Are you old enough to remember when air travel was a real pleasure? I started actively flying (primarily on American) when I was a freshman at Purdue University. Flying was fun. I looked forward to the experience.
36 years ago American Airlines started its frequent flyer program, arguably the most successful in airline history. Heavy travelers, like me, were rewarded for our loyalty. In the beginning it was pretty cool.
Fast forward to today. Air travel is NOT fun. It is NOT a great experience. Anybody who loves air travel has simply not traveled enough. My good friend George Walther is the lone exception.
Why does my customer experience with American Airlines have to be painful? I’m especially critical of AA and the other major airlines when I have such a great experience with another huge company, Apple.
Last week I had an unnecessarily poor experience on AA, but then had a very good experience with Apple Support.
Listen to my stories and see how businesses should be creating Uncopyable Customer Experiences and how this is not just offering better customer service.
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Steve, you were ‘spot on’. I had a terrible customer experience in 1991 with American. I had 850,000 miles with them at that time, I was so pissed I told them (Bob Crandall, I believe) I would never fly AA again. I switched to UA, put on 2.4 million so far, spent probably close to $1 million since 1991 with UA. Your total assessment was perfect. I like Singapore Airlines and Cathy Pacific, I feel they still do a great job.
Mark
I haven’t flown Cathay, Bob, but hear it’s nice. I have flown Singapore a couple of times and agree they are great!