Japanese airline customer service - again
April 6 2012
| I survived 34 hours of transit between hotel room in Jakarta, Indonesia, and walking in the door of my home again "yesterday". Thank you to Andi and Chris and Gunawan for being great hosts in Jakarta. Among the top hotels I've ever stayed in for IBM travel, excellent meals of local cuisine, and the traffic wasn't near as bad as I was lead to believe (or maybe I just got lucky). I had few flight options coming home from Jakarta, most of them involved mutli-hour stopovers in either Hong Kong or Tokyo. Either way I was going straight from a guest lecture at Binus University to the airport, meaning traveling in a suit. Oh well. The best routing ended up being ANA (All-Nippon Airways), which also had the bonus of a stopover in Narita that would be long enough for some nice sushi breakfast (yes, really - try it sometime) and a little time to catch up on work. On board, my seat selection jujitsu continued to work well and I ended up with the middle seat open next to me, one of five or so empty seats on the whole plane. During flight, I was watching a movie ("Tower Heist", pretty funny) on the iPad, which was propped up on the middle seat's tray table. Thus I was surprised when a flight attendant tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to my white dress shirt....stained along the left side with red blotches that looked like spilled wine. Uh oh. In her limited English, she couldn't explain what had happened, but the result was unmistakable. She indicated she would try to clean it up, and returned a few minutes later with some towels and some kind of cleaning solution. She then proceeded to try to blot up the stains on the shirt while I remained sitting there, which already struck me as way more than an American airline would do. But whatever she was using wasn't removing the stains, just turning them from red to blue. So a few minutes later, the flight purser joined her and asked me if I had something else to change into. I hadn't changed before the flight mainly because everything else I brought along on the trip was either cigarette smoke-infested or damp from the Bali humidity, and it was in my checked luggage anyway. So the purser offered to bring me a sweater from the first class amenity kit, and asked me to give them the white shirt to try to clean further. She then brought me back to one of the lavatories, cleaned it from top to bottom, and then let me use it as a changing room. The sweater, which I can only describe as "small Japanese old man zip-up style", wasn't going to join my wardrobe permanently, but it would do for a few hours while they did whatever they were going to do to my dress shirt. A few hours later, the flight attendant fetched me and brought me to the rear galley, where they showed me the shirt again. The stains were almost entirely gone. They were very proud of their result, but at the same time extremely apologetic. They further apologized, saying they realized what a "horrible flight" I was having between the shirt incident and the unruly child seated across the aisle from me. I noticed the child (he was playing his iPod music without headphones at one point during my slumbers) but hadn't the adjective "horrible" describing any aspect of the flight. Once the shirt was dry, about an hour before landing, the purser came to return it. This became a ceremony, where again she cut to the front of the line for the lavs, cleaned one top to bottom, and let me use it as a changing room. When I emerged, a formal apology was given, Japanese-style. There was much bowing in my direction, and I was given a post card with a written apology along with the business card from the purser. They also had me fill out a voucher for cleaning cost reimbursement, in case further cleaning was needed, and US$20 in cash was handed over after I signed the voucher. They even threw in a deck of playing cards as a gift. All of this was extremely valuable to me, as I was heading straight from O'Hare to my younger daughter's preschool and indeed needed to look presentable after the long flight. It is impossible to imagine the crew on a United or American flight doing much more than an apology and maybe offering some frequent flier miles. I didn't know what to expect, but like the last time I was in Indonesia, the Japanese airlines seem to establish the benchmark for customer service. Arigato gozimashta, ANA. I'll see you again. |
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Chris http://wyldginger.com | 4/6/2012 10:05:16 AM
And you flew Coach not Business or First class on the flight...
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Wes Morgan http://wesmorgan.blogspot.com | 4/6/2012 10:12:44 AM
Amazing service seems to be a common denominator of Asian airlines.
When I flew Korean Air to Seoul some years ago, I was poring over various maps/brochures as the other passengers slept. (I rarely sleep on airplanes, as a courtesy to other passengers; I'm told that I'm something of a chainsaw.) An attendant asked if I was a first-time visitor to Korea; when I replied in the affirmative, she pulled up a folding stool, sat in the aisle and proceeded to spend 30-45 minutes telling me about all sorts of "not on the maps" places to see/eat/whatever. If people awoke during the night and were not obviously going back to sleep right away, attendants offered made-to-order noodles as a midnight snack. Later, as we were preparing to land, an attendant brought me a small bag and said, "something for your children." Apparently, they had overheard me discussing my family with my neighbor; the bag contained several decks of playing cards, pilot wings and similar goodies.
There is no comparison to be had between that kind of individual attention and the treatment received on American/European airlines.
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Nathan T. Freeman http://ntf.gbs.com | 4/6/2012 10:43:21 AM
"There is no comparison to be had between that kind of individual attention and the treatment received on American/European airlines."
What's sad is, on a similar flight, where the majority of the passengers are sleeping, there isn't even anything else for the attendants to DO. Why not take the time to provide a personalized experience for customers when the alternative is simply to be strapped into a jump seat reading a novel or standing in the galley chatting with a co-worker?
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Mike Smith | 4/6/2012 10:47:24 AM
I've had similar experiences on Asian-based airlines and when traveling over there almost relish the idea of flying Cathay Pacific, JAL, or ANA. Their idea of customer service is top-notch.
I can remember one trip, where arriving from Hong Kong on Cathay Pacific into LAX, the feeling that I had as I was re-introduced to the U.S. airport and airline experience. It was depressing to say the least. Very little in the way of customer service and I felt more like cargo than I did a passenger.
Great story, Ed. Thanks for sharing.
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Gwen Jenkins | 4/6/2012 11:10:10 AM
To be fair to western airlines, on a transatlantic flight a British Airways crew was extremely nice to an African woman traveling alone with twin infants. The flight attendants spent a lot of their time walking one baby while the mother tended the other, and gave her their curtained-off space for privacy.
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Howard http://www.tlcc.com | 4/6/2012 2:17:28 PM
Ed, are you sharing pictures of you wearing that sweater? Happy Passover, Howard
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David Hablewitz http://thenotesguyinseattle.com | 4/6/2012 11:01:28 PM
Your anecdote perfectly illustrates the point that quality of service is not defined by how you are treated when things go right, but by how you are treated when things go wrong. They were able to turn a potentially bad situation into an opportunity to sell you on ANA. I remember a friend and small business owner once explained this to me. Reading your story is good a reinforcement of the lesson for me.
Wow and I thought Singapore Airlines was good. That is some amazing service.