I hope that you were not among the thousands of passengers who were affected by the JetBlue Airways flight cancellations during the past week.  What a fiasco!  The front page story of today's New York Times says that the C.E.O. of Jet Blue Airways – David Neeleman – is “mortified and humiliated” by these events. (Click here for the story)

I wonder what the stranded passengers and frustrated vacationers are feeling?  I'll bet that it is not “mortification and humiliation.”  It is more likely to be “lawsuits and boycotts.”

As I have written in the past, I admire David Neeleman's leadership style – he helps to load planes, picks up trash and aggressively seeks out direct customer feedback.  The current crisis will greatly test his leadership and challenge the management, employees and systems of Jet Blue Airways.

Neeleman has frankly admitted that due to the “low cost” operating structure of his discount airline, they did not have nearly enough resources trained and available to handle the communications required to locate pilots and flight attendants and to get them to the proper  locations.  I addition, because they rely on part-time reservations agents working out of their homes (in Salt Lake City) they did not have enough staff on hand to re-route passengers, refund tickets or answer angry customer calls.  So. it was not just angry customers who were placed on indefinite telephone hold – JetBlue's pilots, flight attendants and ground crews were in the same situation – they could not phone into central operations to report their location and availability!  What a mess!  A complete boondoggle!

There is still another part of the story that I suspect will surface shortly.  Jet Blue gambled and lost – badly – hoping that the storm would pass and that their passengers would not miss their vacations.  And… that JetBlue would also not miss the (much needed) revenue stream that those flights generate.  Canceled flights do not generate cash.

Could a sudden unexpected crisis affect your business?  What would you do?  How would you react?  Is your staff trained in crisis management procedures?  Are you prepared to to answer angry customer calls?  Can you business survive if the revenue (cash) suddenly stops coming in?  What is your plan for getting customers back?  What lessons can you learn from the crisis?  How do you restructure your operations to present a repeat of a total systems melt-down?

Let's watch David Neeleman and JetBlue Airways over the next few days.  Let's see how they handle this crisis.  Let's see what angry and frustrated passengers say.  Let's observe how competitors try to take advantage of a wounded Jet Blue to regain passengers that they lost to the discount airline.

If history is our guide, David Neeleman will have to take quick, decisive actions over the next few days in order to start to regain the.trust of his customers and employees.  He should study the case history of Johnson & Johnson's “Tylenol Recall” or Intel's “1994 Pentium Chip miscalculation” problem. 

According to Mark Walton (former CNN correspondent) writing in “Generating Buy-In: Mastering the Language of Leadership,” this is the path to follow:

“The best way out of bad news, crisis, and controversy, is to generate buy-in for a positive future, rather than dwell on the problems of the past.”

Customer do not want excuses or technical analysis of what went wrong.  They want to know that their future travel needs, wants and goals will be met – unequivocally!

Customers really don't care that the C.E.O. – David Neeleman – is “humiliated and mortified” by this system failure.  They just want to be able to get to their business or vacation destination on-time for a cheap fare.  And if JetBlue can not assure them that they can do this… then they will book their trip on another airline that can – or stay home.

This is what the well respected Gordon Bethune, former C.E.O. of Continental Airlines had to say in the concluding remarks of today's NY Times article:

“… little other than low fares would do much to win back customers, but is an airline makes a bad judgment call, 'you better be good at recovery no matter what.”  He called last week's JetBlue meltdown “a byproduct of their past and their growth.'”

Quite an astute observation, Mr. Bethune.

It's one thing to be a great leader when things are running smoothly.  Customers and employees admire a C.E.O. who helps them get the plane out on time by pitching in and loading bags, etc.  But when things go bad… They still expect the leader to be out front pitching in to make sure the planes will fly on time in the future.  But now – in this crisis – the stakes are very high indeed.

Mr. Neeleman – we will be watching you carefully.  I truly hope that you succeed in restoring faith in your innovative airline.  And I hope that you can teach us a lesson in leadership.  Go beyond “humiliation and mortification” – quickly!  Make things right!  Show us how to lead.

How do you recognize good customer service?  I know – it is so rare to experience good, let alone exceptional customer service, that we may have forgotten that good customer service ever existed.  Perhaps it got lost while it was being outsourced – like lost luggage!

The problem isn't that we can't find good customer service.  The problem is that we don't recognize it – or rather we don't recognize and reward our employees when they provide good or exceptional customer service.  Behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated.  We learn this as children.  Why is it that we suddenly forget this basic principle when we become managers?

