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Spirit-Gate: The Cost of Ignoring Bloggers

The cost of refunding a disgruntled customer's luggage fee after you make them change flights? $5.

Trying to shut the customer up with a travel voucher. $200

Ruining your reputation by ignoring bloggers. Priceless.

Spirit Airline's reputation is about to take what could become a very costly hit over a $5 customer fee and a callous response from the CEO (left) who accidentally hit "reply to all" when responding to a customer complaint. The details are here, and here, and here.

Story in a nutshell: Blogger Alex Rudoff vented on his blog about his Spirit Flight being cancelled. That Post, Do Not Fly Spirit Airlines, is now in the number three and four spot s of Google searches on Spirit Airlines and other blog posts are working their way to the top.

Among the 100+ comments on Rudoff's post was a link to an email received by a Florida couple whose flight to see a concert was delayed so long that they missed the concert. They wanted the airline to pay for their concert tickets, hotel room, parking and other fees, beyond the $200 in travel vouchers Spirit offered them. Their story would be funny, if it were not true.

Note to Spirit - if i am complaining about your lousy service, don't offer me more of it! Refund my money and offer me a future discount. Doh. Here's the email they got:

From: Ben Baldanza (Spirit CEO)[mailto:Ben.Baldanza@SpiritAir.com]
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 1:02 PM
To: (removed by alex), Christy; Martin (removed by alex); Tony (removed by alex); John (removed by alex); Pasquale (removed by alex)
Subject: Re: Complaint

Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I'm concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He's never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny.

As if that wasn't enough:

"We wouldn't respond to a blog post," said spokeswoman Alison Russell, who noted that their original tickets cost a little more than $35 each and they turned down the offer of $100 in travel vouchers. "This goes back to the larger question of the veracity of everything you read on Internet blogs. Our customer service is great."

And I'm Queen Elizabeth.

"All we would really like is an apology at this point," Christy Boswell said. "Regardless of if our request was out of line or not, they should still treat their customers with respect."

If you were my client, Mr. Baldanza, I'd have you make a video with your "we hate blogs" spokesperson - for your site, YouTube, and a new We're Sorry Facebook group -- apologizing for the screwup and promising to listen to your customers. But here's the hard part -- then you have to listen to your customers.

Ok folks, what would you do if Spirit was your PR client?

via a Twitter post from Mack Collier

Categories: Worst Practices

Tags: Spirit Airlines Do Not Fly Spirit Airlines Alex Rudoff Mack Collier worst practices Spirit Airlines customer service sucks airline delays Ben Baldanza

BL Ochman | Oct 18 07 3:58 | TrackBack (0)

Comments

With the rise of blogging, customer relations are practically handed over in a platter to business companies. They should fully utilize the quick feedbacks for market research.

Posted by: Internet Marketing for Students at October 18, 2007 5:12 PM

And they should respond to comments before they turn into messes like this.

"I'm sorry" is usually all that's necessary before things get huge.

Spirit Airlines has still said nothing about this situation, even though a blog storm is growing.

Posted by: B.L. Ochman at October 18, 2007 7:22 PM

This sounds like a textbook example perfect for crisis communications counselors, J-school professors, customer service speakers and others.

If Spirit were my client, I'd arrange for media training, crisis counseling (including a crisis communications plan)and encourage them to find a savvy, experienced spokesperson. I'd also tell the CEO to apologize in person, with a video posted to YouTube. Then ask, "What else about our service can we improve?"

Untrained spokespersons seem to not understand that one bad story on just one blog can turn into the same bad story on hundreds of blogs. And that bloggers aren't kids with tattoos and tongue rings. Sometimes, they're CEOs. Like me.

Gotta run and blog about this.

Posted by: Joan Stewart, The Publicity Hound at October 19, 2007 9:46 AM

Looking forward to reading your post Joan. :>)

Posted by: B.L. Ochman at October 19, 2007 10:04 AM

If Spirit were my client, I'd quit. :)

Posted by: Mike Keliher at October 19, 2007 10:27 AM

If Spirit was my client: I have to agree with Joan, media training and crisis counseling is needed. I would also have Spirt's CEO, Ben Baldanza, make a personal statement apologizing for his actions. Customer service can make or break a company, Spirit needs to man up to their mistakes and take care this problem before it gets any worse.

Posted by: David Schott at October 20, 2007 9:03 PM

This sounds a lot like a professor’s question! As I student, I oblige!
I recommend a company blog- I think this has made them see the influence that blogging has on any company. Also, I agree with Joan that they definitely need some media training. Thirdly- I would have the CEO apologize on the new company blog and on Mr. Rudoff's blog. And lastly- I would get that CEO some lessons on Microsoft Outlook.

If you want to see all I recommend, visit my blog. http://internoffice.blogspot.com

Posted by: Patty at October 25, 2007 8:45 PM

Maybe they should rename their airline "Lack of Spirit?"
HOW can you ignore blogging and the social marketing trends? I think the corporates are starting to take notice of the power of the blog!

Posted by: Chris Anderson at May 1, 2008 9:04 AM

I have spent the last 20 yrs traveling for business and let’s face it the customer means nothing. With more airlines shutting down or merging we will see these problems and lack of care increase. In a recent flight I meet an individual (independent contractor) that used negative blogs as a training aid to the airline industry. He was a little surprised on how many executive had no idea of these negative blog or lack of care to use them in the future. Go figure social marketing is the new 800lb elephant in the middle of the room!

Posted by: John Slimak at May 7, 2008 7:23 AM

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About BL Ochman

Blogger, social media strategy consultant to Fortune 500 companies, and sought-after corporate speaker B.L. Ochman heads the creative team of whatsnextonline.com. She also publishes the Ethics Crisis blog for SRF Global Translations

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Spirit-Gate: The Cost of Ignoring Bloggers

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