triphunter.com

It is hard to believe in this day and age that a business hasn’t yet realized the importance of listening, and responding to its customers. Not just the good customers. Heck, like an overachieving child, all they need is a pat on the back to re-assure them that you really care. No, it’s the unhappy, disenfranchised customer you need to pay attention to, because like the angry child, they just won’t shut up until they get what they want. And they can do a lot of damage to your brand if your course of action is to ignore them.

Delta, are you listening? You inarguably have the worst customer service of any company I, and a growing list of my friends, have ever come in contact with. And apparently we are not a fringe group swimming upstream against a current of love for Delta. A quick search brought a number of sites to my attention where I can bitch about Delta: Delta Airlines Hate, Delta Sucks, Delta Stinks, I hate Delta. You can pretty much type in any derogatory term you want followed by Delta, and hit unhappy customer pay dirt. 

My wife and I became Delta haters a year ago when they lost her bags on a trip to the Caymans with her Mom and Sister. She spent three days of her six day vacation in a $12 dollar bikini, which wasn’t a problem for me, and at that point I actually liked Delta.  But then, rather than just own up, they took a proverbial crap right in the middle of the floor and tracked it all over the house. “We never lost your bag. We returned your bag, we don’t owe you anything for your bag, your clothes weren’t worth what you declared.” It was unbelievable. Six months later she got a $12 dollar check and a banana nut Odwalla bar. And we vowed never to fly Delta again. 

Then, just yesterday, my ire, yes, I said ire, was re-awakened when friends of ours told us of their Delta nightmare. It goes like this: Mom, Dad and the three kids (6,5 and 2) went on a vacation to Mexico. Great time. Ruins, sun, fun, the works. Then, with all the stress removed from their internal organs, they boarded a Delta flight home, basking in their memories. The first hitch came in Atlanta, when their connecting flight was delayed 7 hours. Finally, Dad pulled a few strings and got them on a flight close to home, but not where the departed from originally. So, some 15 hours later, they all got home. But guess what was not with them. That’s right. Their bags. All five bags. Gone. Gone the way of the dodo.  Hours of calls and days later, 4 of the 5 bags were located, but here is what my friend said about the fifth, which contained all of the kids clothes:

“No one at the 800 numbers at Delta or their emails is responsive.  Delta told me this morning they will look for the bag for 3 months and it will take 8-12 weeks to process the claim!  For those with children, you can imagine what this is like.  Every time they realize a favorite shirt is among the missing we have to go through this whole process of crying and me assuring them that we can get a new one.”      

So here is the advice I give Delta. Any response is better than no response. An understanding voice acknowledging the inconvenience is the basic tenet of customer service. Because if you decide to ignore me, or my friend, or any other of the angry people who have brushed up against your crappy brand, you too will go the way of the dodo. 

Dear Susan,

Yesterday I received an email from you announcing that GM had repaid all $8.1 billion of its government loans five years ahead of schedule. I did pause for a second after reading your nice note to acknowledge to myself that I was just spammed by GM, since I know that I have never given you permission to contact me. But, understanding the magnitude of your announcement, I won’t make a big deal out of it.

What occurred to me next was that I, like the fabled Rumpelstiltskin must have fallen asleep for close to 100 years, and during my slumber, GM, through hard work and really incredible marketing, started designing, building and selling the absolute best cars in the world. So many had they sold, in fact, that they had bought themselves free and clear of government ownership. Before I rushed out to buy a GM car for myself, I had some investigating to do.

Thankfully, while I rumpelstiltskined, the internet had not advanced at all, so I jumped online and googled GM to see just how they had turned themselves around. I was really excited, and then I got really confused.

The first article I read was about Senator Chuck Grassley, who claimed that GM had not payed back the loan with money it had earned selling hundreds of millions of cars and trucks, but rather had payed it back using more government loaned money.

“The bottom line seems to be that the TARP loans were ‘repaid’ with other TARP funds in a Treasury escrow account. The TARP loans were not repaid from money GM is earning selling cars, as GM and the administration have claimed in their speeches, press releases and television commercials,” he wrote.

Since all politicians are liars, I decided to dismiss his rantings as just another trick to get re-elected. My search to uncover GM’s success story continued.

My next bit of sleuthing turned up some promising news. Year over year sales at Cadillac were up over 76%, and sales at Buick, Chevy and GMC were up almost 40%. But what came next was a bit surprising: In the first quarter of 2010, GM lost $4.3 billion! And four out of the top 10 worst cars and trucks on the road as rated by Consumer Reports came from GM.

Before I went any farther in my investigation, I had to find out what year it was, and to my amazement, it wasn’t 2110. I hadn’t slept for 100 years after all. I’d only slept for a few hours.  It was Monday morning, April 26th, 2010.  The truth slowly dawned on me. GM hadn’t changed at all. They still think that the American people aren’t so bright, and no matter how many Cadillacs they sold, it wasn’t enough to make a profit, and it certainly wasn’t enough to repay $8.1 billion in loans. 

