Not only is JetBlue responsible for my first photograph as an engaged man, but my fiance and I also made it into the JetBlue internal employee newsletter and we both got a very nice holiday gift (JetBlue baseball hats) from them. But, recently JetBlue has taken a lot of criticism from people for a bunch of problems they had in the snow storm that hit Boston. I still think they do a better job than any other airline (now that Song does not exist) of making travel fun and easy, and they are still my preferred airline. While the recent delays and bad service were not good, I think JetBlue's handling of the situation should go down as an example of a great response to a potential PR nightmare. Here are some of the things I think that companies should do when faced with a challenging PR situation because of a problem with their product or service, and examples of what JetBlue did so well:
1) Act quickly. In contrast to the "ongoing" investigations of the theft of millions of records of customer's personal information at TJX Corp (TJ Maxx and Marshalls) which occurred months ago and they still are not saying what exactly happened, how many records were lost, etc.; JetBlue came out quickly and only a couple days after the problems had a message to their customers.
2) Be honest and admit you made a mistake. Many companies will come out with statements that are vague and reference "recent customer service issues" or "in response to reported problems with". JetBlue was totally upfront and accepted responsibility and admitted what they did was wrong. There is not a single sentence that gives any sort of excuse for what happened. While in fact, their problems were partly because they tried not to cancel flights in the first place, unlike other airlines that canceled flights pretty early so they would not be exposed to a potential problem. But, JetBlue does not mention any of these excuses. Very smart. See below the email JetBlue sent to their customers.
3) Treat people like human beings and talk to them in plain language. Don't use confusing "corporate speak" and terminology you would not use in a casual conversation with friends. The last thing people want is to feel like after they have been treated badly is that they get some weird "apology" from a corporation on official letterhead and using a bunch of terms like "service anomalies" or "satisfaction issues". JetBlue was very upfront and did not use any big company jargon. In fact, if you look at the video from the CEO on YouTube, it does not even appear that he is reading from a script, it is like he is right there with you, apologizing to you personally. He stutters, repeats himself. This is not an apology from a corporation to its customer base. This is a guy named David, apologizing to me, Mike. Click on the video to play it.
Click this link if the video above does not work for you.
4) Be clear about what specifically will change in the future. Vague promises about fixing problems and making people happy are not believable. You need to be specific and lay out a timeline. JetBlue was pretty specific about most things, but was especially smart about the customer bill of rights, which clearly out lines the rights you have as a customer. My big problem with this is the use of the term "Controllable Irregularity". It sounds like some type of bowel problem, not something to do with my flight, especially when they do not define it in the document. What is funny about this though, is that these rights are way better than I have ever been treated by any other airline. I was once stuck at Logan for 6 hours waiting for America West (aka America Worst) to get a toilet unfrozen. Yes, the toilet being frozen meant we could not take off. Apparently none of the maintenance guys at Logan could fix it, they needed to call a specialist. Anyway, I wonder if some of the big airlines will start to have something like this... I doubt it.
