On Thursday night the Easyjet flight I was taking from London Stansted to Edinburgh was delayed by three hours. Like all the passengers affected, I was severely cheesed off. My emotions turned to anger though not because of the delay itself, but because of Easyjet’s handling of the delay. This is not going to be a rant though. Flight delays affect all airlines and the internet groans under the weight of blog posts by angry customers.
Instead, I want to share how Easyjet demonstrated that they are a brand that genuinely doesn’t care about its customers. And for such an iconic brand I think that’s a shame. A no frill’s value proposition doesn’t have to, indeed shouldn’t, descend to genuinely not caring.
A super tough arena
Let’s start by acknowledging that running a successful airline is super, super tough. Not only is it a highly evolved, competitive low margin business, fraught with operational challenges, it’s an offering where safety is crucial and failure could cost lives. The commercial evidence speaks for itself. The history of airlines is littered with failed companies from national to local carriers. Simply put, it’s a cut-throat and complex arena. With this in mind, most people’s tolerance for things occasionally not running smoothly would extend to planes being late. Not crashing mind, but occasionally late. Obviously too many crashes and it’s not a viable business offering. It’s not as though a government would sanction and tax a product that has a high chance of killing you. Putting smoking to one side, let’s push on and agree that running an airline is hard.
Not caring as part of your brand
Any brand expert will tell you the importance of being ‘authentic’. What authenticity means to a brand depends in part on its value proposition. We all know that a low cost airline is not a luxury proposition. It’s about compromise to achieve the best price. There’s not much leg room, you pay for everything, the distance from your desired destination implied by the name of the airport you are flying to may be very different in reality and so on. Easjet is a no frills, low cost value proposition. Its brand is highly recognised and its proposition clear. It’s a fool who expects ‘luxury’ from Easyjet, it’s not what they do.
Here’s the problem. Yes, Easyjet is low frills, but their ethos extends beyond believing paying less is a mandate for providing a ‘best efforts’ service. It’s much deeper than that. They actually don’t care when things go wrong. Something very different. On Thursday night Easyjet demonstrated vividly to me that their intentions, thinking, processes, behaviors and therefore their brand is one that does not care about their customers. Not one person but every person, process and experience I encountered created this brand reality. This is what I mean by ‘authentically’ not caring. It’s their brand. So what did they do to demonstrate this so clearly?
1) My flight was at 20.50, by 19.00 I was through security and in the duty free area. The only information on about the 3 hour delay was shown “23.45 estimated” time on the departure screens. I heard no announcements from Easyjet. Hey, the delay may not have even been your fault. I don’t know, tell me something at least.
2) Easyjet had no people presence in the post security part of the terminal to liaise with customers directly. As if nothing says ‘we care’ more than not showing up. Let’s be honest, no one wants to face the music in that situation. People would be angry, but if you are seen to be genuinely trying then in my experience most people, not all, are reasonable. It’s when a company doesn’t care that people get really upset and a brand promise rots.
3) The only option was to speak to someone via a specially provided phone for these events at the information desk. The Easyjet agent may as well have been a robot. Just preset responses. I feel for these agents who aren’t empowered. It’s a tough wicket trying to handle a barrage of severely delayed customers. Especially if your superiors have designed the organisation so that’s all you do, all day. The human result obviously being you become desensitised after a while. Either that or the person I spoke to was hired for their specific ability to sound ‘not bothered’.
4) On Twitter I was flabbergasted to see that the compensation being offered to customers for a three hour delay was £3! Now I ask you what message does a £3 compensation offer convey? I imagine most people would agree it is insulting and is in fact worse than offering nothing at all. It’s a figure that only amplifies the message of how little you care about the impact of the delay to your passengers. I’d go further, it’s an amount derived from a formula precisely designed to underscore the message we do not care, as no one is stupid enough to actually think offering such a compensation would elicit anything other than negativity. I.e. it must be intentional. No one is that stupid.
5) Once boarding commenced through to the landing all references and apologies to the three hour delay were ‘procedural’ and felt insincere. The whole thing had an air of ‘this is normal’ about it, I don’t even recall the pilot making reference to it. Again, the reality is the crew were probably as pissed off as the passengers. On a human level anyone can empathise that this was not a good day at work. Nevertheless, there’s a duty of care here and a responsibility to continue to positively define what a brand means in the bad times. Easyjet does not extend its thinking that far. It’s not interested.
