This is the problem about positioning your company as the industry renegade. When you'e the renegade company and you make that a key part of everything you do, then people get more frustrated then they might normally get when they encounter your very non-renegade rules.
Actually had a discussion about this very issue this morning with a guy at the Apple store. Last week, after less then two months on the market, Apple dropped the price of the iPhone by $200, a third of its original price. And yea, people were pissed, but Apple folks remained loyal even in their anger. In fact, I heard some people say that they were cool having paid $200 to participate in user testing for the coolest consumer product ever! That's brand loyalty for you! And there was my previous posting about Apple taking care of my broken phone. Yes, it was my fault, but they shouldn't expect me to think different if they're not going to.
And that leads me to Virgin Atlantic. Yes, I had my arrival time in NY down as my departure time in London. My fault. Although, I did have the slowest cabbie ever! I finally asked him to go faster when we got passed by the woman in a wheel chair with the baby in a stroller.
But, from the moment I hit the check-in counter about 45 minutes before my flight, they seemed very determined to follow an exasperating set of procedures. I couldn't dp what I needed to do at the ticket counter -- mind you, there were more people working the counter then waiting on line -- I needed to go to the change desk. Once there, she explained how it was their policy to charge $200 to change me to the wide open next flight, because after all, it was policy. Since it wqs wide open, I said I'll fly stand by. Again I was told that there would be a $200 change fee, even to go stand by on the next flight. That had 80 seats open.
She kept telling me that "This is how all of the airlines do it," and I kept saying "But you're Virgin, aren't you supposed to do it differently then everyone else? Isn't this the reason you exist, because everyone else does it badly?" I said something and she replied that "That's how Continental does it too" and I replied "Did you really want to use one of the worst airlines in the industry as the company you emulate? Yea, it wasn't going well.
So, I paid the fee, told her that I was going to use the power of blogging to share my tale of woe (she was pretty unimpressed by that!) and then asked for an aisle seat. "Sorry sir, I can't do seat requests, you have to go back to the check-in line for that." Let's see, not having one person who could help solve my problem and running me back to another desk. Yep, you run Virgin Atlantic exactly like Continental.
Now mind you, my wife is going through the voice menu of hell trying to reach someone, who tells her that it's completely discretionary, up to the ticket agent! I'm going mad, but trying to be cool, because yelling at cstomer service folks doesn't usually help anyway. So I ask him about it and he says "I'm only a ticketing specialist. If you have a question about additional fees, you have to go back to the first desk. I'm not trained for helping in that area. I then asked if maybe he could at least bump me up to premium economy and he says he can't. But, he's honest. "It's all about revenue, he tells me. They sell most of their upgrades on the day of the flight, so there's no reason to give them away. He aso tells me that's the reason for making me pay the $200 fee to fly stand by. With 80 seats open on the flight, I would most likely get on. They'll only let you fly stand by without paying if they're pretty sure you won't get on. All about maximising revenue.
So, I get my seat and go back to the fir desk, where I get the same woman again. I tell her what my wife says about the fe being discretionary and she says "Yea, they always say that and think that we can. But we can't. And I walk away, defeated.
But I can't help thinking that if you're the renegade, do you always have to act in a renegade way? Can you be a renegade company doing renegade things while using the same basic rules as everyone else? And if you're doing things the same way everyone else is, can you call yourself a renegade?
All great philosophical questions for sure. I just wish it didn't cost me $200 to ask the question.
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