Examples such as airport flight schedules, spare keyless car delivery and Zara’s new return policy show how brands seek to save costs and fail to meet customer expectations. The pandemic has made this situation worse and artificial intelligence will not solve the problem. It is important that companies maintain a culture of customer satisfaction to avoid loss of loyalty and trust on the part of consumers.
To get on a plane in Mexico City there are two schedules, the airport and the airline. The airlines sell the ticket at the most commercial time and the airport assigns the schedule based on availability of positions and departures. It’s the consumer’s job to tie and cross-reference the two. This decision is rooted in the desire to pressure airlines to respect the spaces allocated by the airport. A blunder, think of a European passenger who comes from Paris to fly to Cancun, at the time of buying the flight everything seemed to match, the local flight ticket stipulates that the departure is at 5 in the afternoon but it is listed at the airport At 3:00 a.m., upon landing, the poor tourist is greeted with an announcement on the screens saying that the flight has already left or that it is delayed. In both cases, the only thing that happens is confusion and a bad image for Mexico. Think of countries like Germany where the trains leave exactly at the time that is published in the brochure.
Lexus, a brand that is not yet two years old in Mexico, delivers cars without a spare key, the argument being that “there are no chips.” We will have to return to the agency in two or three months and pray that they already have it. They report to me that the same thing happens in Audi and other brands. In these cases, they are “luxury” assemblers. The product is sold incomplete and it is up to the consumer to follow up, solve and return for the duplicate of the car. I don’t even want to think about what happens if the primary key is lost.
Since February 1, Zara, the Spanish clothing firm, has started charging for returns on purchases made online. In these acquisitions, Zara will charge an additional charge of 1.95 euros if a delivery person must come to the home to pick up the order to be returned. This is a new policy that the brand has implemented and that affects one of the pillars of Inditex. The argument, consumers used the clothing and returned it after one use. Clear with the label very well hidden. Returning products online has become so expensive for brands that many times they would rather ship a new product than pay for return shipping. But charging for the return once again recharges the mark on the consumer.
The pandemic taught companies that they can erase the limits of poor service, far from building more efficient brands and more satisfying processes. The rush of artificial intelligence will only make things worse, there will be no one to talk to when things go wrong . Brands have grown accustomed to using supply chain problems as an excuse to deliver subpar services to consumers.
In the case of the airport it is more complicated, it is about the transfer of responsibility to consumers. It is no longer about the service provider or the government, the miscommunication between the parties is transferred to the passenger. Regarding cars, I see it as difficult for Lexus or Toyota to change their policies, because they cannot meet the demand for cars by themselves.
The trend is worrying, poor service is much more than a logistics or supply chain decision. When a message is transmitted in an organization that it is valid to deliver incomplete to the client, it can be extended to other fields. Let’s think about the cars, the distributor can also retain the mats using the same argument as the keys. In airlines it could be valid to close the plane door early and many miss the exit, simply because the manager was in a hurry to go out to eat. By removing the consumer from the pedestal of reason, much is lost. Brands will also be hurt by the lack of consumer loyalty, if I can deliver the car without a duplicate, what does it say that I have to fill the gas tank before delivery.
Customer satisfaction is the result of a culture. If the idea that satisfaction is absolute is lost, the doors of disorder are left wide open.
Too bad for the AICM, Lexus and Zara but I’m sure many others would qualify for this column. We cannot and should not leave it to the sales teams to excuse the poor planning or incompetence of the manufacturers. We must quickly return to the search for customer satisfaction, otherwise we will all lose.
