the arrival area as instructed. The flight pilot and crew gave the standard arrival welcome routine. It felt really awkward though knowing we weren’t even an inch off the ground. The pilot instructed us to proceed to the customers desk at the arrival area for rebooking, rerouting and in my mind,  whatever we  can salvage from this debacle. Personally, I think the flight crew handled this flight cancellation per protocol nicely although I still would want an explanation why their arrival was delayed. I frankly don’t know what  “due to the delayed arrival of our turn around flight” mean.

Events turned for the worst at the arrival area’s customer’s desk. The permanent customer’s desk is busy with some other transactions and we were told a temporary customer desk for 5J 997 passengers will be set up immediately.

I am first in line in front of this temporary customers desk. A team of Cebu Pac ground staff gathered behind the desk doing something I don’t understand. First, they were looking for a laptop connected to their network, probably to book us again. Second, they were also looking for WIFI connection (???). Both laptop and wifi dongle arrived late. Third, no one seem to have definite answers or protocol to follow. There’s someone constantly talking to a phone, another holding typing on an ipad probably for their network while others are holding brochures and flyers. Nobody introduced themselves and I don’t know who is the person in charge. Someone or some two maybe three people started announcing and talking  to the passengers. It’s quite obvious some staff aren’t sure of their answers or what to do based on the  tentative answers and announcements we got.

They gave us one free domestic flight voucher as their way of apologising for this flight cancellation, really a mess for most of us. Our tickets were automatically rebooked for the next day gensan flight and was told free hotel accommodations (or 500PHP for those who won’t stay there) for the night. Those who want to rebook or reroute  elsewhere or another time, well we were advised to wait till they finish setting up their transfer desk.

Not wanting to stay overnight and wait for next day flight, I opted for the 6PM flight to Davao. They booked me alright, I was first in line but they refused to give me my 500Php transportation allowance. I did not insist anymore since I only had 30 mins window to boarding for that davao flight. So I ran to the departure area, went through the same boarding protocol and arrive at the gate 15 minutes earlier than the boarding time.

I barely warmed my butt waiting, someone on the paging system announced our davao flight will be delayed also due to, guess what “late arrival of your return flight”. So here I am, waiting for a plane to arrive and writing my thoughts here. I hope I’ll end up in Davao tonight. Let’s see what happens.

Update: 9:30 PM 10-7-18
I finally arrived in Davao. Hope to find a place to stay, as I left my keys to my sister’s place in the car back in Gensan. Needing a massage and coffee too. Then will write on my thoughts on this experience. A chance to learn, so to speak.

By • October 9, 2018

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Practical social media strategy for tourism based industries

A few days back I was asked by Bukidnon Provincial Tourism Office to talk on blogging and social media as an engagement tool for their provincial tourism office. Bukidnon provincial tourism office is composed of 20 strong municipal tourism offices each with their own set of staff. This office is also of staging the famous Kaamulan Festival, one of the truly ethic festivals I’ve seen in recent memory. If there’s a few take home points I want them to study and implement, these should it be.

“All right, stop, collaborate and listen!”- A Vanilla Ice-Ice Baby social media strategy.

Whatever you’re doing on social media now,

Stop:

Formulate a social media strategy

Whatever you campaign are- information drives, engagements, networking, promotions, feedbacks, the success of such activities depend heavily on a well planned social media strategy. This should be the first step. What constitute your social media strategy? The succeeding steps will tell you

Identify and roll out  measurable objectives

Are you going for an info drive? a promotional campaign? Tourism branding? Site feedback? Write it out clearly and make sure everybody in your team knows this by heart. Remember you can only measure what you’ve set out to do in the first place.

Identify your target audience

It’s pretty obvious who will be your target audience when you’re using social media as your channel of communication and feedback. While its true social media cut across age, gender, society or political boundaries, some are more accessible than others.  Digital natives are a lot easier to convince than technophobics.

Choose your social media channel and set up accordingly.

The social media channels is usually dependent on your objectives and target audience. Start with the 3 basic Social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter. Instagram then expand to other platforms once your are comfortable with it. I would also recommend a blog where to pour your content in. This should be your main platform where your audience will go to when they need more information on the campaigns you are staging.

Set up your metrics

If you are dipping yourself into social media engagements, you better be prepared to set up metrics for listening, monitoring and or measuring your campaigns.  These are all part of an efficient social media strategy. Would you monitor your brand? listen what your audience have to say about your campaigns?

Collaborate:

Publish and share useful content!

