Week 3 - JetBlue Crisis
JetBlue is not the first company to have unhappy customers that received poor service by any means. However, they are one of the greatest examples of customer mistreatment. Through the readings, it is made clear that people respond to clear, concise, non-complicated information. While the long lines of customers were wondering what was happening, JetBlue should have begun handling the situation right away. I dealt with a similar situation just yesterday. Storms struck the nation and flights were cancelled all over the country. United Airlines handled it. They were polite when they should have been annoyed, and they kept an employee covering the line to keep everyone informed. There was no reason that JetBlue should have handled this situation so poorly. Had the executives of the company considered ethics in the situation they were handed, they would have handled everything in a manner a little more like Luntz’s article. Things just simply became more complicated as less people knew what was happening around them.
I do not think that JetBlue handled the problem in an ethical or effective way. It seemed that their CEO, David Neeleman, was only responding to the problem after there was a public outcry, in order for him to clean up his mess. Looking ahead to the Press Release assignment, I will use the “Rules for Effective Language” because I want my message to be understood and believed. The readings this week will help me get a message across that is attractive to the general public. The readings on ethics will help me keep in mind that even though I want my release to be engaging, I need to be honest and not embellish my story.
Comments
Response
You provided a strong opinion on how you feel about the whole situation. Since you had first-hand experience with your United Airlines example, you know better how to compare the two situations. JetBlue should have kept their composure when handling with the customers, but after the whole mess took place, they may have handled it in the best way they could. According to the article I researched, JetBlue had to deal with the whole situation with a scarce amount of employees. Other employees were being called in but were unable to be reached given the weather conditions, so JetBlue had an abundance of employees in one area and others had to be trained to work in other areas. I’m sure they wanted to be able to give significant consideration to all the customers but the fact of the matter is maybe they just didn’t have the chance to. I agree that they have no excuse to have the need to deal with a situation like the crisis because they took a gamble and came up empty. Unfortunately, they had to deal with the situation and they just seemed to have a lack of assets to properly handle it. Maybe their initial method wasn’t ethical or even effective but they graciously took the blame for the situation and tried to improve the company given their faults.
Jet Blue
The situation with Jet Blue was caused by a scares lack of all resources not just customer service representatives. They landed a large number of planes in areas expecting to get the other planes out before the storm rolled in. This would keep their reputation of giving the best customer service and the fewest delays. Unfortunately the FAA restricted air travel due to the storms before they could get those planes off the ground. So they had twice as many planes in areas then they could handle. This is what caused the drastic delays and waiting on the tarmac because their were not enough gates for the planes at those airports. I believe that this problem was just bad luck or a bad judgment call by people in charge of the flights. This was not a problem by understaffing it was just a problem with mother nature not cooperating.
Comment
I agree with the thought that customers like things handled in a clear and concise way. If JetBlue would have had informed their staff members of what exactly was going on the staff could have helped explain things to the customers at the airport. I think a lot of the frustration came from customers wanting to know what was going on and only a few select staff members knowing what was going on. If a flight is canceled you know the passenger is going to be upset but to then make them wait for hours in line after line just to find out that no one knows what’s going on is just not fair.