I then stumbled across a new ad in which CEO Ed Whitacre says  “our goal is to exceed every expectation you’ve set for us”. I don’t remember when we set dishonesty, poor products and spamming as GM’s goals. Maybe I was asleep.

 Bells and whistles are great. I love having a fridge in the back seat of my Flex.   I love speaking to the nice woman in my dash board who tells me where to go, dials my phone when I ask her to, and finds the song I want to hear. I also love the style and design of the Flex.  But none of this matters if the basic functionality of the vehicle, its ability to take you from Point A to Point B,  does not work as promised. Bells and whistles can’t replace quality. I recently wrote a post about my first year with a Ford Flex, and concluded that I would, with certain caveats, recommend the vehicle to a friend. I was wrong. As much as it breaks my heart to admit it, this is the first, and last Ford that I will buy for quite a long while.

In my post I documented a surprisingly long list of problems that I had encountered in the first year of Flex ownership, but was willing to forgive. Bad battery, leak in the window, rubbing tire on the fender well, and a persistent alignment issue. But this recent trip to the dealer is the last straw.

Last Monday while driving in a rainstorm with my two kids in the back, water began pouring through the ceiling heater vents. Each of those vents is perfectly positioned right above both child seats, so the water was flowing down on their heads. My wife sat in the back  for an hour with wads of paper towels pressed against the vents to keep the kids dry. I called Ford that day, and was told that the “water specialist” (mmmmm…) came in on Tuesdays. That night I dropped the car off for repair. While I was there, I mentioned that since they had the vehicle, could they also investigate a funny propane smell that filled the car when I came to a stop.
Tuesday afternoon I got  a call from the service department informing me that the water specialist had not located the leak and they would need the car for another day. The good news however was that they located the reason for the propane smell-a cracked hydraulic pump in the four wheel drive system that was dumping hydraulic fluid onto the hot exhaust pipe. The vaporized fluid was coming into the car and accounted for the smell. I can’t tell you how excited I was to know that my family had been breathing that for a month. The part was on order and should be in the following day. With a long Easter weekend coming up, I let them know I needed the car by Thursday.
Wednesday came and went. Not a word from the dealer. I called Thursday morning to find out when I could pick the car up. Not today. The leak had finally been located, and the  sunroof had been removed to replace leaky seals. Should be ready Friday. The call on Friday, however, was not good news. The sunroof glass had to be sent out to a specialist, and wouldn’t be ready until Monday. I was offered a rental car for the weekend, but couldn’t arrange to pick it up. We made do with one car for a few days (not really much of a hardship I agree), and moved some schedules around to be able to get the car Monday night, which proved to be premature planning as the car was still not ready. The glass had not returned from the specialist and re-assembling the sunroof and re-installing the headliner would take a day. Should be ready Wednesday. The leaky pump, however, had been replaced.

Eight days. Eight days to repair two major issues with a car just one year old. By themselves, forgivable, but at the bottom of a half dozen other issues, the forgiving well dries up.
I don’t deny that Ford has come a long way in the last few years. When the Flex works I love it. But it just doesn’t work well enough for a vehicle with a $40,000 price tag. I hope you keep at it Ford. I hope you keep working to improve the quality of your vehicles, but don’t forget that you have a long way to go, and that, despite my best intentions to become an evangelist, I think our relationship is over.

Years ago I went to the Tokyo Fish Market locally known as Tsukiji. While it’s scale is impressive, what is absolutely overwhelming is the size of the bluefin tuna auction. Imagine 20 rows of tuna laid nose to tail and spanning 2-3 football fields. By 8am all of these fish have been auctioned off and are being carted away to various restaurants throughout Japan. Now imagine that this happens every day, 7 days a week. You leave thinking that the blue fin tuna is screwed. And it is. There is just no way that nature can provide for that kind of appetite. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love eating fish, especially bluefin, but shortly after my visit to Tsukiji, I added bluefin to the list of fish that I no longer eat.  In 1970, there were 295,000 tons of bluefin in the world’s oceans. Today there are 136,000 tons, and that number is falling fast. Thankfully, many stores and restaurants that sell fish are no longer carrying tuna. Let’s support those establishments. Below is a list of the eco-conscious retailers helping to protect what is left of bluefin tuna, as well as a number of restaurants that are still selling it.

Stores:

-Whole Foods banned the sale of bluefin nationwide.

-The Lobster Place in Chelsea and Wild Edibles both stopped carrying the fish.

Restaurants that say they no longer serve it:

-Matsuri

-BLT Fish

-Haru

-The Sushisamba Chain stopped selling the fish last week, and plans to outfit kitchen staffers with “No Blue” branded hats.

Restaurants that still do:

-Nobu

-Megu

-Masa

-Blue Ribbon

-Morimoto

Right now the global catch quota is still twice the level needed to recover the stock, and that doesn’t include the annual European illegal catch. We need to stop eating bluefin tuna before we no longer have a choice.