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Following up last week's post on the effort JetBlue is committing to saving its reputation among customers, this week it takes a hit from an unexpected source--BusinessWeek magazine.

The cover story for the latest issue is a feature on the top 25 companies with the highest levels of customer service satisfaction, as surveyed by JD Power and Associates. The survey was conducted in early 2006. As the article explains, JetBlue came in number four, but the editors chose to yank the company from the listing in light of the customer service meltdown that occurred two weeks ago.

If the online reader comments are any indication, JetBlue won't be worrying about their reputation for long. The comments are nearly universal in condemning JetBlue's absence from the list, especially in light of the moves the airline has taken to remedy the problems and appease the customers who were inconvenienced. There is also an online poll where the editors ask whether or not they should have pulled the company from the list--thus far more than 80% of readers say they should have kept them in. If this sentiment keeps up, and JetBlue keeps its promises, it looks like customers are willing to forgive and forget, and soon.

The BW feature can be found here: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/di_special/20070222customerser.htm

Posted by Allison at 5:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

JetBlue's CEO, David Neeleman, has been surfing the mea culpa chairs of news programs for days, trying to salvage his airline's reputation in the wake of a disastrous service freeze-out that began last week, stranded thousands of passengers, and is only finally thawing out now. I caught his stop on the Today show this morning, where he sat down with Matt Lauer and unveiled JetBlue's so-called Passenger Bill of Rights.

The document is addressed to irate fliers everywhere and details JetBlue's promise not to screw up royally again by stranding passengers on frozen tarmacs for 10 hours. But should they mess up by a few hours here and there in getting you to your destination, JetBlue promises it will compensate you for not living up to its implied promise of getting you where you have paid to go. Neeleman also emphasized that the new promise is being made retroactive to those customers that were stranded over the last week.

A lot of people will interpret this new policy, which analysts say will pretty much wipe out the company's fourth quarter earnings, as a PR volley to keep the company viable. And I'm sure that is part of it. However, JetBlue has always regarded itself, and been regarded by a lot of pleased customers, to be a customer-friendly, customer-oriented airline. Point in fact, JD Power & Associates ranked JetBlue as the number one airline in its 2005 Airline Satisfaction Index Survey (followed by Southwest, Delta, Alaska, AirTran and Continental before we hit the median mark; the rest of the U.S. airlines were below it.) It was also number one in 2006.

So maybe JetBlue IS living up to its reputation with this promise, despite the choppiness of the last week. Do other airlines (or other big businesses for that matter) really even make promises to customers anymore? Will other carriers follow suit? Will this move merely save JetBlue's reputation, or polish it to an even higher shine?

Posted by Allison at 8:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In the 2004 presidential race Howard Dean's campaign was lauded for its unprecedented use of the Web and blogs for its success in raising campaign contributions and support among younger voters. Fast-forward to today and the quorum of candidates crowding the evening news--most have beefed up their Internet presence to make their campaigns more accessible.

Newly announced candidate Barack Obama, for example, launched a sophisticated website that links to his profile on Facebook, a YouTube stream and blog. There's also BarackTV, which streams video of speeches and interviews. Visitors can also join Obama's own version of a social networking site to chat with like-minded voters, not to mention donate to his campaign.

Indexing all the candidates' developments is the newly launched www.techpresident.com, an offshoot of Personal Democracy Forum. The site is spearheaded by a collection of veteran online and political strategists and states its purpose to cover "how the 2008 presidential candidates are using the web, and vice versa, how content generated by voters is affecting the campaign." The site is hooked into MySpace (it measures how many 'friends' each candidate has on that site--Dems are winning by far), and Flickr, where voter-generated photos are collected from political rallies.

It's Campaigning 2.0, folks. The voice of the people will be heard (and seen, and streamed, and downloaded) loud and clear in '08.

Posted by Allison at 6:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've been talking to marketers lately about social networking, mobile phones and all the latest it-programs that people are supposedly going nuts for, and the result is that I feel rather out of the loop, and really, I couldn't care less. By most of the demographic definitions marketers use to define target markets (I'm Gen Y, urban, single, middle class, etc.), I should be obsessing on MySpace, shooting instant messages rather than emails to friends, and be sharing photo/videos through my cell phone/MySpace page, etc. But I'm not.

I email and wait for people to get back to me. I use my cell phone to make calls and only send the occasional text message. I've visited MySpace and other social sites to see what they are about, but don't see the point.

When I brought this up in a conversation with a big proponent of mobile's development possibilities and asked why what he was offering held no interest to me (and most of my circle of friends and co-workers in the same demographic arena), his answer surprised me. He said--and he put it nicely, perhaps to comfort that little part of me that still cries out for an alternate, artistic, go-live-on-a-mountain lifestyle--'you work in an office, you're a suit.' And that despite my core demographic characteristics I was still considered out of the expected market as it stands today. Of course, I read his comment to mean 'out of touch', but I can live with that. But can marketers rely on simple demographic research that lumps me, and all my friends and co-workers, into a group that includes the in-crowd and call it representative, and use it to plan for the future? Perhaps we need more personas (whoa! Now there's a word a suit would use!) that delineate (uh-oh, another one!) me and mine from the rest.

Posted by Allison at 6:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)