Another reason to like JBU...

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[ I'm pretty sure Herb has done this before, but let's see
UAL, AAL, DAL, and other majors do something like this for
a change! -Ed. ]

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20040301/nbrodsky.html

Street Smarts: Learning From JetBlue

One day flying JetBlue, I found myself being served by David
Neeleman, the airline's founder. When was the last time you met
your customers and asked how you could better serve them?

From: Inc, March 2004 | Page 59 By: Norm Brodsky Photographs by:
Nathaniel Welch
__________________________________________________ _______________

Among the many hazards of business success is this one: The bigger
your company gets, the less contact you have with some of the most
important people who have helped get you there, namely, your
customers. You just can't spend as much time with them as you did in
the early days. There are always more pressing matters--problems to
solve, financing to arrange, people to hire, deals to make. You
increasingly count on employees to handle the day-to-day relationships
with customers, while you become more and more removed from them. It's
a process that can undermine even the most promising young
company--unless you make a conscious effort to ensure that that
doesn't happen.

Let me tell you about an experience I had last fall on a flight from
New York to California. As usual, I was flying JetBlue. I've been a
JetBlue fan from my first contact with the airline, and not just
because its fares are lower than its competitors'. What I like most of
all is the service. JetBlue doesn't overbook; I've never seen lines at
its airport counters; you can watch live television on the plane; if
you need to change a flight, the fee is $25, instead of $100; when you
call with a problem, the service reps really do try to help you solve
it--and they don't make you feel as though you're being taken to the
cleaners. The company does a hundred little things to make traveling
by air simple, easy, and painless. So I use JetBlue whenever I can,
despite the inconvenience of having to fly into and out of secondary
airports.

On this particular trip, I was taking an evening flight from New York
City to Oakland. I had arrived early enough to get an aisle seat in an
exit row. I boarded the plane with the other passengers, and the door
closed. As we sat there, buckling our seat belts and checking out the
televisions in front of us, a middle-aged man with slightly graying
hair stood up in the front of the plane. He had on the long apron that
JetBlue flight attendants wear, with his name stitched into it. "Hi,"
he said, "my name is Dave Neeleman, and I'm the CEO of JetBlue. I'm
here to serve you this evening, and I'm looking forward to meeting
each of you before we land."

There was an audible buzz among the passengers. I was as impressed as
everyone else. During the boarding process, I'd heard another
passenger tell a friend that Neeleman was on the flight, but I just
assumed he'd be sitting quietly in one of the front rows. I certainly
didn't expect him to be working as a flight attendant.

But, sure enough, as soon as we reached our cruising altitude, he and
the other attendants started coming down the aisle with the baskets of
snacks that JetBlue offers passengers to stave off hunger pangs. Of
course, if the passengers in the rear had had to wait for Neeleman to
serve them, they would have starved. Beginning in the first row, he
slowly made his way through the plane, stopping to chat with anyone
who cared to talk to him, answering every question people asked. I was
sitting in the 11th row, and it took him more than an hour to reach
me. "Nice airline you have here," I said. "Where do you come up with
all these great ideas--like the televisions?"

"I get most of my ideas on flights like this one," said David
Neeleman. "The customers tell me what they want."

"I get most of my ideas on flights like this one," Neeleman said. "The
customers tell me what they want."

"Oh, listening to your customers," I said. "What a novel idea!"

He laughed and asked me what I did. I told him I was a businessman,
but I also wrote a column in Inc. magazine. "Really?" he said. "What's
it about?"

"It's about customer service, among other things," I said.

"I'll have to read it," he said and wrote down my name. I asked him if
he often came on flights and talked to customers. "Not as often as I'd
like," he said. "I can work it in at least once a month, sometimes
more. My other responsibilities make it more difficult now, but I get
out here when I can."

Sitting next to me was a young man who sells a high-energy,
water-soluble food supplement. He made a pitch for offering it on
JetBlue. Neeleman listened closely, nodded his head, and took a
sample. The salesman felt good about the exchange.

Across the aisle from me was a JetBlue frequent flier. He said he was
having a problem with his seat assignments. "That shouldn't be
happening if you fly that often," Neeleman said. "I'll give you my
e-mail address, but you're going to have a hard time reaching me.
Here's someone who can help you." He gave the passenger another
person's name and contact information. "Tell him you met me on this
flight and explain the situation. He'll take care of it."

After about 20 minutes, Neeleman excused himself and moved on to the
next row. I went back to watching television. The other flight
attendants continued making their rounds. When they came by my row, I
asked if they'd ever worked with their CEO and chairman before. "Oh,
yeah," one of them said. "We bump into him all the time."

