How not to do business

From the airline industry comes a good example of a really bad customer care decision, an interesting comment about the connectedness of our society, a potential benefit for telecom service providers and some important lessons about providing service.

The example is Northwest Airlines' new policy of charging its customers extra fees if they don't buy their tickets online--$5 if they purchase by phone and $10 if they purchase at an airport desk. This is distinct from competing airlines that offer discounts for customers who buy tickets online--Northwest is actually punishing the disconnected.

The comment about connectivity is Northwest's observation about Internet ubiquity. In today's New York Times, a Northwest executive says Internet access is "part of what we all do in 2004 in the United States." That might be difficult to quantify (did he cross-reference stats on all walks of consumer life with stats about connectivity with stats about PC ownership and so on?), but it is true that our society is more connected now than ever--at least to phone lines that could serve as dial-up outlets, given the proper gear. The latest statistics from the U.S. Telecom Association put the number of U.S. households with telephone lines at more than 95%, and that figure was from November 2002.

The potential benefit for service providers, of course, is in more residential and business consumers using their access lines to conduct life's business. In a communications environment in which there appears to be no single killer app, the more bandwidth-consuming or revenue-producing apps carriers can get into their pipes, the better.

The customer care lessons are myriad, but the most obvious is the one about not charging your customers extra for the privilege of dealing with humans. I'm no expert on the airline industry, but I know a lot of people who fly a lot, and I'm fairly certain their top priority is convenience. Tell them they're going to have to pay more if they need to talk to you, and I think I can take a pretty good guess at what they'll tell you to do.

There's a direct parallel here with the telecom service provider issue of increasing automation in functions like customer care without alienating customers. As much as it might be easier to automate everything from ordering to provisioning to technical assistance, it's just not always possible--and for high-end customers in particular, it can be dangerous. Airlines clearly face many of the same cost-control and customer service issues as the telecom industry. There are good ways to solve problems and address those issues with technology and reliance on consumer trends like connectivity, but none of them will work if they aren't done with an eye toward what's most important to the customer.

E-mail me at jmeyers@primediabusiness.com (but I won't charge you extra to call me or talk to me face-to-face).