Lawrence Lessig just flew his 1,000,000th mile on United... and they didn't even notice....
That is just fucking sad.
I recall watching some customer service video a long time ago about some hospital staff member treated this mean-spirited dying patient really well, and she alters her Will and leaves the staffer a boatload of money. The point of the video is obviously to show that you never know what will come from treating people nicely.
Todays version of that is information about good & bad service spreads very quickly. Treat everyone well, you have no idea how loud and far their voice travels.
In this case, Lessig is a famous guy, he has a big audience and now lots of people know about this service blunder. I fly United and have a Mileage Plus account, which means that every couple of weeks I get something in the mail from them. They obviously know who we are and how many miles we travel. From a technology standpoint, recognizing these customer milestones is really easy and seems like a no brainer.
Imagine had United taken the time to reward an obviously loyal customer even in the smallest way, say with a Thank you card on his seat when he boarded the plane.
Imagine the post he would have written had they done something really nice for him...
You would be surprise where a smile and kind words will take you.
Posted by: Chuck Conway | February 26, 2005 at 04:20 PM