Shame on me - it's a Friday morning and I am looking at my twitter stream a bit too much (but I figure it is more productive than looking out the window, right?). At about 10:00 this morning I noticed some tweet traffic from one of the rock stars of social media - Chris Brogan. (if you have no idea who this guy is set aside the next few minutes and visit his site; and then promise me you'll never call yourself a social media expert again).
Anyway, Chris was (as he very often is) traveling around the country and sharing with his followers (more than 117,000 of them) a ton of info about the trip. Chris is known for putting it all out there when he is on the road.
Check out some of the tweet traffic (bold & italics mine) from his flight from Dallas to Boston...
"And now the @southwestair ticket counter doesn't have a ticket though I'm checked in. #sigh. Today's my boy's birthday. Need to get home"
and then....
"Now buying my own ticket as I've somehow messed up the ticket @southwestair tried giving me. #noteasy."
and then...
"Somehow, this is my fault."
OK, up to this point nothing but an idiot traveler story, right? Yawn. Granted the boy's birthday part tugged on the heartstrings - but nothing to make me stop doing something to pay much attention (probably had it not been Friday I would have quit looking).
But now it gets good...
"Yep. My fault. @southwestair sent a paper ticket to me. Guess that's the linchpin. No paper, no fly. Whoops. #1964technology"
and then the final pre-flight tweet - the proverbial "Nail in the Coffin"
"Really was my fault. But, paper? I'm thwarted by a non-digital transaction? @southwestair, I'll have to stick to things I can't mess up."
So class, do we really think Chris is signing up with Southwest for his next trip to (fill in the blank location)?
Southwest has spent millions upon millions making you believe it is the coolest, most streamlined, best option out there. Sort of the "iPlane". Now one guy is reminding 117,000 people that they shipped him a paper ticket. Oops.
Now it has been a very long time since I flew Southwest, so I am not about to pretend I know the nuances of their booking system. It doesn't matter. Perhaps Chris got a paper ticket because that's what he told them he wanted. Regardless, 117,000+ people (many of whom are business travelers) are at this very moment looking for another flight.
To bring that into our real estate business, if you call a house a "cream puff" it had better be. Just imagine for a second if Chris had started tweeting from your listing about what a dump it was? Oops, 117,000 buyers lost. Heaven forbid he drove a distance to find out it was a dump based on your recommendation...now you and the house are in the target.
Thanks Chris for a quick reminder of how important it is for us to deliver on expectations - or someone out there will be sure to let the rest of us know.
POSTSCRIPT - Go figure, as I was writing this Chris was also writing about his experience...feel free to read it right from the source here.
2 comments:
Hey Chris -
Christi Day from Southwest Airlines here. I too was watching the Twitterstream this morning, and listening to our travel coordinator speak with Chris (via telephone) as he was trying to navigate his way home.
To clarify a few items - Chris was on a paper ticket, which is the type of ticket we provide to "guests" of Southwest Airlines. In this situation, we sponsored his travel so he could be the speaker at SMC Dallas. Yes, I agree paper tickets are old school - and trust me, we're already working on that issue. Chris didn't have that ticket when he arrived at Love Field this morning.
In my opinion, we delivered on every expectation that Chris had (or maybe his assistant had) for this trip. It was clearly communicated to his team that this is how we sponsor travel - with a paper ticket. If he was confused at any point on how this travel was to take place, he had the opportunity to ask me, in person, last night at the SMC meeting. Or online, when I tweeted him last night to ask if he had checked in for his flight.
I hope that helps shed some light on this situation. I regret that Mr. Brogan felt so let down by our services and hopefully we can make it up to him in his future travels. Let me know if you have any questions!
Christi
@southwestair
I think it is fair to say that in his post that came out right after I finished this one he takes all the blame. Kudos to him for doing so - I think his review is a fair assessment of how things went wrong and how Southwest lived up to the expectations that were set ahead of time.
Since this blog is almost exclusively for our real estate agents (I don't let it be indexed or show it in any directory) the message was really for them, and I think them seeing the way you quickly and proactively replied will also teach a valuable lesson.
CSB
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