Many of you read my Tuesday Morning Commentary regarding customer service and listening to your customer. Remember the Starbucks one? The one where Starbucks basically told all us tea drinkers to take a hike? Well, I was having breakfast with our Atlantic Canada Senior Associate Seamus O’Keefe and he told me a great story about customer service to try and balance the really bad Starbucks ongoing experience.
He had just come to Calgary to meet with a client and he and I met for breakfast prior to the client presentation. He had been on vacation in Florida and came to Calgary through Toronto before returning home to St John’s, Newfoundland via Toronto. He was flying Air Canada. This was his experience as written by him.
Air Canada often gets a bad rap for its customer service. Lost baggage, extended trips waiting for ground crews to arrive at the gate, and the way-too-many flight attendants who would rather be retired give us many reasons to be critical of our national airline.
In the wake of your negative experience with Starbucks, Brent, I thought I would share a positive encounter with Air Canada. While returning home from some vacation down south, I carelessly left my iPad at the self-service kiosk while going through customs at Pearson and never realized it until I had left the secure area.
Having to race to make a connecting flight, my options were limited on how to track down my tablet. I decided to approach a group of Air Canada flight attendants who happened to be waiting for their next flight and explained my situation.
Without hesitation, “Mimi” immediately jumped into action and led me to customer service where she made radio contact with a baggage representative colleague. Mimi then alerted Pearson Lost & Found and had a search team deployed to the area. She then advised me to return to my gate in order to make my flight while she would text me from her personal phone with any updates as the search continued.
Miraculously, my precious iPad was recovered and transferred to Lost & Found where I was able to pick it up upon my return. I can honestly say that without Mimi from Air Canada, I probably would have never seen my iPad ever again.
Thank you Mimi from Air Canada!
Now, that is great customer service and what we should all be doing with all our sponsorship clients, our fan bases, our patrons, subscribers, and stakeholders. A sponsorship deal and partnership is about going above and beyond to ensure your stakeholders have a positive experience beyond their expectations. Mimi made sure of that for Seamus!
These are just one person’s thoughts. Yours are welcomed as well. Please add your thoughts or comments below. Thank you for reading and your feedback.
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