Chris Garrett has a post today about measuring and improving your advertising. In this post he lists 5 things to think about and number 4 is:
LTV - You want steady growth, great customer service, positive, building word of mouth. You want life time value. Do not sacrifice long term company health going after short term profit. Monitor average customer value and defections closely.
Having just recently spent over 11 hours to make a 5 hour trip, I immediately thought about the stories that were shared as I interacted with my fellow travelers. It has been said that often soldiers returning from war do not like to talk about the horrors. Clearly, that is not the same for airline travelers. Even more clear is the fact that the air travel industry as a whole has given up on trying to build any semblance of value. They know you need to travel and you have no choice but to use them. Given these last two facts they are able to abuse their customers and seem to be quite content to do so.
I contrast this with the very brief but simple experience I had riding the Cyclone at Coney Island, NY. (Pictured to the right). The Cyclone has not changed much since 1927 when it first opened. It has a charm that is hard to find in modern rollercoasters. It also feels like it may come flying off the track at anytime. That adds an extra measure of thrill to the ride. Certainly not something you want in a plane flight.
I got up to the booth just a swarm of youths arrived. In all of the commotion I was not given my change and frankly I did not notice until I went to pay for a second ride (It's $6 for your fist time around and $4 if you want to stay on. That is when I noticed I should have had $4 from the $10 I gave the first guy.) I got off after the ride and went to the ticket booth. I said, "I believe I forgot to get my change." He asked me how much it was and gave me my $4. He had set it aside when I walked away.
The consistency of the ride, and the service I was given, has built more LTV for me. According to an article by Pamela Ferris-Olson of Cox News Service, they are going to demolish Astroland at the end of the summer. Since I was in the area I thought I would make one last visit. While I was there I said something to people there ad they were not aware of the coming change and many said it did not involve the rollercoaster. So, we will see what happens.
What does this mean for a small 
Business or a start-up? It means...
This situation makes me think about using distributors and wholesalers in a supply chain. They can act as an aggregator of customer needs or they can be a defense against accepting fault. When everyone can point to someone else then no one has to accept blame. The end result is that the customer feels betrayed and losses trust in the entire system.
It takes a lot of work, time and luck to build a positive reputation. It does not take much effort to destroy one or to build a bad one. If a lot of people are talking about you and they are not saying good things, you have a problem. If you are not hearing anything, then you have a problem. Inaction will not fix either of these two situations.
The worst stories I heard on this trip were very recent situations where a flight was delayed over 24 hours and the one where a flight into JFK was held in the air so long they had to land in Pittsburg to refuel! It was as if JFK did not know the plane was coming. I guess these stories help us feel better about the fact that we were held on the runway close to an hour after landing on arrival and over 90 minutes when it was time to leave.
People who missed connections were told that because the plane technically took off on time (pushed back from the gate) and landed on time (but did not get to a gate) it was not the fault of the airline and there would be no compensation. This is a great example of a system ripe for abuse. Each of the two players, the airline and the airport, can point at the other and with sincerely say it was not my fault. Maybe they should use this company listed on Springwise.
The 10-year old laptop Dell made the trip just fine. It turned out to be just so much extra luggage when there was no LCD projector for the meeting. I asked, and was told I did not need to bring one. I guess I should have brought one anyway. I was trying to make the trip with just one carry-on.
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