(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”..