Customer's Thoughts

The audience that I am addressing is the customers that feel they did not get the usual JetBlue experience. The reactions of the customers are very different from one passenger to another. In many of the response I read or watched, some people were extremely upset with what had happened, some wanted to pursue litigation against JetBlue, while others were just laid back and making jokes about the situation. Since there is this difference in customer opinion, the feelings, expectations, and desires the customers hold is also very different. The only thing that can be said for sure is that JetBlue messed up. They did not give their passengers the same sense of service and satisfaction that they normally do. All passengers desire some compensation for the inconvenience, whether it is free tickets or pure cash. Some of the passengers want more than others based on their personal inconvenience. One of the most important things that the passengers want is a sincere apology and for JetBlue to admit they were wrong. Customers want companies to admit their faults and don’t want some lame excuse. The more willing the company is to admit their fault, the easier the recovery process will be. This passenger stated it well in a blog on beyondmadisonavenue.com: “Well, it sucks that all those flights got canceled, but I’ve never seen such a serious response from any airline, or any company, for that matter. You can tell their CEO actually gives a shit, and the company turned circles to make sure we all knew that.”

In addition to showing your passenger that you care, it is important to show them that you plan to make it better in the future. Many people think “It happened once, I can forgive them, but don’t let it happen again.” JetBlue has done well proving to passengers that they are serious about not letting it happen again. To begin with JetBlue immediately started training employees and then came out with the “Customer Bill of Rights.” The bill of rights was one of the biggest expectations that customers had, so actually implementing it was crucial to JetBlue and their continued success.

In my business letter, I plan on telling the passengers what they wanted to hear. First, I will ensure they know JetBlue is taking the blame. Second, I will try to let them see that JetBlue, its employees, and the company executives are extremely sorry for the crisis and that they did not get the service or convenience they are used to. Third, I will let them know that JetBlue is taking major measures to ensure that one winter storm won’t have such a large effect on their operation in the future. Finally, I will let them know they will be compensated for their troubles because once you start wasting people’s money and vacation time, they begin to get very upset. Context will be crucial to how I make what I say seem sincere. As the book pointed out, what you say can be turned around very quickly to make it seem as though you said something completely different than what you actually did. This would have disastrous results on JetBlue. I will want to include words that really have a strong meaning and grab the customers attention, similar to the “Bridge Out” example.