How to be Engaging and Memorable: A Lesson from Virgin Airways
In my “Put Some Zip In Your Do Da!” post I wrote about how a positive, upbeat attitude naturally improves your interactions with customers, co-workers and human beings in general.
The sad fact is there’s far less than Zippy behavior out in the marketplace today with employees in countless organizations providing customer service with no life in it. Their bored, unengaged going through the motions demeanor demonstrating that they would rather be somewhere else (anywhere else) than serving customers.
The problem is so common that most customers have learned to live with it, usually tuning-out during and then forgetting about their lousy experience afterwards.
A good example of this is the airlines industry. With clients spread out over No. America, I travel frequently for business and have occupied a seat on just about every domestic airline there is. My experience has revealed there’s a clear distinction between those airlines that ‘get it’ when it comes to engaging, memorable service and those that don’t.
Case in point: Anyone who has flown knows that shortly before take-off a flight attendant will announce the FAA-mandated flight safety information. Most airline attendants do this as if their reading a restaurant menu, all facts and figures, no emotion whatsoever. Consequently, 98% of the passengers tune-out and focus on something more interesting; a book, the view outside, the back of the chair in front of them, etc. For the record, it’s a sure sign your safety (or any other) announcement is failing when the Solafeet Foot Tanner in the SkyMall catalog is more intriguing!
A few airlines do this noticeably different, Southwest and JetBlue being two of my favorites, with employees regularly injecting ‘fun’ into their customer interactions and typically making announcements with added humorous flair. In fact, on a recent JetBlue flight the attendant received a seated ovation from the captive audience that was clearly entertained and engaged by his funny flight safety rendition.
And now, Virgin Airways trumps them all with their version of the flight safety announcement in this entertaining video that was just released on October 29th:
As I posted recently, Richard Branson and Virgin Airways understand the importance of having fun to engage their internal customers (employees) and external customers to create memorable experiences.
Ask yourself and your customer service team: What can we do differently to add more fun in our customer service process to create more engaging, memorable experiences?
Make a Great Day!
Steve 🙂
—
Steve Ferrante is the Grand PooBah & Trainer of Champions of Sale Away LLC., providing Pinnacle Performance Sales, Customer Service and Winning Team Culture training, speaking and professional development services to success-driven businesses throughout North America. For detailed information visit Sale Away. Steve can be reached directly at 866-721-6086 ext. 701 or via email at steve@saleawayllc.com
Pinnacle Performance Champions 