Why anybody who believes in customer orientation should never fly with Iberia

Yesterday, for the umpteenth time, flying with Spain’s flag carrier airline Iberia turned into a freaking nightmare. And before I go any further, let me say I’m not one of those people who love to complain, or at least, to use my blog to do so. This is more than just throwing my toys out of the cot and trying to extract some management lessons, although I left the plane yesterday livid.

I write this in the hope that it might improve things, and to show that Iberia’s so-called customer orientation, is an empty concept, and one that certainly doesn’t reflect the company’s real philosophy and culture. I write to show how it is possible that, no matter how much a company invests in technology and the media, no matter how much it outsources customer relations to other companies that use Twitter, and how much it fills pages and pages with guff about customer orientation in its in-flight business magazine, real customer orientation has to be an integral part of a company’s culture, and this is conspicuous by its absence at Iberia, where the customer comes last. Why? Because Iberia’s culture is not set by Luis Gallego, its president, but by a certain Martínez, more of whom below.

My height is 1.93 meters. The miserable space Iberia leaves between its tourist class seats, 28 inches, is one of the stingiest of all airlines, and means my legs just do not fit, and I am forced to sit either as though I were about to give birth, or by positioning my knees out toward the aisle, remaining alert at all times so as not to get in the way or have them smashed when drinks trolley comes along. As a result, when I travel, I always go to a great deal of trouble to make sure I book and pay extra for a seat in a row with an emergency exit.

Yesterday, when I arrived at the airport with my electronic boarding pass and my 12F seat, next to an emergency exit, I soon realized I had been checked in to a standard seat in row 24, although nobody had bothered to warn me when I checked in.

When I asked as we were boarding what had happened, I saw on the computer that my seat had been changed by an Iberia employee called Martínez. That kindly person had presumably decided that I didn’t really want an emergency exit seat, and that I could sit somewhere else, perhaps so he or she could sit one of his or her friends in my place. Who knows?

And that’s the end of it. I complain and I get the extra I had paid for an emergency row seat returned. Needless to say, Martinez is not worried about me, or that I chose my seat with special care: he or she just decided to give that seat to somebody else. Just because. The fact that a rather tall but loyal Iberia customer went to a lot of trouble to get that seat, as he does each and every time he travels with the company, is of no consequence. Why bother with CRM systems, learning from customers’ preferences or the like? After all, they are just customers, who cares!

Total and absolute impunity for Martínez, who can do what he or she likes. “I am Martínez and I am all-powerful, and the customer will be fobbed off with any old nonsense: change of plane, human error, so sorry, but we’ll reimburse you the amount you paid for emergency exit seat”, and that’s it. That’s Iberia’s client orientation: a brief apology, and on to the next … apologies that the company’s outsourced customer service department makes, in my case through Twitter, enormously predisposed and friendly people, but with no real decision-making powers.

The issue here isn’t so much that the airlines have turned their planes into cattle wagons. Charging extra for a seat next to an exit is widespread practice among airlines, and of course, I’m more than willing to pay for it. Mistakes happen, although they shouldn’t in a system that is completely trackable. The real problem is that I fly a lot, and with a lot of different airlines, and having my seat reassigned in such a careless and arbitrary way, with no explanations whatsoever only happens with Iberia. Iberia’s problem is not its planes, which are similar to those of other airlines, nor its flight crew, who are usually charming and hard-working… Iberia’s problem is people like Martínez: employees who put customers last and who do not have to answer for their stupid decisions, because Iberia will never do anything about such employees. They are untouchable, and for them there is no customer orientation. And this is what makes Iberia such a terrible airline, because the passenger never knows what to expect.

All I want is to sit in the seat I have booked well in advance and for which I have paid. The electronic billing now requires a level of transparency that prevents Iberia from telling me stories about changes in the configuration of the plane: the only thing that has happened here is that Martínez has come along and decided to give my seat to somebody else. Which is unacceptable. What Iberia doesn’t seem to understand is the damage that Martinez does to his or her company. There is no point in apologizing, reimbursing me or putting me on a list of “dangerous” clients who need to be treated with kid gloves, because this is not an isolated issue: it happens all the time, to many people, on many flights, everyday.

What is the point of a Twitter account if all Iberia is going to do is apologize for Martínez’s latest act of idiocy? Why pretend to be a customer-oriented company, if Martinez is going to come along and do what he or she likes, and get away with it.

Dear Luis Gallego, your company will NEVER be taken seriously until you get rid of every last Martínez. As things stand, your so-called customer orientation is a bad joke. Your customer’s needs are completely contingent on whatever Martínez decides. Your company has a serious problem. You have way too many employees like Martínez.

Iberia’s customer orientation is a BIG FAT LIE. For Iberia, the customer is the least of its concerns. And that policy is not decided by its president, its strategy or its technology. Martínez decides.

(En espa?ol, aquí)

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