Virgin America gets it. The newly formed airline, the brainchild of Richard Branson, understands that building a solid brand requires of all things, good customer service. If you provide the public with a quality product, which includes providing a quality experience to the customer, they'll be back. Unlike some of the larger airlines that are merging, are unwilling to change their ways, or in general are just not trying to build a good brand,
Virgin America has embraced social media to help build a solid customer base. Scoffing at the traditional advertising methods of television and even sometimes print ads, the company has taken to Twitter and Facebook to help keep customers informed about flight cancellations and delays, potential weather problems, as well as listening to customer complaints and sometimes reimbursing them for their delays.
This seems like the perfect time to a share an experience I had flying this week. After checking into my flight Monday morning, United canceled the flight due to weather. That I can understand. However, after waiting in line for two hours, as well as calling the company directly, I was told that I wasn't going to be able to fly out until the following day...but here's the catch, United wasn't going to give me any voucher to help pay for a hotel for the night nor would they even be able to tell me where I could stay. That's not what a traveler wants to hear when they are stranded in a city they know little about. Which brings me back to the original point about
Virgin America. How is it possible that a four year old airline can simply follow customers on Twitter, or even just have the understanding to know to listen to customers (even the cranky inconvenienced ones) and reimburse them for their delays, and a gigantic airline like United can't reimburse you for a hotel room? There's a reason why companies like
Virgin America, and Southwest, and Jetblue are striving and huge companies like United and Continental are being forced to merge and buy each other. When airlines like United clearly don't understand their customer needs and their customer base, customers simply go elsewhere. Am I inclined to fly United next time? Maybe slightly less than I was before. If they were maybe a little more helpful to me when I was in a jam, I'd be more willing to give them money in the future, but after hearing stories about customers at other smaller airlines like
Virgin America getting reimbursed for similar problems, I have to admit, I'd be more willing to fly on another airline in the future.
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Posted by GetHuman on Fri, 11 Feb 2011 12:51pm