An hour or two later, I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked up to see
Neeleman standing there. "One of your Inc. colleagues is on the
plane," he said.

"What do you mean?" I asked. I hadn't seen anyone I knew.

"There's a young woman back there who just ran the New York marathon,"
he said. "She says you don't know her, but she knows you and would
like to meet you. Can you come back with me?"

I followed him, utterly amazed. When I go to a party, say, and meet a
lot of people I don't know, I can never keep straight their names or
occupations. Here, Neeleman had just met more than 100 total
strangers, and yet he'd made the connection between two of us and was
about to introduce me to a colleague I didn't know.

It turned out that the young woman worked in Inc. 's San Francisco
office and was heading home with her husband after her marathon run. I
chatted with her for a few minutes and then returned to my seat.
Sitting there, I couldn't help reflecting on Neeleman's business
acumen, not to mention his devotion to his company. After all, he
didn't have to spend five and a half hours doing customer service. I'm
sure he'd put in a full day's work before setting foot on the plane.
I'm also sure he could have used the time productively in other ways.

Instead he chose to walk up and down the aisle talking to as many
customers as he could. That takes commitment. I know from my own
experience how hard it is to maintain direct contact with your
customers as your company grows. Then again, look what he gets out of
it--all of those wonderful ideas, to begin with. He told the guy
across the aisle from me that JetBlue would soon be implementing one
of them, Wi-Fi in its airport lounges, and that it was working on
providing another, high-speed Internet connections on flights. "There
are a lot of things we want to do," Neeleman said.

Second, by keeping in touch, he gets a real-time sense of the market.
He knows first hand what's going on out there, and he'll see trends
before his competitors. That's one of the biggest advantages of having
direct contact with customers. Markets change. Technologies change.
Customer wants and needs change. If you have your finger on the pulse
of the market, you're a step ahead of the competition. If you don't,
you run the risk of getting blind-sided.

In addition, he's shaping the company culture. Employees see him
working the crowd, going out of his way to help a customer, and they
do the same. They hear him talking about the plans to introduce new
services, and they spread the word. Above all, they know that Neeleman
isn't sitting behind a desk somewhere counting his stock options. He's
putting in overtime, and he's doing it with them. They can rest
assured that he understands what's happening on the frontlines because
he's been there. He's on their team.

And the result? An unusual level of trust, respect, and goodwill all
around, as passengers discover at the end of every JetBlue flight. As
the plane nears its destination, a flight attendant goes on the PA
system and explains that, to keep costs down, JetBlue likes to clean
the cabin before landing, thereby reducing turnaround time. She asks
the passengers to help by checking their seat pockets and the area
around their seats and giving any trash to the attendants as they walk
down the aisle.

You hear announcements like that on other airlines, of course, but the
response on JetBlue is extraordinary. On every JetBlue flight I've
taken, more than 90% of the passengers have pitched in. I didn't see
anyone who wasn't helping on my flight to Oakland. Suddenly we were
all members of the cleanup crew--even Dave Neeleman.

The whole experience had an interesting effect on me as a
businessperson. As regular readers of this column know, I've long
believed in the type of leadership and service that Neeleman
exemplifies--but I don't always demand it from my own suppliers. I
have tended to make excuses for them. After flying with Neeleman, I
went back and reexamined some of those relationships, which led me to
make significant changes. But that's a subject for a future column.

Norm Brodsky (brodsky13@ aol.com ) is a veteran entrepreneur whose six
businesses include a three-time Inc. 500 company. His co-author is
editor-at-large Bo Burlingham.
__________________________________________________ _______________

BL.
- --
Brad Littlejohn | Email:
Unix Systems Administrator, |
Web + NewsMaster, BOFH.. Smeghead! | http://www.sbcglobal.net/~tyketto
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"A Guy Called Tyketto" wrote in message
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[ I'm pretty sure Herb has done this before, but let's see
UAL, AAL, DAL, and other majors do something like this for
a change! -Ed. ]

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20040301/nbrodsky.html

Street Smarts: Learning From JetBlue

One day flying JetBlue, I found myself being served by David
Neeleman, the airline's founder. When was the last time you met
your customers and asked how you could better serve them?

The majors are SO screwed. They still can't wean themselves off the stupid
1990's-era CEOs and execs who paid exhorbitant fares with their company's
money. The shareholders of those companies demanded accountability and now
those CEOs and execs have wised up and are flying JetBlue or booking in
advance. JetBlue, Southwest, et al are only going to get larger and the
majors will continue to lose money.