So you combine the lack of information, the lack of updates, the absence of any actual Easyjet people presence on the ground, the lock and load scripted agent, the compensation offer, the ‘nomalised’ attitude and you can only reach one conclusion. Easyjet, you don’t care. You are running a successful airline. You are smart but you don’t care about people.
Not taking out Customer Experience Insurance
It’s an old customer service cliché but so true, it’s how you deal with negative situations like a three hour delay that helps defines a brand. Another cliché, complaints as opportunities, is also true here. Easyjet could have done a number of things to turn things around. If they truly cared they would have thinking that meant they had some sort of measures which delivered what I would call ‘customer experience insurance’. Things like,
- Get some people out there to apologise face to face.
- Offer free WiFi. Everything costs at airports. It’s not going to cost you much to do a deal with someone like BT Open zone so you can provide free vouchers to use in a bad customer experience situation.
- Offer me a meal voucher. I’m stuck in Stansted for 3 hours now, what am I going to do? You could help mitigate the effects of the generic, sanitized shopping mall time continuum I find myself in, by at least buying me a drink and a sandwich.
- Ensure I have somewhere I can charge my phone and laptop. Don’t you think I might burn through the batteries on my devices over the next three hours?
- Offer me a free drink and snack on the flight.
- Proactively pick up the phone and call me the next day to apologise and see how I am.
If you wanted to go further,
- Discount my fare properly. Don’t insult passengers with a figure that is the financial equivalent of flipping someone the bird.
- Perhaps offer me a free flight on my next trip. I suspect most people don’t travel alone, so I might end up taking a trip with my girlfriend that I might of otherwise not taken and you’ve actually turned this into an extra sale.
- If you want to get into some cursory detail you could pay for my taxi at the other end if public transport had finished. Seeing as we arrived into Edinburgh at gone 1 am, it had. This might be especially important for female passengers.
Planning not to care
Any number or all of these things would have made a difference and showed that you care. They wouldn’t have made everything perfect but it would have demonstrated in actions that you care. None of these things are rocket science and if Easyjet is reliable then the frequency of these situations or mistakes would mean the funding impact on your turnover would be minimal. If anything ‘investing’ in these situations would be good for business in terms of brand goodwill. If Easyjet cared they would think about and properly fund customer experience design for ‘shit happens’ scenarios, where, even if you cannot delight and surprise customers, you can at least show you give a damn about them when things go wrong. If Easyjet cared, note ‘cared’ as they are definitely smart, it would take these kinds of steps. However, their only interest is monetisation and margin. I’m saying that not caring to the extent you do is actually bad business. Bad for your brand, especially in terms of longevity and entering other markets.
It’s easy to say you care when things are running smoothly. Like all relationships it’s in the bad times that true colours are shown. In this case the core of a brand. These are moments when a brand that cares will at least try to turn things around. I accept that you won’t appease everyone, some customers can be irrational. But I’m not one of those. If you had cared I would not be angry. Upset yes but not genuinely angry.
Easyjet – being authentic to not caring
Running an airline is hard. But Easyjet, your thinking and actions ensure your brand reality says “we don’t care about our passengers”. You could afford to proactively to take steps during and after the event. You could afford to proactively offer some comfort factors at the time. You could proactively surprise me in any number of ways. You could simply call me to say sorry. You could with imagination and will, take it to the level where people would be booking your flights on the off chance of a delay. You will do none of these things not because you are not smart, but because somewhere deep inside you don’t care.
The perception of a company’s brand is created in the minds of its customers. Everyone I have spoken to about this had the same reaction. “Yes it’s a shame but they don’t care”. Easyjet is an ‘authentic’ non caring brand shaped by reality. To the bottom-line, will I fly Easyjet again? Regrettably probably. I will always seek alternatives but reality means someday soon they will be the best commercial option. However, they are a brand that doesn’t care and today they can get away with that. That’s a shame because it doesn’t have to be that way. They could be no frills and care at the same time in way that’s actually good for business and their brand.
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