You may remember the mounds of negative publicity commercial airline jetBlue received after canceling over 200 flights due to a Valentine’s Day ice storm. The fiasco had some people wondering if the airline, which was overwhelmingly perceived as a fantastic value, would ever recover from the PR disaster.
According to a recent survey- jetBlue has definitely bounced back, holding firm to their top-spot in customer satisfaction.
So why are consumers willing to give jetBlue another chance?
First of all, the experience of flying jetBlue is still perceived as far superior to their competition. The friendly staff, the comfy leather seats, the “blue” chips instead of peanuts, the TVs on every chair, the spa packages on late night flights (jetBlue doesn’t call them red-eyes – rather, Shut-Eyes (TM)), and all the other components of jetBlue’s brand set them apart from their competition.
Secondly, jetBlue was rather transparent about the situation. Founder (and former CEO) David Neeleman maintains a blog and appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman within a week of the incident where he attempted to be candid about the operational disaster.
jetBlue also moved quickly by creating a “Customer Bill of Rights” and posting a video on YouTube with an apology and immediate steps to ensure an event like this would not happen in the future. The swift action helped secure customer loyalty and trust.
Lastly, customers felt a sense of empathy since the situational snafu was obviously due to an environmental issue and not normal operating protocol.
Looks like jetBlue can fly high once again. Customers are willing to forgive and forget recent incidents as long as it doesn’t happen again.
I love the concept of Neeleman’s blog, but they don’t update it enough. To me, they’re under-utilizing the blog over there.