Whatever your social media platform is, content is king.  A well thought out and targeted content beats the crappy haphazardly posted content. Remember social media is about engagement not just promotion. The good thing about social media is that it can be your feedback channel too, and hence a very powerful tool to shape campaigns or revise a campaign plan.

Network with other like minded ambassadors

I cannot overemphasize collaboration and networking on social media. Aim for engagement. Brand your content, comment on various other platforms and introduce yourself if you are not yet known. There’s no shortcut to doing this.  Build the habit of engaging other like minded social media advocates whenever possible. It builds credibility and identity for your brand.
Measure using social media metrics

Listen:

While listening is part of the social media engagements metrics, it’s a good first step to amplifying social media strategy. Listening implies monitoring and monitoring means, your looking for telltale signals to improve your social media activities. It may be on feedbacks, what other people say about your campaigns, brands or site. When continuously done, it gives you an efficient and valuable tool to fine tune strategy, revise social media activities, or launch entirely a new one.

All this listening and monitoring is aimed at achieving and or sustaining engagement, the “holy grail” of social media activities. Wether it be brand loyalty, attention retention and so forth. Again the kind of listening and monitoring methods you should employ depends on your social media strategy’s objectives, the target audience or market, social media activities.  On facebook page for example, link likes, or posting comments mean more as a listening tool. On your blog a comment maybe a better way to monitor loyalty.

Measuring up success in social media is something a bit more of the end game. Knowing you’ve achieve (or not) something based on your predefined objectives is a bit new to social media activities but it definitely signifies a well thought out and efficient social media strategy!

van

(Vanilla Ice’s photo courtesy of AOLTV)

By • September 14, 2015

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How to make your advocacies rock, on social media

Years ago, I started writing online just for the love of writing.  There’s no definable goal, no strategy, nor any specifics to it. I just love to write. I was a kid who found one trendy eye candy thing to do. It’s called blogging and I was a blogger without a cause. My blogging mantra then was:

….

That’s right. I have no blogging mantra before. If you take a look at my social media profile today, this is my mantra:

I empower people.

So how did my wanderlust blogging evolved into this social media mantra of today? I’m not so sure but there’s two things on my side that made room for “experimentation”.

One is time, the other, I suck at writing. 

I was one of the few who started blogging when it wasn’t popular then. Ergo I had the luxury of squandering time just to write rhetorics and metaphors.  I had little regard for grammatical correctness so long that I could blog. Mind you, the whole content police is at your ass every time waiting to bust your ill constructed content. But, I didn’t care.

When facebook and twitter became king and queen online platforms, I still suck at writing. The thing though, king Facebook doesn’t really care how grammatically correct your status updates are.  Or, how sane your content is. It has its own algorithm, and facebook-ers really hate long posts like this.

Well, queen twitter even pushed further and set the character limit (of thoughts) to 140. That’s how many characters twitter thinks relevant content amount to. Insane? Yes, but it squeezes the freaking juices out of your creative mind. Grammars, notwithstanding .

When Google+ came in late and transformed itself into a rock solid social app to mean business, I began re examining finite resources and strategised my social media involvement. No one knows how or when will Google settle revamping its app, but I seriously thought about playing my cards right when it still owns the search engine mega empire to back its social media platform.

So again, how is mantra, writing, social media fell into place to supercharge your advocacy on social media?

I gave the following tips on #ChangePh social media day:

SOCIALMEDIADAY

No content marketing? No writing or grammar polishing? No SEOs? Surprised?! Cliche?

The most important thing I’ve learned over the years of gallivanting on social media is the underpinning of most technical tips and advices experts would tell me. Humans are innately social. Those who are rockstars on social media, tend to have superb human  rather than technical”skills”. So now you can see, the tips I gave above are really positive human traits and are easily likeable on social media.

If there’s one sentence I’d like my audience to remember, it should be this :

Be authentically, human on social media.

Heck, I still suck at writing. But I have an advocacy to empower people and that compulsion to never stop at being “okay” . I try to be authentic, with helpfulness as a fuel to this passion. Lastly, the social media animal should never be just online. In fact, the social media rockstars are those who bring humans into a “gathering” offline. And that’s  what social media is all about.

Being human, being social.

The author talking about social media on social media day #ChangePh #SMDayGensan #HEalthXPh #smartlife

The author talking about social media on social media day #ChangePh #SMDayGensan #HEalthXPh #smartlife

(This post is related to my talk on “how to make your advocacy rock on social media” during #ChangePh social media day in Gensan (#SMdayGensan) and is my contribution to #smartlife social media tips)

By • July 16, 2015

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