One of my favorite, provocative business thinkers, Gary Hamel, says what we’ve all been thinking about in his Wall Street Journal blog post, “Too Many Industries Suffering from Detroititis.”

While the term “Detroititis” is not yet in common use, it isn’t hard to intuit the meaning.  A mix of myopic thinking, short-term management approaches and a damn the consumer mentality, all jump to my mind.

Hamel appropriately skewers the U.S. airline industry for suffering from a chronic case of this newly named malady. He also chastises the U.S. government for propping up this industry with a “blatantly protectionist policy” that bars foreign ownership of U.S. air carriers.

Note from Art: this protectionist policy and the adverse implications for consumers and for society speak to the heart of my post: If Ayn Rand Could See Us Now.

The U.S. airlines are easy and deserving targets.  It is nearly impossible to find any customer satisfaction, much less enjoyment flying with these broken-down flying bus companies.  (Apologies to any bus companies that I’ve insulted.)

More often than not, you deal with ridiculous lines, grumpy attendants and flight personnel that visibly hate their jobs.  Most of the customer service practices recently put into place are shortsighted and designed with the carrier in mind, not the customer.

In the vernacular of one of my favorite recent books, Tuned-In, the carriers truly do create remarkable customer experiences.  Unfortunately, they missed the memo on making these experiences positive ones.

The contrast between the customer experience on a U.S. Air Carrier and an overseas carrier is stark.  Fly Singapore Airlines or JAL and you’ll spend most of your trip in shock over how nice the experience can be.  Something will feel very different and out of place.  The poor treatment is gone, replaced by great service provided by people that seem to enjoy creating nice experiences for customers.

Other than the cathartic exercise of criticizing the U.S. carriers (of which I have over 1 million miles on), there are a few reminders for all of us in our businesses as we work to immunize our thinking against the deadly disease of “Detroititis.”

  • Keep the government out of the business of artificially protecting under performing industries and companies.  Hamel is right.  If Singapore Airlines wants to compete for routes in the U.S., they should have that option.
  • Evaluate what your customers truly think about their experience with your firm and DO SOMETHING to improve the experience.  The airlines employ legions of marketing people to fly around the globe and evaluating customer experiences…but nothing seems to come out from this effort other than dumb policies and new fees.
  • Fight for the customer like you livelihood depends upon it.  It does.
  • As a leader, work unceasingly to instill a sense of pride and commitment to customers in your workplace. If your business is a high-contact customer business, every person that touches a customer must strive to create a positive experience.  Working a ticket counter at terminal B at O’Hare may involve dealing with thousands of people per day who are stressed and frustrated.  Take away a little of their stress and frustration, treat them like humans and show them that you care!  Send thousands of people home everyday with an improved experience, and maybe your business will improve.  Go figure.
  • No one ever wants to talk to someone that they cannot understand and that they cannot hear on the telephone.  Stop subjecting us to these horrendous phone experiences.  If you are in charge of this area of your customer experience, what the blank are you thinking?

The Bottom-Line for Now:

The people that I don’t get are the managers and leaders responsible for managing and leading the customer service representatives in organizations that clearly have lousy customer service.  Fire yourself, please.

The customer experience at Gate C14 starts at the top of the organization. The same goes for your firm. Unfortunately, we can all learn a lot about what not to do from the auto companies and air carriers in the U.S.

Now quit reading and find something that you can do to improve the experience for your customers!