Far too many managers are quick to criticize but slow or ineffective in their praise.  When they do offer praise, it tends to be generic (“Good Job, Al!”) and non-specific (“Way to go, team!”) 

While these attempts at praise and recognition are probably well-intentioned, they are meaningless.  What (specific) job did Al do well?  Where (specifically) did the team go to warrant your half-hearted praise?  As a manager, you should be setting concrete measurements and praising (publicly and privately) your employees who meet and beat these measurements:

“Al – I appreciate you arranging to have our UPS driver come an hour later today to pick up our shipments.  We were able to get an extra 200 Valentine's Day gift boxes out the door because of your effort.  I thank you – and our customers thank you.  Good job!”

“I want to publicly recognize our production team's extra efforts during January.  Because of their hard work and ingenuity, we were able to get 3 new products delivered to our trade show booth.  Because we were able to show and demonstrate these 3 products during the show we added an extra $300,000 in sales. Way to go team!” 

A quick search on the Internet will bring up numerous sources of tips, quotes and best practices for motivation and recognizing your employees.  Here is one site that I found this morning (Click here.)

It costs so little to reward and recognize good behavior – a handwritten note, an email, a handshake accompanied by a sincere expression of thanks for a (specific) job well done.  But it is so rare to see managers – or owners – employing this practice.  And their employees recognize – that they are not being recognized.

“There are two things want more than sex and money – recognition and praise.”

– Mary Kay Ash

Thousands of Pink Cadillacs confirm that Mary Kay knew how to motivate her independent sales force.  We can all learn a lesson from her.  Try it.  Pick up a couple of dozen “Thank You” notes and start using them at work – this tip works like a charm when your put it to work.  Just be specific, sincere and timely when you hand out your “thank you” notes.

It has been said that you will make more sales if you spend more time listening (to your customer) than talking (to the customer.)  But there is listening – and then there is “active listening.”  Active listening is not just accurately hearing all of the words that you customer speaks.  No… it is much more.  It is doing whatever it takes to fully understand what the customer is “intending” to communicate.

I was reading “The Truth About Managing People,” by Stephen P. Robbins the other day.  In Truth #36 he neatly details eight behaviors that will lead to effective active listening:

1) Make eye contact.

2) Exhibit affirmative head nods and appropriate facial expressions.

3) Avoid distracting actions or gestures.

4) Ask questions.

5) Paraphrase.

6) Avoid interrupting the speaker.

7) Don't over-talk.

8) Make smooth transitions between the roles of speaker and listener.

This is rock-solid advice for anyone who wants to gather more sales or generally improve business relationships – with customers or with you peers and staff.  Here are a few of my own comments and observations:

Even when you are talking on the phone, it is possible to establish “eye contact” with the other party.  You establish eye contact by being “present and engaged” in the conversation – you are truly interested in what is being said.  You are listening for the nuances in the other person's voice – their words, their tone of voice, their pauses.

I don't care how busy you are.  If you have an “open door” policy then it is imperative that you stay fully engaged when an employee or a customer approaches you with a question or a comment – AMEN!  Put away your Blackberry, stop shuffling papers on your desk, don't glance over when your computer “pings” that a new message has arrived.  If you can't fully engage in the conversation either close your door (and do your emailing or shuffling papers)  or ask your employee if you can schedule a time to listen to them – because it really matters – to both of you.

And don't think that people can't “see” you multi-taking over the phone.  They can – and they do – and they don't like it!  So don't do it.  If you can't afford the time to actively listen to your customer … well…. what can you afford?

You ask questions to seek clarification, ensure that you understand correctly and also to assure your customer that you are truly listening.  If you just follow these three guidelines your sales and your relationships will improve immediately.

Be careful not to “parody” when you “paraphrase.”  Don't simply “parrot” back the actual words your customer speaks.  Ask for confirmation that you have heard them correctly; and do this with sincerity.

Never, ever interrupt the speaker.  Do not attempt to complete their sentences for them.  Learn to wait for your speaker to end his or her thought before you offer your comments or ask another question.  When you do this your customers and your staff will gain a new respect for your professional conduct.  You will stand out from the crowd when you learn not to “crowd the conversation.”

Finally, try not to be thinking about your response or your next question while your customer is still talking.  Always be engaged (actively listening) when someone is talking to you.  Then pause.  And then talk.  Trust me.  When you follow this advice, your questions and comments will flow naturally.  And they will be much more effective that the questions or comments you were planning to ask (while your customer was still speaking.)

Do you have any special techniques that you use to improve your listening skills?  If so, please share them with our readers.  Or just drop me an email danny@thecompanyrocks.com

Thank you for listening!